>> MIM Speaks
BEYOND BASIC PEOPLE MANAGEMENT
AUG 9, 1998 -
THE STAR
HUMAN resource managers should ask themselves this question:
"Now that we have been renamed personnel management are we on
track to deliver the goods for the organisation and do the
best for our people?"
The term personnel management was used to identify the
administration of people matters and that appellation is still
being used in many local organisations.
There is nothing wrong with that if it serves the intended
purpose of the organisation.
One can only speculate that organisations still using this old
term are managing the basic administration of employment
matters, or have moved on to expand their functions to include
looking at the broader framework of managing people but are
still comfortable with the old term.
The practice of personnel management is now confined to
organisations that have a smaller workforce. These
organisations have simple functional structures.
Using the term human resource management indicates the
development of this management area and that the organisation
has given it importance.
Establishing HR direction through a holistic approach. The
human resource manager must have direction and focus if this
function is going to be of value to the organisation. To do
that, the manager has to understand several factors:
1. The stage of growth of the organisation.
2. The external environment that it operates in.
3. The existing business situation.
4. The change that is required to reposition the organisation.
5. The vision of the organisation.
6. The formulation of strategies to effect change.
7. The quality of the people within the organisation.
8. The organisation's operating systems.
9. The forces that impede change.
Can we hope to understand these factors and formulate a human
resource system that will lead, give value and support the
organisation's growth within the old confines of basic
administration?
I think the answer is a resounding "no."
Operating within the parameters of personnel functions cannot
take the people factor any higher. The limitations are many
and obvious.
Linkage of senior and operational levels. Organisations do not
change for the sake of changing. They do it for survival and
growth.
Adopting a strategic plan and stopping at the conceptual level
as sadly what most organisations do, is not going to enable
the operational base to follow through.
The inherent danger, therefore, lies in severing the mental
and energy links between top management and the operational
areas on the floor.
Most managers who work with the lower levels are going to
struggle with determining their functional direction for a
while and finally what emerges may just be expressed as
departmental goals.
It is imperative that these departmental goals be harmonised
with the key goals of the organisation.
Following this, you have to align your understanding and
commitment and implement your operations within the new
context. Therein lie the processes.
This is the difficult part of the strategic plan and, often,
it is presumed by planners to be understood without being
clarified.
In many cases, it is unintentionally omitted and the whole
intention of re-engineering change is incomplete.
The damage that this causes is significant.
People who are left in expectation will be confused. And
people who thought that they have understood the concept find
it extremely difficult to operationalise intentions.
Knowing what your mission is and pausing there is not enough.
Mission statements left on the wall will do little good for
the organisation.
Linking the two parts - conceptualisation and implementation -
is the key to driving operational success.
If ideas eventually get translated into practical outcomes and
realities, then the cycle of change is realised.
Left uncoupled, you wall only know what you want to be but
will not know how to get there efficiently and effectively.
Strategising HR. In giving effect to the strategy, the
functional activities of human resource administration will
now be reorganised as a subset of the total human resource
thrust.
Ideally, one can organise human resource management
effectively into four subsets according to: 1. Strategic
partner; 2. Agent of change; 3. Industrial-employment
relations manager; and 4. HR administrator.
The four subsets are synergised to deliver change.
In this connection, the philosophy of human resource
management now considers people the ultimate source of
competitive advantage (remembering-that people make technology
and not the other way around), that the human side of things
in a business is of key importance, and that human resource
roles and ensuing activities should support business
strategies and drive change.
What becomes clear in that transformation, too, is that you
will be able to identify your human resource philosophies,
processes and problems, and retook at things from thistles
approach.
Challenge. If there is ever an appropriate time to examine the
human resource function in your organization, it is now.
The economy has just received external shocks and the
reverberations have been translated into the organization,
first dislocating the financial structure and then the people
structure.
It is only the degree of impact felt that is different.
One broad structural problem within the economy that links
productivity to wage, which has been conveniently put aside
during the good years, now confronts us.
Liberalisation of the market will challenge our
competitiveness.
To curtail training of your workforce now when change
management is most needed - because the business circumstances
present an opportunity is myopic.
Beyond the turn, there are likely to be more shocks. Hence,
can the management of human resource help to steer the
organisation to safer and higher ground?
This is the key question that one must ask and answer.
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