International Journal of Advance Research in Science

and Engineering
Vol. No.6, Issue No. 01, January 2017

RECENT TRENDS IN HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Sandeep Kaur Assistant Professor, Mata Ganga Khalsa College for girls Manji sahib,
Kottan

1. Globalization and its implications

Business today doesn’t have national boundaries – it reaches around the world. The rise
of multinational corporations places new requirements on human resource managers.
The growth of liberal cross-border trade, the use of communications technology and the
expansion of transnational companies are not likely to let up. Attracting global talent
requires staying abreast of new strategies for finding and attracting talent. The HR
department needs to ensure that the appropriate mix of employees in terms of
knowledge, skills and cultural adaptability is available to handle global assignments. In
order to meet this goal, the organizations must train individuals to meet the challenges
of globalization. HRM would be required to train management to be more flexible in its
practices. Business technology consultancy Infosys decided to hire Chinese graduates
and startedby inviting and teaching a select group of Chinese students English at its
office in Mysore, India, allowing the company to source workers from a neighbouring
country cost-effectively

2. Work-force Diversity
Workforce diversity means similarities and differences among employees in terms of
age, cultural background, physical abilities and disabilities, race, religion, gender, and
sexual orientation. No two humans are alike. Diversity is critically linked to the
organization’s strategic direction. The workforce composition is also changing over the
years. Demands for equal pay for equal work, putting an end to gender inequality and
bias in certain occupations, the breaking down of grass ceiling have already been met.
A family friendly organization is one that has flexible work schedules and provides
such employee benefits such as child care. In addition to the diversity brought by
gender and nationality, HRM must be aware of the age differences that exist in today’s
work force. HRM must train people of different age groups to effectively manage and
to deal with each other and to respect the diversity of views that each offers. In
situations like these a participative approach seems to work better. In current scenario,
employing diversified workforce is a necessity for every organization but to manage
such diversified workforce is also a big challenge for management.
 International Journal of Manpower
Trends and emerging values in human resource management The UK
scene

3. Employee expectations
Nowadays workers are better educated, more demanding and are ready to voice strong,
violent and joint protests in case their expectations are not met. The list of financial and
non-financial demands is ever-growing and expanding. In fast-changing industries such
as software, telecom, entertainment and pharmaceuticals the turnover rations are rising
fast and if HR managers do not respond positively to employee expectations, the
acquisition and development costs of recruits is going to mount up steadily. An
efficient organisation is, therefore required to anticipate and manage turnover through
human resource planning, training schemes followed by appropriate compensation
packages.

4. Changing skill requirements

Recruiting and developing skilled labour is important for any company concerned about
competitiveness, productivity, quality and managing a diverse work force effectively.
Skill deficiencies translate into significant losses for the organization in terms of poor-
quality work and lower productivity, increase in employee accidents and customer
complaints. Since a growing number of jobs will require more education and higher
levels of language than current ones, HRM practitioners and specialists will have to
communicate this to educators and community leaders etc. Strategic human resource
planning will have to carefully weigh the skill deficiencies and shortages. HRM
department will have to devise suitable training and short term programs to bridge the
skill gaps & deficiencies.
 Journal of Management Studies
Trends over Time

5. Corporate downsizing
Whenever an organization attempts to delayer, it is attempting to create greater
efficiency. The pressure to remain cost effective has also compelled many a firm to go
lean, cutting down extra fat at each managerial level. The premise of downsizing is to
reduce the number of workers employed by the organization. HRM people must ensure
that proper communication must take place during this time. They must minimize the
negative effects of rumours and ensure that individuals are kept informed with factual
data.

6. Continuous improvement programs

It is a process whereby an organization focuses on quality and builds a better
foundation to serve its customers. This often involves a companywide initiative to
improve quality and productivity. The company changes its operations to focus on the
customer and to involve workers in matters affecting them. Companies strive to
improve everything that they do, from hiring quality people, to administrative paper
processing, to meeting customer needs. HRM plays an important role in the
implementation of continuous improvement programs. HRM must prepare individuals
for the change. This requires clear and extensive communications of why the change
will occur, what is to be expected and what effect it will have on employees.

7. Re-engineering work processes for improved productivity

Although continuous improvement initiatives are positive starts in many of our
organizations, they typically focus on ongoing incremental change. Such action is
intuitively appealing – the constant and permanent search to make things better. Yet
many companies function in an environment that is dynamic- facing rapid and constant
change. Re-engineering occurs when more than 70% of the work processes in an
organization are evaluated and altered. It requires organizational members to rethink
what work should be done, how it is to be done and how to best implement these
decisions. Re-engineering changes how organizations do their business and directly
affects the employees. Re-engineering may leave certain employees frustrated and
angry and unsure of what to expect. Accordingly HRM must have mechanisms in place
for employees to get appropriate direction of what to do and what to expect as well as
assistance in dealing with the conflict that may permeate the organization. For re-
engineering to generate its benefits HRM needs to offer skill training to its employees.
8. Contingent workforce
A very substantial part of the modern day workforce is the contingent workers.
Contingent workers are individuals who are typically hired for shorter periods of time.
No organization can make the transition to a contingent workforce without sufficient
planning. As such, when these strategic decisions are being made, HRM must be an
active partner in these discussions. After its entire HRM department’s responsibility to
locate and bring into the organization these temporary workers. As temporary workers
are brought in, HRM will also have the responsibility of quickly adapting them to the
organization. HRM will also have to give some thought to how it will attract quality
temporaries.

9. Mass Customization
There is a lot going on already within HR concerning mass customization, the optimal
combination of mass production with customization. HR will need to take the tools of
marketing around customization for consumers and clients and applying them to the
task of talent segmentation. HR should develop principles for understanding the
optimal level of customization in the employment relationship. Moreover, because
customization will often mean that different groups of employees receive different
employment arrangements based on their needs or the way they contribute, HR must
develop principles that equip leaders to explain these differences to employees.

10.Decentralized work sites

Work sites are getting more and more decentralized. Telecommuting capabilities that
exist today have made it possible for the employees to be located anywhere on the
globe. For HRM, decentralized work sites present a challenge. Much of that challenge
revolves around training managers in how to establish and ensure appropriate work
quality and on-time completion. Work at home may also require HRM to rethink its
compensation policy. Will it pay by the hour, on a salary basis, or by the job
performed? Also, because employees in decentralized work sites are full time
employees of the organization as opposed to contingent workers, it will be
organization’s responsibility to ensure health and safety of the decentralized work
force.

11.Employee involvement
For today’s organization’s to be successful there are a number of employee
involvement concepts that appear to be accepted. These are delegation, participative
management, work teams, goal setting, employee training and empowering of
employees. HRM has a significant role to play in employee involvement. What is
needed is demonstrated leadership as well as supportive management. Employees need
 to be trained and that’s where human resource management has a significant role to
play.

12.Technology
With the current technological advancement and its projection in the future, it has
brought in new eyes in the face of HRM. A number of computerized systems have been
invented to help in the HRM of which they are seen as simplifier of HR functions in
companies. For instance the paper work files are being replaced by HRMIS which may
be tailor made or Off the Shelf. These systems help in handling a lot of data on a chip
other than having a room full of file shelves. What HRM is concerned with here is the
safety (confidentiality) of the data/information of staff, and therefore it is at the
forefront of having to train personnel in operating such systems and developing the
integrity of such personnel to handle the sensitivity of the matter.

International Journal of Engineering Technology Science

and Research
www.ijetsr.com
Volume 5, Issue 1 January 2018

A Study on Trends and Challenges in Global HRM

Mrs. A. Mary Francina
Associate Professor & HOD, Dept. of Business Management,
St. Joseph’s Degree & PG College, Hyderabad, Telangana State, India

13.Employee involvement
For today’s organization’s to be successful there are a number of employee
involvement concepts that appear to be accepted. These are delegation, participative
management, work teams, goal setting, employee training and empowering of
employees. HRM has a significant role to play in employee involvement. What is
needed is demonstrated leadership as well as supportive management. Employees need
to be trained and that’s where human resource management has a significant role to
play. The emphasis laid down by HR Managers today is based on:
 Policies: HR policies based on trust, openness, equity and consensus.

 Motivation: Create conditions in which people are willing to work with zeal,
initiative and enthusiasm; make people feel like winners.
 Relations: Fair treatment of people and prompt redress of grievances would pave the
way for healthy workplace relations.
  Change agent: Prepare workers to accept technological changes by clarifying doubts.

 Quality Consciousness: Commitment to quality in all aspects of personnel

administration.

14.Health and Safety

The area of safety and accident prevention is of great concern to managers, at least
partly because of the increasing number of deaths and accidents at work. Failure to
provide a safe place to work can result in major fines and even criminal conviction for
managers. Supervisors play a key role in monitoring workers for safety. With the
emergence of the wellness clubs and fitness centres together with the need for having
healthy workforce, it has emerged that HRM has to move to another step like having to
subscribe for its employees to such clubs, paying health insurance services for the staff.
This is not only a productivity strategy but also a strategy used to attract and retain
valuable employees. HRM to continue showing relevance it has shifted to providing
health services to staff through health insurance, sensitization, and free medical
treatment bills. This has seen high results in not only in performance but also in
attraction and retention of highly qualified personnel.

15.Family work life balance

Over a long time now in HRM history it has been a big debate about family life work
balance. Employees have been on toes of the employers to see if there could be justice
done and on the other hand employers have been keen to minimize the effect of the
same. The fact is a happy family is equal to a happy workforce. With the current trend
HRM have to work it out that every employee’s family to some extent is a happy one.
Therefore investing in what may seem out hand for the organization is inevitable. It is
time HRM to convince management to organize family day out for the staff and their
families, sacrifice sometimes for days off to enable employees to attend to their family
issues.

16.Confidentiality
The current trends have been seen as new challenges in the terms of costs especially in
the short run but for organization to strive well in this competitive market to together
with the labour mobility it is imperative important to rethink the HRM in terms of the
current trends at all levels. It goes without say that as longer as there are no clear
defined human resource management strategies in the given organization there is
definitely a problem boiling in the same organization or an explosion is bound to
happen. With the current trend in managing the most valued organization resource,
organizations have to dig deeper to maintain.