Critical Thinking On Human Resource Management

Succession Planning

I have been a part of the Human Resource Management team of a huge organization and my experience at this place was incredible. I was able to implicate the knowledge that I have received till now in my academic journey. Though there were many incidences where I was able to practically identify the usage of different approaches that are undertaken in a human resources management department, but the repercussion of some were shocking as they led to employee demotivation, injustice and many other things which a person will only understand after acquiring a work experience in such environment.

One such approach that according to me was theoretically brilliant but in reality, its repercussions were heart-wrenching, which is succession planning. Now, theoretically, succession planning is the process that is conducted in an organization to identify employees with high potential that will replace the top management employees in the future. In my experience, the one attribute that is looked after by the recruiters is strong leadership qualities which are interesting and beneficial for the organization, as the positions are crucial in an organization (Hampel, Procter & Deuter, 2010). The organization’s approach to succession planning, allows the managers to select a particular employee and then that set of employees are given special attention by providing them with extra training facilities for development. Though it is a good initiative for that selective bunch as they are being molded to become future leaders, what I observed was that the rest of the employees who are not selected they were demotivated. The managers have a huge responsibility of conducting an appropriate selection. But I believe that in the current world, there is a biasness in every working environment, which will exclude the employees who have high potential and have worked hard for a crucial position, but they are discouraged due to the biased behavior of one person, which I identified while working with an organization. The selection procedure is frustrating for all the employees who are discouraged in this process (Mckee & Froelich, 2016). In my opinion, all the employees should be given equal opportunities and conducting an exam for the higher position is the best alternative to it. This will motivate and encourage the employees more to exhibit their full potential and to excel in the exam. The idea of conducting an exam was suggested by many people of the same organization where I gained experience (Wadeson & Ciccotosto, 2013).

The other thing that was the talk of the organization the entire time was the metoo movement. I heard some shocking incidence of workplace harassments, which were completely ignored by the senior for the sake of protecting the reputation of the organization. The harassment towards employees have risen majorly in the last decade, with more than 90% of the issues were not being reported. The metoo movement has provided strength to the weak people, to raise their voice against unethical and immoral behavior that is conducted by the people in power against the minors. The managers of my department were asked to brainstorm new policies, strategies, and regulation that will exhibit that their organization and the industry is against unethical behavior in the workplace (Barker, 2018).

Meetoo Movement

Complaints were rapidly flowing in the organization regarding sexual harassment, mental harassment, rapes, and many more. In my view, the main thing that has been showcased by the Metoo movement is the weak human resource management in every organization that has encouraged such behavior in the workplace, which I also experienced in my organization. The root cause of most of the problems that have been reported in my workplace, states the ignorance of the human resource department to the complaints that have been filed by the victims, which is the most frustrating thing, as the department knew there are some serious issues that have to be addressed but they ignored. The most shocking thing that made me extremely angry was the approach of the human resource head who went ahead to cover the sins of the harassers, this was informed to me by the victims. In my opinion, those people are equally responsible for the crime who purposely ignored it (Regulska, 2018). Though the metoo movement is a revolution that should have happened years back, one sad thing about this is, many people just for the sake of personal grudges are making a false report to malign an innocent person (Kim, 2018).

Now, the human resource management team’s approach to job interviews is conducted to evaluate the potential of an employee in person. In my experience job interviews, helps in differentiating between each candidate who has applied for the job position. The interviews help in exhibiting the knowledge and the communication skills which cannot be identified through other recruitment processes (Bourdage, Roulin & Levashina, 2017). But what I experience in my interview for the internship that the job interviews are encouraging in nature and also a learning experience. They are encouraging in a way that they push a person to showcase the unique attributes that they possess and will help the organization in achieving bigger goals. Even if the candidate does not excel, the candidate learns a lot through the process of interviews, they discover the areas they need to work hard or improve for their future interviews. So, the job interview, in my opinion, is a two-way street that helps the candidate and the organization equally. But there is also another side of interviews that can be very discouraging due to the wrong behavior of the recruiters. I felt in my interview where there were three interviewees, two of them were encouraging, but one was very nasty and discouraging. As they represent, an organization and thus it is crucial to exhibit good traits that present a good image of the organization in front of the candidates, so, even if the candidate is not selected he does not have a bad image of the organization in his mind which is further publicize in front of others, as I have of that third person (Lipovsky, 2011). So, in my views, the organization and the potential candidate both should put their best foot forward in front of each other (Woolley & Fishbach, 2018).

During my experience as an intern in an organization, I realize the importance of communication which is taught to use every day in our lectures. But communicating the decisions is something that can only be understood through a work experience. The duty of the managers to communicate decisions to the employees have to be conducted in a certain manner. But, the most important thing is whether the decisions are good or bad, the employees should definitely be informed about it instantly, without any delay. During my internship day, one day there was a huge blowout in the organization that was due to the delay in communicating the decisions, which further shattered many employees, as some of the best employees got transferred to another branch (Bell, Brown & Weiss, 2018). Thus, the decisions should be communicated on time as the employees should not know about them through the rumor mills. Communicating decisions like the employees will be laid off, are some of the very tough tasks and what makes them frustrating is that they are inevitable. In my views, there is an anxiety, guilt, stress that naturally comes with such decisions but the actions have to be taken. I feel that in communicating the decisions one should never forget to be compassionate, should possess humanity and should treat the employees with utmost respect, as they should be encouraged for a better tomorrow, this I learned from a senior in the organization who exhibited the exact same qualities. Even in circumstances where the decisions have to be made due to the unethical behavior of the employees, then also the decision should be communicated appropriately without demeaning the employee. The communication of decisions can be heart-wrenching for some thus, the attitude through which it is delivered should help the employees to overcome such situations (Stone & Stone, 2015). Finally, in my view, in the process of communicating the decisions, a particular setup should be created that helps the manager in controlling their emotions, personal opinions and reactions. Also, the employee reactions should be handled appropriately (Ceric & Crawford, 2016).

Job Interviews

Now, my work in the office was the same every day and I got bored of it in a week, so I conveyed my problem to a senior with whom I shared a friendly bond and then he told me about job design. Job design is a strategy of the organization that is aimed at arranging or rearranging the work responsibility that is conducted for reducing the monotony that is attached to many works that are conducted in an organization. The repetition of work that was happening daily, was very frustrating for me. Some of the employees informed that they get so discouraged at times that it affects their performance. In my view, the main objective of job design is to provide the employees with different work experience and this helps in maintaining the enthusiasm that is required in all the employees to provide job satisfaction (Gowan, 2014).

While working in the organization I came to know about the different aspect of job design like job enrichment, job simplification, job rotation, job enlargement, and all these processes helped in increasing the productivity level in an organization. In my opinion, job design also has to be conducted when an organization plans to expand and it is the duty of the human resource heads to formulate a new plan and design jobs that will be required for better expansions. The job design is very much needed under such circumstances. For creating or rearranging the job design, it is important to first conduct a job analysis. The job designs are encouraging in my opinion as they remove the repetitive aspect which was in my work.  In my views, the human resource management should design jobs that have the main objectives of motivating the employees, creating safe practices for completing work, also there should be an element of fun that helps in keeping the excitement alive, and all this should focus on providing job satisfaction to the employees (Huang & Gamble, 2015).

In my complete experience of going through an internship, I realized that theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge have a vast gap. In the same way, the approach may sound interesting and effective as a theory, but they all have equal repercussion. The attitude of the management in the human resource department determines the result of each approach, is what I have learned from my experience.

References

Barker, J. (2018). The #MeToo Movement and Ovid’s Philomela. Radical Teacher, 110(1), 65-67.

Bell, S., Brown, S., & Weiss, J. (2018). A conceptual framework for leveraging team composition decisions to build human capital. Human Resource Management Review, 28(4), 450-463.

Bourdage, J., Roulin, N., & Levashina, J. (2017). Editorial: Impression Management and Faking in Job Interviews. Frontiers in Psychology, 8(1), 15-35.

Ceric, A., & Crawford, H. (2016). Attracting SIEs: Influence of SIE motivation on their location and employer decisions. Human Resource Management Review, 26(2), 136-148.

Gowan, M. (2014). Moving from job loss to career management: The past, present, and future of involuntary job loss research. Human Resource Management Review, 24(3), 258-270.

Hampel, S., Procter, N., & Deuter, K. (2010). A model of succession planning for mental health nurse practitioners. International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, 19(4), 278-286.

Huang, Q., & Gamble, J. (2015). Social expectations, gender and job satisfaction: Front-line employees in China’s retail sector. Human Resource Management Journal, 25(3), 331-347.

Kim, S. (2018). Impact of #MeToo Movement on Our Society. The Ewha Medical Journal, 41(2), 25.

Lipovsky, C. (2011). ‘It’s really a great presentation!’ Appraising candidates in job interviews. Linguistics and the Human Sciences, 4(2), 10-30.

Mckee, G., & Froelich, K. (2016). Executive Succession Planning: Barriers and Substitutes in Nonprofit Organizations. Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, 87(4), 587-601.

Regulska, J. (2018). The #MeToo Movement as a Global Learning Moment. International Higher Education, 94(1), 5.

Stone, C., & Stone, D. (2015). Factors affecting hiring decisions about veterans. Human Resource Management Review, 25(1), 68-79.

Wadeson, D., & Ciccotosto, S. (2013). Succession Planning in Small Accounting Practices in Regional Far North Queensland. Australian Accounting Review, 23(2), 177-188.

Woolley, K., & Fishbach, A. (2018). Underestimating the importance of expressing intrinsic motivation in job interviews. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 148(1), 1-11.