The Human Resource System
The Human Resource has proved to come up with different policies and systems that are out to raise awareness which positively contribute to the innovative forms of workers performance in most organizations. Traditionally, the role of controlling the workforce and ensuring that the workers adhere and are motivated through the policies on appraisal, recruitment, and training was left to the senior management. These approaches resulted to the operational tasks being derailed away from the main preoccupations and tended to lead to relatively marginal position and low status of the workers motivation. The recent years have seen organizations consider human resources as to play a crucial role not just in the recruitment and training of workers but also it motivating them and have them develop a positive attitude towards work (Schuler and Jackson, 1999).
The HRs in many organizations employ coherent approaches towards ensuring better working environment in their respective organization. The HRs adapt organization routes that are highly committed to have payoffs in particular configurations of the policies adopted on personnel. The policies are out to ensure high innovative and flexible working practices, secure workforce commitment and come up with skilled workforce to ensure high work quality work. Many organizations are putting more emphasis on better approaches to the Human Resources to ensure that they come up with consensus as the main implementers of competitive advantage. This is because the HRs are responsible for the behavior, skills and values of the employees which are vital to maintaining high performance (Schuler and Jackson, 1999).
The Human Resources approaches towards motivating employees can be categorized into two main groups; the universal model and contingency model. The universal model focuses on the best ways in which high performance can be achieved regardless of the specific circumstances or context of the organization. The contingency model on the other hand associate HR’s management policies employed by organizations to the specific aspects of the organizations environment. The two models add value in the organization’s set up by highlighting important issues and demonstrating the significance of the strategic approaches used by the HRs. The HRs abilities to come up with strategic approaches that are appropriate to culture and local conditions aimed to effectively motivate employees is important in distilling the values and core processes that arethe key to the Human Resource success (Gratton, 1999).For the strategies to be effective, the HR have to approach the issue in three broad perspectives; external fit, ownership and internal fit.
With regards to ownership, the workers are considered as the main resource that can be developed and natured with the management of the organization to support the approaches adapted with the HR. There exists a good leadership guiding the processes of reform in the capacity of the HR in maintaining the reform momentum. The internal fits takes into consideration the coherent HR policies approaches that do not depend one a particular element such as training but puts together the policies of the HR into a bundle of processes and policies that are integrated. The External fit refers to the effective approaches an organization employs to the HR that depend on the external environment. The strategies are planned in such away that they can easily be incorporated in the case of changes in the external environment.
The approaches are in a position to modify the plans or settle the arising issue internally (Gratton, 1999).
Research Area (job design)
The role played by the HR in any organization contributes a lot in the way it affects the employees’ motivation towards work and influences their attitude. The HRs are mostly responsible for the selection and recruitment practices in the organization. This exercise is very crucial as it determines the kind of employees the organization will have. Giving the HRs the roles of recruiting employees at the same time come up with approaches or a system of motivating the same employees is a positive step in any organization. The HR will pick on employees who are not just best qualified but also the ones who will abide to their systems.
More so, when the selection and recruitment decision is done by the central management, such management make use of poor staffing ratio standards thus resulting to poor service requirements. Such workers will have a negative attitude towards work and won’t be motivated to work (Gratton, 1999).The management of outcomes and issues related to work conditions are best handled by the HRs than the central management as they pose one of the greatest policy making challenges in any organization. This regards the workers conditions as the HRs interact more with the employees than the central management. Basic issues such as salaries affect the performances of the workers ddirectly as there is a direct relation between the rewards the employees receive and their performance. The HR position and function in the organization compared to the central management is in such away that they have to make the most of their functions and responsibilities so as to justify their existence is worthy (Sisson and Storey, 2000).
The traditional position taken by HR’s of determining wages in an organization and employment conditions have led to them assuming an administrative role thus take part in policing and implementation of strategies. The HR profession encourages them to positively contribute to the organization they are serving thus they come up with several initiatives. Among those initiatives are the strategies and approaches that will ensure employees are motivated and develop a positive attitude towards their work. This indicates that the HRs are successful in their role. The HR thus have to emphasize on the importance of coming up with strategies and approaches in the organization. These approaches have to be strategic and operational so as to ensure that they benefit the organization.
Taking an example of their selection and recruitment role, they have to conduct it in a timely and accurate manner so as to ensure credibility (Sisson and Storey, 2000).The HR in most organizations has undergone reforms in their processes of implementing strategies and plans to better their operations. These strategies are directed towards the workforce to ensure that commitment and competence is achieved. However, the HRs are faced with the challenge of ensuring that such strategies are realistic and applicable in their respective organizations and not just strategies borrowed from competing firms. Though a lot has been done by the HR regarding workers motivation, they still have a long way to go thus are challenged to come up with even more sophisticated strategies and plans to meet the challenges before them.
The commitments of the HRs have to be appreciated as there has been an increased commitment in terms of their services making substantial difference in the working force and effectiveness in the organizations. Nonetheless, no matter the measures put in place, the out come can be more effective if the HRs base them on sound evidence which critically appraises its failures and successes of the recent efforts to make the HR capacity stronger. So far, the HR systems and policies have managed to positively impact the employees’ motivation towards work and changed their attitudes to be more positive.
