The way forward for the economies is saving and investment. Resources must be put aside and injected into productive enterprises to create more wealth. Once an entrepreneur has set up his businesses, human resource should be well mobilised and well utilised to get the best out of it. Skilled ,trained and motivated labour is one sure way of making firms develop a competitive advantage. Products of a growing firm should be able to compete on the world market. These firms need support from governments and international community to develop capacity to improve human resource management. Other factors of production have no ability to produce without being managed by labour. Labour has an important role of combining other factors of production in appropriate proportions to have maximum production out of them.
To do the important role of organising other factors of production, a lot needs to be done in regard to their training for applicable skills, coaching and development, recruitment, and motivation so that maximum capacity of this labour is achieved to do the work. Focus is needed on performance management of the workers ensuring their safety and security and their motivation. This adds on their value to yield effectively towards the organisation’s objectives. Effective communication and proper supervision adds a lot to human resource performance.
Contents
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Objectives of the study
1.2 Aims of Human Resource Management
1.2.2 Resourcing
1.2.3 Valuing employees
1.2.3. Relationships
2.0 Recruitment and Selection
2.1 Job analysis
2.2 Job description
2.3 Job/ Person specification
2.4 Skills inventory
3.0 Overview of International Human Resource Management
3.1 Staff performance appraisal
3.2 Safety and health management
3.3 concerns of safety and health management
3.4 Workers compensation and insurance
4.0 Labour Laws
4.1 The occupation Safety and Health Acts
4.2 The workplace (Health, Safety and welfare) Regulations,
4.3 The Occupational and Safety Act,
4.4 Common accidents and prevention methods
5.0 Recommendations
6.0 Conclusion
References
Acronyms
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT.
1.0 Introduction.
The way forward for the economies is saving and investment. Resources must be put aside and injected into productive enterprises to create more wealth. Once an entrepreneur has set up his businesses, human resource should be well mobilised and well utilised to get the best out of it. Skilled ,trained and motivated labour is one sure way of making firms develop a competitive advantage. Products of a growing firm should be able to compete on the world market. These firms need support from governments and international community to develop capacity to improve human resource management. Other factors of production have no ability to produce without being managed by labour. Labour has an important role of combining other factors of production in appropriate proportions to have maximum production out of them.
To do the important role of organising other factors of production, a lot needs to be done in regard to their training for applicable skills, coaching and development, recruitment, and motivation so that maximum capacity of this labour is achieved to do the work. Focus is needed on performance management of the workers ensuring their safety and security and their motivation. This adds on their value to yield effectively towards the organisation’s objectives. Effective communication and proper supervision adds a lot to human resource performance.
1.1 Objectives of the study.
The study will enable to;
- Explore the important concepts as applied to human resource management
- help to acquire deep understanding of management skills to enable managers to over come specific management and technical challenges
- Gain self confidence and ability for effective leadership.
Human resource management is the management of an organisation’s employees to arrive at the set destiny of the organisation. It a strategic and coherent approach to the management of the most valued assets of the organisation; the people towards the achievement of the set goals or objectives.
1.2 Aims of human resource management.
The overall purpose of HRM is to ensure that the organisation achieves success through the people. Specifically, HRM is concerned with achieving the objectives in the following 3 basic areas;
1-Resourcing and development
2- Valuing employees
3- Relationships.
1.2.1 Resourcing.
HRM ensures that the organisation obtains and retains the skilled, committed and well motivated staff.
In our institution resourcing for teaching staff is done by the ministry though the Education service commission.
For the non-teaching staff, the Board of Governors advertises and interviews workers for the posts of the bursar, secretary, laboratory attendants and the school wardens.
1.2.2 Valuing employees.
This means that human resource management enhances motivation and commitment by introducing policies and processes which ensure that people are valued and rewarded for what they can do and achieve and for the levels of skills and confidence and competence they reach. Rewards can either be material or non-material rewards.
1.2.3 Relationships.
Human resource management creates a climate in which productive and harmonious relations can be maintained through partnerships between management and employees and where there is a high spirit of team work.
Key concepts in HRM.
1- Recruitment and Selection
2- Job Analysis
3- Job Description
4- Human Resource Planning
5- Skills inventory. Etc.
2. Recruitment and Selection.
This is the process of securing and encouraging individuals (prospective employees) with the right skills to apply for a job or employment with an organisation. It is regarded as the first step in the employment process aiming at developing and maintaining adequate man power resources necessary to achieve the intended aims and objectives of the organisation.
Recruitment is concerned with accumulation of a pool of potential candidates online with the human resource plan. While all organisations will at one time or another engage in recruiting, some do it more often than others.
Employment conditions in an organisation will influence the rate of recruitment. The success of recruitment exercise will depend on the ability of the organisation to establish the best requirements of a given job and to be able to identify individuals with the right attributes to fill these jobs. This can be achieved through job analysis.
In my country, the Public Service Commission is responsible for recruitment of civil servants through service commissions of respective ministries.
In the Ministry of Education, Education Service Commission is responsible for recruitment of teachers in secondary schools and the senior staff in the Ministry such as commissioners and Principle Education officers.
When I was completing a diploma in Education, I was interviewed by Education Service Commission in 1994. I was then posted in 1995. During the interview, I was asked the following questions.
a) Why did you choose to join the teaching profession?
b) When did you meditate upon becoming a teacher?
c) What are your expectations?
These are among the questions that were asked during that time I was being recruited as a teacher. It is of recent that I am discovering the rationale of such questions in an interview. The committee was not testing how ably I could understand particular concepts but were testing my level of commitment and interest in the teaching profession. They were trying to test my humour, charisma and zeal since I was going to handle children in the classroom. In the same interview, I was even asked what I would do with a noble profession but less paying and engaging. That day I was counselled and given tips on how to overcome social, economic and psychological challenges I would meet in the teaching service.
This reminds me of what an employer should do when recruiting the employees. They are supposed to be informed of what organisations expect of them and what themselves expect to achieve from the organisations.
Employers are also supposed to be informed of the likely challenges to be met on the way such that from the start everybody is in the know.
2.1 Job Analysis.
This is the process to identify and determine in detail the particular job duties and requirements and the relative importance of these duties for a given job. It is a systematic exploitation of activities within a job. An important concept of job analysis is that the analysis is conducted for the job not the person.
What aspects of a job are analysed?
Job analysis should correct information on the following areas among others;
- Duties and tasks
- Environment
- Tools and equipment
- Relationships
- Requirements (knowledge, skills and abilities.
Methods of Job Analysis.
The method that can be used will depend on the practical concerns such as;
- Type of job
- Number of jobs
- Location of the job
Some of the methods are;
- Observation
- Job Analysis Interview method
- Questionnaire Method
- Daily Work Method.
2.2 Job Description.
Job Analysis results into job descriptions and specifications. Job description is a broad statement listing elements of a particular job. It is a document which is basically descriptive in nature and it contains a record of existing and vital job facts which are organised in an orderly manner. Components of job description include;
- Job title
- Location of a job
- Main duties and responsibilities of the job holder
- Supervision given
- The relationship of the job to other positions
- The limit of job-holders authority
- Any equipment for which the job holder is responsible
- Some terms and conditions for employment
- Training and advancement of opportunities
- Job circumstances. ie. whether pleasant or un pleasant, demanding or un demanding
- Any other duties or tasks that may be assigned to you by the supervisor.
2.3 Job/ Person specification.
This indicates the minimum acceptable qualifications and personal attributes that a worker or an employee must posses for him or her to be able to perform on the job. It establishes the basic minimum requirements for performance of a particular job. This is to avoid over qualification or under qualification for the job in question. Some of these components include;
- Education level for example certificate, Diploma, Degree. etc
- Knowledge
- Skills
- Working experience
- Personal characteristics
- Physical requirements
- Age range
- Health and appearance.
The contributions of human resource management to the organisational effectiveness.
- Developing and maintaining a quality of work life (QWL) that makes employment in the organisation desirable. The quality of life includes the environment, leadership styles, relations at work and employees welfare. For our case, all this is well laid out in the public standing orders
- Providing the organisation with well trained well motivated employees
- Employing the skills and abilities of the work force efficiently
- Helping the organisation to achieve its goals and objectives
- Helping to maintain the ethical policies and socially responsible behaviour. In our case we use the teachers code of conduct to stress what a teacher is expected of. The community, parents, ministry, students and all governing bodies have their expectations in regard to moral, and ethical values. The teachers code of conduct is an important guideline for staff to keep within the standard norms
- Communicating human resource policies to all employees. These policies include; policy on time management, code of conduct, dress code, financial policies etc.
2.4 Skills Inventory.
The human resource manager is supposed to create a skills inventory. This inventory entails all the necessary information that pertains to individual employees. It contains basic information about each employee of the organisation giving a comprehensive picture of the individual. Through analysing the skills inventory, the organisation can assess the current quantity and quality of its human resources. There are six broad categories of information that may be included in the skills inventory. These are;
1- Skills, job experience, training etc
2- Salary and job history.; Present salary, past salary, incremental dates, past jobs held etc
3- Company data/ organisational data. Retirement benefits planned, retirement information, seniority etc
4- Special qualifications; Membership in professional groups, special achievements etc
5- Special preferences of the individual ie. Location or job preferences
6- Capacity of the individual; scores on the special examinations, health examinations etc.
Our systems have not embrace the issue of the skills inventory. People retire when nothing is recorded.
I have interviewed one of our staff Joshua who was working in Horby School as an estates officer in 1986. He was later asked to work as a storekeeper. In 1993 he was employed as a caterer at my school. He was later shifted to the post of the office messenger at the same workplace, and which is a lower post. It has shown me that he never performed very well as a caterer though there are no records in the archives. Five years ago he was not performing well as the office messenger and as senior management we decided to try him as a head of estates in the last four months. Trying to do all this was guesswork because we did not have any details about him as far as job performance is concerned. Today he is discovered to be among the best heads of estate department the school has ever had for the last 10 years.
I try to notice that Joshua was motivated by the type of promotion that was given in May 2011.
Secondary, lack of skills inventory has denied the institution the potential skills of some workers which would have been recorded for proper exploitation which is highly needed in job rotation.
I also tend to note that Joshua has a lot of planning skills which the institution had never exploited before. He has beautified the compound, made the compound plans and done thorough supervision role of the support staff.
The work of a manager.
An effective manager should;
- Be able to plan for the resources, for instance; human resource, money and materials
- Identify the competences of each worker and be able to sharpen them. In this way work becomes interesting and productivity moves higher
- Must plan, and think about each and every worker. Must know the weaknesses and strengths of each worker. This helps in coaching and counselling. It also helps in job rotation
- Identify informal groups within the organisation. In our school setting, these groups play a big role in policy implementation. They can either be instrumental or disastrous in organisations. A good manager can easily these groups and be able to use them for a positive contribution
- Desire the workers for a professional growth other than using them as ladders to achieve his personal ends. Must make sure that there is professional growth and development and other chances of further training. This needs special attachment to each and every worker. Workers should not discover that some workers are more favoured than others. I have had many complaints of workers where the supervisors just use their juniors as ladders to achieve their personal interests
- Be able to effectively communicate. This can majorly be done through departmental regular meetings. It is through meetings that most of the challenges encountered on the job are discussed. The manager should encourage openness and round table discussions. This is opposed to meetings where the manager acts as the source of information and the rest of the employees act as recipients. Workers should however be properly guided to keep the vision and goals of the organisation. Our departments are based on subjects on school curriculum.
Meetings held should be able to allow all the stakeholders to contribute ideas towards the operating systems of the organisations. High tables for highly placed officers are still used. The rest of the are taken as a congregation. There is therefore information flow from the high table as source of information to the rest as receivers. One of the institution visitors from U.K was enquiring of the staffroom set up where senior management sits in front of the rest of the staff members. When i looked closely at it, it looks a little bit intimidating. It creates social gaps that affects job performance.
- According to the job description, the administrative structure is normally top-down. This however brings in problems when the leader is not approachable. Leaders should try to be colleagues other than being bosses. This encourages openness, better working relations, which generally leads to intrinsic motivation. Each worker feels the sense of belonging and will always wish the organisation all the best even when they are no longer workers of the organisation.
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