Category: Hiring

Introduction

This paper focuses on the needs of the staff, line manager, and executive management in regards to human recourse services. The main focus is in the department of transport in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

While concentrating in the transportation department, the paper looks at the priority of the needs of the three users in the airline. Further, exploration of the various methods of communication that are appropriate to employees at different levels will be carried out. Finally, the paper explains different key components of effective service delivery within the transportation department.

Users of Human Resource Services

There are three key users of human resource services within the transport department. These three users include the staff, line manager and executive management.

Staff

Members of staff have several needs to be addressed by human resources department for their smooth operations. These needs could include their satisfaction, as well as, training and development within the department.

The members of staff are concerned about acquiring up to date skills. Their development to match the changing technology in the transport sector is of exceptional good to them. Therefore, the employees expect the human resources to go through frequent training to all the staff to help them improve on their skills and qualifications and be competitive in the market (Martin & Jackson, 2010).

Line Managers

The human resource services are quite serious to the operations of business managers. Line managers are members of management to whom the employees or members of the staff in the department openly report. Line managers have superior responsibilities in comparison to the other employees.

Services that are important to the operations of a line manager within the transport department include solving grievances and conflicts that arise among employees (Martin & Jackson, 2010). The other is working on improving performance of the staff and the entire department.

The other need of line manager would be to determine the human resource develop performance management systems. Typically, one of the roles of line manager is the daily personnel management and monitoring work processes (Martin & Jackson, 2010). This will avoid unnecessary labour costs incurred without suitable returns.

Executive Management

There are several needs of the executive management that they would be happy to probe the human resources address. These include improving on the image of the transportation department, working on cost savings mechanisms, and ensuring that the department’s principles are strictly observed (Martin & Jackson, 2010).

It is of much interest to the United Arab Emirates is to be recognised as an employer of choice. The company and narrowing down to the department are greatly concerned with the treatment modality of their employees.

UAE as a company and the transport department, as well as, the management expects the human resources to achieve a balance in the recruiting process. The management expects a balance in the selection of the most suitable candidates. The management also expects the human resources to formulate a schedule that would ensure talented candidates are retained.

The management is keen to witness the human resources encourage employees to sweep up the company’s philosophy. The human resources are then to create the conducive environment that suits working of the employees for higher productivity (Martin & Jackson, 2010).

Prioritizing Needs of Users

After identifying all the needs of the three main players, appropriate methods are utilised to ensure that they are solved. Therefore, prioritising of users’ needs is necessary in ensuring that they are properly addressed.

During the recruiting of individuals, talent should be prioritized to enable the business focus on efforts that would ensure productivity and innovation. In resolving conflicts, the human resources should prioritize equal treatment with no bias. The solutions should be timely to ensure the conflicts do not bear negative consequences on the activities of the transport department (Martin & Jackson, 2010). Carrying out frequent training and workshops entrenches the company’s philosophy in the employees.

Methods of Communication

There are three methods of internal communication that are utilised in the department. These include use of telephone, memorandum and notices. Internal communication can be defined as the relaying of data that occur between employer and employees.

Line managers use memos to communicate to employees or the staff within the department. The use of memos would provide concise information and allows easy flow of information across, as well as, up and down the company (Martin & Jackson, 2010). It is used to make requests and present informal reports.

Telephone communication is utilised by employees to create requests and to inquire about the department issues. They are mainly used in cross communication. The executive management, usually use notices to communicate vital issues with the staff. Notices of changes or AGM of the United Arab Emirates can be gained through this avenue.

Key Components of Service Delivery

These are the main topics concerning the delivery of services in any organization. These issues if well taken care of can lead to greater productivity and boost working relationship with the organizations. First, building and maintaining good working relationships helps minimize any misunderstanding or disputes that may arise between employees.

A good working relationship between employees boosts the relation between the individuals (Martin & Jackson, 2010). Dealing with difficult customers helps the individuals demonstrate their level of professionalism, as well as, keeps the customers in touch for a long time relationship.

References

Martin, M., & Jackson, T. (2010). Human resource practice (5th ed.). Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, London.

Introduction

Management entails all processes involved in gearing an organization into achieving its set goals. This includes the management of all resources related to the business. Managers play a key role in guiding the organization towards meeting the organization’s objectives. An organization could be a learning institution, banks or any entity with an outlined leadership system. Managing people and an organization can be a tedious task.

However, this can be simplified by going through procedures that would help in its effective running. Managing an organization involves the planning of its activities, organizing, leading and controlling. The planning involves setting of goals and strategies that would be used in accomplishing them.

Organizing involves distribution of tasks to be done, how they are to be done and reported to whom. Leading entails motivating employees for the achievement of goals. Controlling involves correcting and measuring activities by the employees. The management of people in an organization is usually done by the Human Resource department (Hank, 2010).

How the article relates to managing people and organizations

The concept of hiring

Hiring is the process of recruiting a new employee to an organization after going through successful steps and requirements. This process is done to have an appropriate number of work forces in the organization, which would reduce the strain felt by other employees. The hiring process has a direct impact on the management since fully equipped and skilled recruits would have a positive influence on the running and the accomplishment of goals.

Most organizations go through long processes and consume too much time while looking for skilled and qualified applicants. From the article, Hank Stringer has clearly stated that for a successful recruitment of employees, a carefully planned hiring process is to be put forth by use of the right technology.

Steps involved in hiring

The first step is the advertisement of a vacancy in section of the organization. With the advanced technology, Hank Stringer, suggests the use of an applicant tracker system by interested applicants. This system searches for matches from resumes to vacancies available.

After identifying applicants, the human resource department sends emails and a qualification questionnaire to the latter. This questionnaire enables easy short listing of applicants with no much involvement of the organization since the process is automated. The article provides an example of an automated response.

The online questionnaire filled enables the hiring board to short list applicants, who in turn receive emails thanking them for the interest they have on the organization. They are also informed to be patient as they go through other steps of searching for talent. A sample of a follow-up response via email is also given in the article. They are to do this sine applicants need feedback, whether positive or negative. Some applicants respond stating their positive acceptance for not getting the chance.

Conclusion

Generally the hiring process is one of the hardest in most companies as they try to identify qualified applicants. Hank Stringer, however explained how an organization go through the hiring process successfully without much consumption of time. These companies are to embrace technology and use it for their advantage in the recruitment sector. Management of people and organization, especially at the Human Resource department, would be simple yet efficient. Technology ensures that the management is accountable to its staff and other stakeholders.

Reference

Hank, S. (2010). How Companies Should Manage The Hiring Process. See what employees are saying. Web.

Introduction

Managers use job evaluation tools to measure how important different job levels are to the organization. The complexity and value of each job in an organization is determined by the application of these tools (Heathfield, 2010). According to Armstrong et al (2005) job evaluation is used to define the relative importance of different jobs in an organization.

This process helps managers develop strategies about the best payment structures and job grading systems to be adopted by an organization. To complete this paper, the human resources manager of a small company within my area was interviewed to obtain information about the job evaluation system applied by his company. The company analyzed was a manufacturing firm where there are many processes involved in the production of goods.

Types of job evaluation system

According to Armstrong et al (2005), there are two types of job evaluation system: analytical and non-analytical. By the use of analytical job evaluation system, managers use a pre-determined job evaluation system to determine the value and size of job. Different scores are defined to measure the achievement of each employee within the organization.

Jobs are ranked depending on the total scores obtained after evaluation. Managers use non-analytical job evaluation system by describing and comparing different jobs in an organization to determine the most important. Roles are matched to each job to establish the best grades for all jobs done in an organization (Armstrong et al 2005).

In my interview with the human resources manager of the company I sampled, analytical job evaluation system was identified to be used by the company to come up with different strategies. The company has created a well-defined job evaluation system whereby all jobs are evaluated and graded according to an existing system. The management has designed a profile of grades for each job to be attained by each employee in specific jobs.

There are different target goals to be achieved by each job and the importance of each job is reflected by the grades assigned to them. The success of the company is evaluated by determining the achievements of all grades set-up by the management. The management has developed a promotional strategy for its employees by using the job evaluation system. The achieved goals are evaluated against the set goals and grades to determine the importance of job as well as establishing background to promoting employees of the company.

Conducting the job evaluation

The top management of the company has assigned the human resources manager with the task of conducting jib evaluation within the organization. The company is small and has inadequate resources to employ a job analyst.

At the beginning of each financial year the human resources manager develops new strategies to evaluate each job. The employees are rated according to the achievement of the set goals and grades. The company has established a system of appraising the work of different employees by evaluating the value of their input to the entire system.

Conclusion

Job evaluation system is used to determine the relative importance of different jobs within an organization. In the interview conducted with the human resources manager of the sampled company, it was established that analytical job evaluation is applied and this has helped the organization identify the importance of different jobs within the organization. The human resources manager conducts job evaluation process.

References

Armstrong, M., Cummins, A., Hastings, S. and Wood, W. (2005). Job Evaluation: A Guide to Achieving Equal Pay. Kogan Page Publishers. ISBN 0749444819, 9780749444815.

Heathfield, Susan M. (2010). Conduct a job evaluation. Retrieved from https://support.office.com/en-us/

The survival of all companies and organizations largely depends on the critical decisions and strategies adopted by the management to survive any economic situation and therefore remain a successful and profitable entity.

However this cannot be achieved without having a competent human resource to deliver the company objectives and operations, hence a given company will require employers creating a employee- employer relationship. This relationship is very vital and should remain professional with all the stake holders involved acting in accordance to the work ethics as provided by the company.

The employers therefore have a duty to uphold the integrity of the company while the employees have a duty to perform according to their mandate. Therefore if all this is maintained, an organization will run successfully while meeting its daily objectives leaving both the employer and employee very satisfied with their work and the company running successfully. (Vandome 2004, 45)

However this may not be always be the case, there are many situations that will always arise whereby the employer may feel that certain objectives of the company are not being met due to some king of hurdles associated with a certain employee. It therefore calls for the employee to terminate the working relationship they had in between them.

However there are many hurdles that prevent this from happening as there a lot of red tapes that govern how an employee should be fired. Due to this fact, there are many unions and organizations, governmental and non-governmental that oversees this exercise in order to ensure that an employee is not fired due to discrimination.

To a certain extent, these organizations do play a vital role in ensuring that the minorities or any disadvantaged group is not victimized by a more powerful entity, in this case the employer. Due to this, the Australian government has constantly urged and advocated for the right s of all workers to join trade unions in order to ensure that their rights are protected (Australia Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics 2006, 142).

There are many different stakeholders involved in the business world of any given entity. These stakeholders are; the Government, Employees and their Unions and the employers who represent the management. All this stakeholders play a vital role in ensuring that there is a balance achieved between the employer and employee whereby an imbalance would affect the different stakeholders adversely and differently.

Should there be an imbalance, the government will have a weakened economy, while the employees would lose their source of livelihood and businesses would collapse as seen in the recent economic recession whereby due to some negligence of some stakeholders, the world economy was greatly affected negatively. Nevertheless, these different stakeholders play different roles in ensuring that there is a balance between each stakeholder (Stalker 1997, 25)

First, the trade unions were established to protect the members, employees, from unfair treatment, discrimination and abuse of their rights by the employees. These trade unions have always championed for the rights of the workers and where they felt that a given worker was dismissed unfairly, they usually took up the case, usually without asking for payment.

Due to the large size of them, the trade unions have always had a bargaining power when it came to the rights of the employees making them a feared organization by both the employers and the government.

Therefore employers have been forced to abide by the laws in dismissing any employee. This laid down procedures have been very beneficial toward the protection of employees’ rights making the job market very stable. In addition the unions have made a significant input towards the legislation of labor laws where they have made significant contributions towards the labor reforms in order to match up with the current labor and business requirements.

Therefore for this stake holders, the rights of the employee come first and should be upheld at all items, therefore under the dictates of the labor unions, an employer does not have the right to fire at will but should follow the procedures laid down even if they would be rigorous or detrimental to a given organization (Balnave et al 2009, 58)

Secondly, the government is a stake holder whose roles are balanced between the interests of the employer and those of the employee. The law is always about getting a balance between the rights of the employees and employer. This balance is very crucial for the success of a business and also for the economy of the country.

Since thriving businesses influence the strength of the economy (Bamber et al. 2004, 46). Thus, the government is charged with making legislative laws that ensure the business fraternity runs smoothly without negatively affecting the other party which would translate to affecting the country’s economy. Therefore, the government acknowledges that not all the interests of either party can be met by the act to ensure there is a balance in between them.

In order to do this, the government has set up mechanisms to enable an understanding exists between the employee and employer, for instance by having tribunals and industrial courts that are dedicated towards commercial/ civil disputes. Therefore any aggrieved party can take his matter to the said tribunals/courts and have them sorted out, whereby the tribunal/ court reserves the final verdict.

Also the government acknowledges the rights of the employer, whereby they have made laws that allow an employer to fire an employee during a twelve month period after being hired for incompetency but not race, gender or disability issues, whereby the employer will not be liable to any legal litigations as the employee does not have any rights during this probation period.

Thirdly, employers’ have the right to critically evaluate and analyze an employee’s performance on a regular basis and check if he or she is at par with the goals of the organization. It is a basic fact that employees will always want the best staff in the company therefore the company will always work hard in achieving this caliber of employee’s unless it during redundancy whereby both the performing and non-performing employees may face the same predicament.

Therefore contrary to the belief that employers can fire indiscriminately, they only fire non performing employees which is not a bias ground for employment termination, but a vital ground for the optimum performance of the company and the well being of the employees and employers, who are the most significant stake holders in any given organization.

Therefore business entities should not just exist to provided employment and a source of livelihood to employees but should exist to meet its financial objectives without which both the employer and employee relationship would seize to exist (Australia Bureau of Statistics 1979, 56)

On the other hands due to labour laws, employers are faced with a lot of challenges. The labor laws have opened many doors whereby an employer can easily be sued for termination of an employee. The risk of litigation has gone beyond firing with courts ignoring the plight of the employers and his business but will more so focus on other issues like race, religion and gender when in the real case the termination was done based purely on the employees lack of performance (International Labor Organization 1999, 96).

The Law states that should an employee be fired or dismissed from his work, if he had served for less than 12 months, the employee is not legible for any legal remedy or entitled to any legal rights. Therefore under this case, the employer has a right to fire anybody without any hindrances or fear of a legal suit, apart from cases where the employer fired a person due to race, religious or physical challenges grounds.

Due to the diverse nature of people especially the human resource, an employer may make a mistake during the interview phase or employee hiring. The law allows him to correct that mistake before twelve months are over after the employee is hired thus the employee will not be liable to any legal litigation as this is usually a window period for the employee to correct any mistake that he/ she committed for the benefit of the business.

This window period allows for the employer to scrutinize and evaluate the performance of the employee and see to it that he has the potential to deliver on his mandate. If this was not the case, once a person was hired and proved to be incompetent, it would have been very difficult for the employee to fire an incompetent person thus posing a risk to the success of the company in future and in turn interfere with the business ethics throughout Australia (Hill et al. 2007, 124).

Therefore, the employers should be allowed to fire employees at will without any hurdles or litigations. This is so as no employer would fire a hardworking or competent employee as it would directly affect his company. Also the employer should be allowed to do so without having to undergo the rigorous process as dictated by labor laws as they serve as red tapes or bottlenecks in a company.

Due to these bottlenecks, a company’s success or efficiency is deeply curtailed since the management cannot make an abrupt decision which is common in business circles, like retrenchment of employees in order to cut down on costs. Without this freedom, businesses find it hard to expand, compete effectively and expand in accordance with the world economy or globalization.

In addition, an employer is charged with the vital role of making decisions that ensure that all the stakeholder of the company are well catered for and not exposed to risks, therefore by firing an employee does not necessarily translate to a bias action or warrants the attention of trade unions since an incompetent employee may result in a company going under thereby affecting other employees who had nothing to do with the issue.

Under such circumstances, the employer is usually the one left to shoulder the blame as his company goes under while the employees will usually look for employment in another company and continue with their endeavors, while the employers suffers from the incompetency of a given employee hence, closing down an organization which he/ she had built.

In addition, employers unlike employees do not have trade Unions that can champion for their rights should an employee act in an incompetent manner resulting to financial or operation difficulties of the given company (Campbell & Craig 2005, 148).

In conclusion an employee should be able to fire an employee at free will as he is the one who is charged with running the company effectively to achieve its target.

Therefore the employer will automatically have the best interests of the company at heart, unlike other stakeholders who represent different groups, some of which are not privy to the circumstances that led to the firing of a certain employee. Nevertheless, they should do so in a humane manner without any discrimination or bias, therefore making the role of other stakeholders equally important.

Reference List

Australia Bureau of Statistics. 1979. Year book. Bureau of statistics. Sydney.

Australia Commonwealth Bureau of Census and Statistics. 2006. Official yellow book of Australia. Bureau of Statistics. Sydney.

Balnave, N. et al. 2009. Employment Relations in Australia. Wiley and Sons. Melbourne.

Bamber, G. Lansbury, R. & Wailes, N. 2004. International and comparative employment relations: globalisation and the developed market economies. Sage. London.

Campbell, D. & Craig, T. 2005. Organisations and the business environment. Butterworth-Heinemann. Oxford.

Hill, C. et al. 2007. Strategic Management: An Integrated Approach. John Wiley. Melbourne.

International Labor Organization 1999. Employment policies and industrial relations. International labor organization. London

Stalker, P. 1997. A survey of international labor. International Labor Organization.London.

Vandome, N. 2004.Getting a job in Australia: a step-by-step guide to finding work down under. How to Books Ltd. Melbourne.

Introduction

Hiring the right person to tackle a particular job is very crucial to any organization. Hiring the wrong person can easily ruin the company’s credibility and can even cost the company a lot of money. For a long time, most organizations have relied on the traditional method of interviewing a candidate.

This is because conducting a personal interview is not only considered cheap for the company but that it does not also take much of the company’s time. However, research has proven that the traditional method of conducting personal interviews can no longer be relied upon to hire superlative candidates.

The use of assessment centres have widely been advocated for with most researchers arguing that it is the only reliable selection method that a company can adopt to hire the best of the best. Franks et.al. (1998) state that almost 60% of British organizations have resulted to assessment centre exercises for their selection process.

But how effective is the use of assessment centre exercises to hire a qualified candidate and is it the most suitable method to test a candidate?

The argument has elicited mixed reactions as to the validity of assessment centres with some arguing that the centres are not really effective while others maintain that the use of assessment centres is the best invention that befell the business world. This paper is therefore aimed at reviewing some peer-reviewed journal articles that seem to have a different take on the issue.

Literature Review

Abraham, Morrison and Burnett (2006) argue that: ‘assessment centres and behavioural simulations are among the most effective predictors of job performance and career progress available to employers’ (p.383).

This is attributed to the fact that the use of assessment centre exercises enhance the skills and the capabilities of the employees and it is one of the most appropriate strategy to measure their potential.

This has been made possible as the candidate is required to present some form of evidence to support their suitability claims (Jennifer and Duncan 2005). In their extensively researched article, Abraham, Morrison and Burnett (2006) further argue that even though the efficiency of assessment centre exercises have widely researched upon, it is not yet clear how useful they are in the employment development.

This is because most studies focus on the efficacy of assessment centres and its role in employee development has not been dwelled upon extensively. This leaves a wide gap on how effective the method is.

Malde (2006) on his part questions the validity of assessment centres and its role. He presents a valid argument that even though assessment centres has widely been praised, it does not really live up to his claims. In his article, he claims that the assessment centre is negligent enough as to not care about the interests of the candidate.

He seem to give a differing opinion on the effectiveness of assessment centre as a whole. He argues that even though the method of selection is one of the best to pick out the best candidate, the interests of the candidate should also be encompassed in the process in order to conclude on the issue of effectiveness.

In his view, the interests of the candidate undertaking the exercises should be put into consideration as that of the organisation. He argues that the performance of the candidate is bound to decline in future. Why is this so? He supports his argument by arguing that just like in the traditional assessment devices that have earlier been adopted, the candidate is out to please the selection assessors so as to get that job.

With the economy crunch hitting the world, one is bound to dance to any tune played so as to get their way. The interests of the candidates are completely ignored hence leading to performance decline in future when the candidate become accustomed to what he is doing.

However, Thornton and Gibbons (2009) seem to differ with the argument presented by Malde. In their well researched article, they state that: ‘the overall assessment rating in assessment centre exercise predicts performance in the future in some specified job or set of jobs’ (p. 171).

This is because the exercises entailed in the assessment centre dwell on factors such as content representativeness. The assessor is particularly keen on the appropriateness of the content.

This is made possible as the candidate is made to undergo several exercises such as filling in questionnaires and partaking intelligence tests while the assessors rely on several other techniques to test the suitability of the candidate.

The career success of the candidate from the assessment centre exercises has also been debated upon. Jansen and Vinkenburg (2006) predicted the effectiveness of assessment centre exercises on the success of the candidate in future.

In their study, they examined the trend of success for a period of 13 years in order to assess the validity and effectiveness of the assessment centre in future career progression of the candidate.

The authors relied on the period of entry and tenure as control measures and previous studies that had been conducted in order to ascertain the validity of assessment centre exercises to select a candidate and the success of that particular candidate in future.

Though they conclude that the method was indeed effective after years of investigation, they are quick to point out that the validity pattern was indeed dynamic.

They argued that the assessment centre system was more effective for candidates in their early careers and their validity increased over the years as opposed to those candidates who were late in their career lives. They also argued that the different types of techniques used in assessment centres can be a contributing factor to the future success of the candidate.

It is therefore evident that different types of techniques applied in the assessment centres play a very big role to determine its validity. The most common techniques applied include interviews, in-basket exercises, filling a questionnaire, business games, leadership group discussion, projective tests, drawing autobiographical sketches and paper and pencil tests.

Luo and Meng (2005) holds the opinion that the validity of assessment centre depends on different grading dimensions adopted in the selection process. In their study, they examined the differing effects on the validity of assessment centre using the leaderless group discussions, role playing and in-basket exercises.

The leaderless group discussion is a technique that requires the candidates to work in a group. The candidates are handed written or spoken instructions to be assessed upon. The role of the assessor at this stage is to assess the measurable behaviour of the candidates such as how they maintain the eye contact, their body language or their involvement in the group.

The leaderless group discussion is tricky as it calls for candidates who have excellent leadership and communication skills. The role playing or simulation technique on the other hand is where the candidates are required to play a particular role in an orchestrated scene to test their response to particular situations. This is to enhance their role-playing skills in the organisation.

The in-basket technique is one of a kind as it requires the candidate to undertake a role in odd times and within the shortest time possible. This measures the reliability of the candidate in the organisation if he is hired. The three methods were measured more than once in different dimensions (Luo and Meng 2005).

The conclusion of the study was that the behaviour ability techniques were more effective than the psychological trait techniques. This study was backed in a similar finding that measured the impact of techniques on assessment centres.

In their findings, Mark and David (2006) argued that though the use of various techniques played a big role in evaluating the ideal candidate for the job, the effectiveness of assessment centre varied in the type of technique applied. In practise, specific task-based techniques have highly been rated as to increase the ratings in assessment centres (Jackson, Stillman and Atkins 2005).

The use of self-assessment in assessment centres has also been advocated for in numerous studies as an effective method of evaluation. Franks et.al. (1998) argue that: ‘Most of the research in this field has looked at the effectiveness of raw self-assessments on their own and not the relative importance of self assessment in comparison to other indices of assessment (p.124).

In their article, they state that self-assessment accuracy can be determined either through over-estimation, under-estimation and perfect accuracy of the candidate. This not only aid the personal development of the candidate but also aids in the effectiveness of the assessment centre outcome. It also enhances self-awareness and learning of the candidate.

Discussion

The validity of assessment centre exercises is very essential to any organisation that wishes to encompass it in its selection process. However, it is evident that most findings fail to address the weaknesses of this method and only concentrate on the strengths.

Though the findings by Malde (2006) seem to veer off from the findings of other researchers, his only concern is how the candidate’s interests are featured in the method. His argument though seem to support the method as the most appropriate strategy a company can adopt to hire a qualified candidate.

Lievens, Dam and Anderson (2002) bashes the use of personnel selection due to technology advancements, globalisation and other social trends. They wholly rely on the use of assessment centre exercises as the successful strategy to hire the best candidates for the job.

However, the system has some drawbacks such as it is a costly process. It also emphasize on a one-way mirror technique where the candidate is to perform a task and the assessors acts like big brother. This tends to scare away candidates hence decreasing their full potentials.

Conclusion

In conclusion, assessment centre exercises can be said to be the most effective in selecting an ideal candidate despite some of the drawbacks it faces. Consequently, it provides the perfect platform for the organisation to select the best candidates based on various techniques, and not the usual question-answer type of selection.

The literature already put in place seems to concur with the idea of wholly implementing the assessment centre exercises fully in all organisations to ensure its success by hiring the best candidates they can get.

Reference List

Abraham, J, Morrison, J and Burnett, D 2006, ‘Feedback Seeking Among Developmental Assessment Center Participants’, Journal of Business and Psychology, vol. 20 no. 3, pp. 383-394.

Franks, D, Ferguson, E, Rolls, S and Henderson, F 1998, ‘Self-assessments in HRM: an example from an assessment centre’, Personal Review, vol. 28 no. 1, pp. 124-133.

Jackson, D, Stillman, J and Atkins, S 2005, ‘Rating Tasks Versus Dimensions in Assessment Centers: A Psychometric Comparison’, Human Performance, vol. 18 no. 3, pp. 213-241.

Jansen, P and Vinkenburg, C 2006, ‘Predicting management career success from assessment center data: A longitudinal study’, Journal of Vocational Behaviour, vol. 68 no. 2, pp. 253-266.

Jennifer, S and Duncan, J 2005, ‘A Detection theory approach to the evaluation of assessors in assessment centres’, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, vol. 78 no. 4, pp.581-594.

Lievens, F, Dam, K and Anderson, N 2002, ‘Recent trends and challenges in personnel selection’, Personal Review, vol. 31 no. 5, pp. 580-601.

Luo, F and Meng, Q 2005, ‘A Research on How Different Types of Graded Dimensions Affect the Construct Validity of the Assessment Centre’, Psychological ScienceChina, vol. 28 no. 6, pp. 1437-1439.

Malde, B 2006, ‘Do assessment centres really care about the candidate’, British Journal of Guidance and Counseling, vol. 34 no. 4, pp. 539-549.

Mark, B and David, W 2006, ‘A Meta-Analytic Evaluation of the Impact of Dimension and Exercise Factors on Assessment Centre Ratings’, Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 91 no. 5, pp. 1114-1124.

Thornton, G and Gibbons, A 2009, ‘Validity of assessment centres for personnel selection’, Human Resource Management Review, vol. 19, pp. 169-187.

Job testing is an important concept in the discipline of Human Resource Management in job selection process, especially in hiring candidates for specific job descriptions. Getting the right individuals for employment is critical to achievement of an organization’s goals.

Thus, this reflective treatise attempts to explicitly identify critical testing process involved in hiring potential employees as indicated in the articles, Psychological Tests used in Employee Selection by Schieltz and Types of Employment Tests by the Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Besides, the treatise identifies stages involved in recruitment testing process.

As opined by Schieltz (2009), selection processes are not only reliable but also valid devices for hiring management assistants in an organization. For instance, it is right to give keyboarding test to an applicant who seeks to work in a field requiring critical management skills. Reflectively, the desired skill must be displayed by potential candidates.

Thus, Thus, “the skills that are needed by an employer can easily be quantified through the use of specific tests that measure those abilities in a potential employee” (Schieltz, 2009, par. 3). Furthermore, the article suggests that selection is focused to evaluate resumes of applicants for essential requirements which in this case include possession of management and analytical skills besides academic credentials.

Moreover, testing is a procedure of eliminating unqualified applicants while identifying most preferred applicant. In this case, the process is systematic, and through aptitude test, elimination of those lacking analytical skills is possible within minimal prejudice or biasness. The main idea of a selection procedure is to assess information about applicants in order to determine their fitness for employment.

The article identifies factors that affect stages involved in testing procedure as numbers of applicants who are present for the selection process. For instance, when the number of applicant is huge, filtering points should be increased in order to minimize this number. Nevertheless, when the number of candidates is small, reduced filtering points would be required to regulate the number of applicants.

Reflectively, the article, Types of Employment Tests, identifies screening system as an important part of employee testing and is meant to disqualify unsuitable applicants at any step of selection procedure. Nevertheless, there is no absolute criterion for selection process adopted in all professions or organizations.

The article opines that during screening stage, essential information is obtained from applicants about their salary expectation, experience, education qualifications, and skills since administrative assistant post has management roles. Besides, it offers an opportunity for testing cognitive ability. “Cognitive ability tests typically use questions or problems to measure ability to learn quickly, logic, reasoning, reading comprehension and other enduring mental abilities that are fundamental to success in many different jobs” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 4). In addition, test of legitimacy for applicant’s certificate is carried out. Actually, it is an important step that asses applicants’ competence.

Another aspect of employee testing includes the psychological test. Psychological test may be adopted in employees’ selection procedures. It is focused on certain aspects of applicant’s performance, behavior, and attitude in different situations. Psychological test is important when the number of candidates is large in order to reduce it.

Psychological test can “identify applicants who scored above a certain fixed mark and assumption is made that they are possibly good performers than those candidates who attained below the mark limit” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 4). Moreover, Interview testing is an essential step of selection process since it is where applicants demonstrate their strength and competence in reference to their academic qualifications.

Interviews perform three functions. First, interview process seeks to get information about work experience, interest, training, education, and background of applicants. Secondly, interview testing process provides information to applicants about the nature of the organization, policies and regulations of the organization and job description. Thirdly, interview testing process creates a friendly relationship between applicants and employer in order to motivate the triumphant candidates to work for the company.

As indicated by the two articles, comprehensive and unprejudiced details of applicants’ competence and behavior would be an important value in the testing for selection procedure, especially to employers who provide job description to applicants. In fact, the employee would be in a position to “assess attitudes and experiences related to a person’s honesty, dependability, trustworthiness, reliability, and pro-social behavior” (“Types of Employment Tests”, 2012, par. 7).

Features that employers seek for employment are persons who are thirsty for success and who are able to take risk in life, people who are innovative and open minded, people who know how to handle psychological stress, and people who are team players and hardworking. Organizations are focused to get dedicated people who are ready to fulfill companies’ objectives. These objectives can be achieved by balancing psychological testing with actual professional testing during recruitment process.

In conclusion, the main aim for testing procedure is to employ applicants who have high possibility to work successfully. This kind of selection procedure is meant for choosing employees who posses analytical skills besides academic qualification. Testing process has multiple stages which include interviews, pre-employment inquiries, background investigation, aptitude test, and screening interview.

References

Schieltz, M. (2009). Psychological Tests used in Employee Selection. eHow Journal, 3(9), 1-5.

Types of Employment Tests. (2012, June 12). Society for Industrial & Organizational Psychology. Retrieved from https://www.siop.org/

Introduction

The art and science of hiring employees for diversity requires a perfect balance into the interplay between professional issues, job demands, and the diversity paradigms, policies, and initiatives as set out by the organization.

In equal measure, it is now known that to remain competitive in today’s ever changing and continuously more complex global business environment, it is important for all stakeholders involved to make a conscious effort towards attracting, hiring, and retaining highly qualified employees from diverse backgrounds, who will have the necessary strength, independence, and innovativeness to enable organizations scale new heights as they consolidate the gains made so far (Arthur, 1998).

Analysis & Summary

The introductory remarks, in my view, inform the decision to hire the second applicant – a recently divorced professional woman with no family attachments at the moment.

The vacant position that necessitated the interviewing of the four applicants should be guided, in principle, by four critical points, namely: high professional qualifications; need to implement diversity initiatives; independence of movement by virtue of its global outreach, and; a penchant for results.

It therefore follows that applicants with school-going children and other binding family commitments, though qualified to the wire, may find the position unrewarding since it involves a lot of travelling at a global level. Such a job orientation, in my view, will definitely affect their productivity and morale, implying that the organization will be unable to achieve its growth targets – both short-term and long-term.

In summary, the decision to hire the professional woman divorcee for this plum position is informed by two critical factors – preservation of diversity initiatives as underlined in the organization’s policies and the need to have an independent person fill this position. As noted by Greenburg (2009), “…an organization’s success and competitiveness depends upon its ability to embrace diversity and realize the benefits” (para. 5).

Equally, this applicant has no family engagements and, by extension, no children. The position, by virtue of the constant travel to global cities, calls for an independent, free-minded person, who will direct all her energies to the cause of the position without getting distracted by the events occurring within the family setup.

Consequences

The consequences of taking this decision, if well managed, can only bring positive outcomes. Although problems may present in terms of communication barriers and resistance from other members of the organization who may feel they deserved to be given the position, it is unprofessional to forget the many benefits associated with maintaining diversity initiatives in the workplace, which includes introduction of new thought systems and paradigms, increased adaptability, introduction of a broader range of service, and more effective execution of the organization’s policies and strategies (Greenburg, 2009).

Potential Impact

The decision to include diversity considerations in the hiring process will definitely bring good tidings to the marketing department in particular and the organization in general. As the head of marketing, I shall rest assured that I have an employee who will help the organization attain its growth targets.

As observed by Greenburg (2009), “…employees from diverse backgrounds bring individual talents and experiences in suggesting ideas that are flexible in adapting to fluctuating markets and customer demands” (para. 6). However, it is proper to prepare for a potential backlash from other senior employees from the department, who may feel that they deserved the position.

The organization, too, may initially face resistance from other senior personnel who may think that they were bypassed, but such resistance must not be allowed to overshadow the potential benefits achievable through adapting diversity initiatives

Global Implications

At a global level, the organization will be positively impacted by this decision owing to the fact that increasing globalization of business suggests that diversity is critical to the existence and survival of organizations (Greenburg, 2009).

When global organizations use diversity paradigms to attract, hire, and retain qualified employees, they not only enhance their global corporate image, but also their productivity, profit, and return on investment

Reference List

Arthur, D. (1998). Recruiting, interviewing, selecting, and orienting new employees. New York, NY: AMACOM.

Greenberg, J. (2009). Diversity in the workplace: Benefits, challenges, and solutions. Web.

Abstract

This paper examines the application of various factors and costs along with the demand curve in determining plausible hiring practices when it comes to hiring either permanent or temporary workers.

What was presented was various data sets involving Temporary demand, Seasonal demand or Popularity demand, the Debt Crisis in Europe, Outsourcing, the Theory of Consumer Behavior and Market Saturation as well as other constraining factors which could possibly influence the decisions influencing a company’s hiring practices.

It was shown that given specific percentile increases or decreases involving the demand curve a company can thus accurately determine when it would be necessary to hire a specific type of worker for a particular period of time.

Executive Summary

Increased levels of demand do not necessitate the need to hire permanent workers for a company since it is uncertain whether demand levels will continue to remain at elevated levels.

Introduction

The recent financial crisis has shown a recent trend wherein lower product demand results in operational cutbacks within companies yet in instances where demand apparently increases several companies do not hire permanent workers but rather utilize limited contractual labor of only a few months.

This is due to the current uncertainty surrounding financial markets wherein the volatility of the global economy combined with the financial recession in the U.S. and the debt crisis in Europe has created a situation where it is uncertain whether trends in increased demand will continue within the foreseeable future.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is the fact that demand for particular products during the holiday season can be deemed as being under an “artificial increase” which does not reflect demand in previous quarters nor does it reflect the potential demand in future quarters.

As such, basing hiring practices on demand that doesn’t properly reflect consumer buying behavior in the foreseeable future would negatively impact a company’s bottom line due to the potential for having more workers than necessary when demand goes back to pre-holiday levels.

It is due to this that this paper presents the notion that by examining various aspects of the demand curve and various percentile statistics attached to it, a company will be able to determine what situation would suit the hiring of either temporary or permanent workers.

Definition

The management question in this particular case is: “Should our company hire temporary workers or hire new workers to handle increase demand for our product?” As such, it becomes a question of what specific factors contribute towards a company choosing temporary or permanent workers given a particular situation as dictated by the market environment.

Factors or Costs

Temporary demand, Seasonal demand or Popularity demand?

One of the factors that should be taken into consideration when choosing to hire new workers is whether the increased demand for a particular product is temporary, seasonal or due to popularity. What must be understood is that hiring practices differ between the kinds of demand indicated due to rates of progression and collapse.

For example, seasonal demand is defined as a marked increase in product demand as a direct result of seasonal changes (i.e., a holiday ex: Thanksgiving) wherein demand for a particular product increases (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009). One example of this is the abrupt increase in demand for turkey during Thanksgiving as compared to the demand for turkey on every other day of the year.

Temporary demand, on the other hand, is defined as an increase in demand that cannot be anticipated and was brought about by an outside factor (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009). One example of this can be seen in the increase in sales of the N65 breathing mask during the H1N1 scare a few years back.

The last type of demand to be examined in this paper is popularity demand, which is defined as demand for a particular type of product that isn’t a result of seasonal or temporary demand but rather is due to public perception of the product and the apparent benefits accrued through it.

One example of this particular type of demand was in the “Silly Bandz” craze a few months back wherein the popularity of the plastic bracelet for children increased to ridiculously high levels despite the product being nothing more than a shaped band of plastic.

In the case of seasonal or temporary demand there is a high degree of initial progression yet there is an accompanying rapid decrease in demand which comes shortly thereafter. In cases where this particular demand is present, hiring temporary workers is the best possible choice to maximize labor while decreasing eventual costs once demand dies down.

On the other hand in situations where the demand for a particular product is based on popularity this can result in a lengthy and prolonged period of continuous product demand and as such necessitates the need to hire more workers in order to meet the demand for the product (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009).

In order to determine whether a company needs to hire a temporary or a permanent workforce it needs to examine where the increased demand for their product falls on the demand curve and adjust their hiring practices accordingly.

Severance Pay Costs

What should also be taken into consideration are the inherent differences between contractual and hired labor and the potential costs related to when demand goes down and operational cutbacks are needed. In the case of contractual labor, contracts usually run out after a predetermined level of time and should demand decrease by this point in time the company will have been able to effectively utilize a labor force and cutback when needed.

In the case of permanent hired workers, when operational cutbacks are needed there are issues regarding severance pay packages that need to be paid out and this can result in considerable costs for the company.

Debt Crisis in Europe

When deciding to hire permanent or temporary workers one of the factors that company’s should take into consideration is the European debt crisis and its potential impact on U.S. based companies. Since Europe is one of the largest markets for U.S. based products and services the debt crisis several European countries are currently experiencing has the potential to spill over and affect the U.S. economy.

As product and service demand within Europe continues to decrease this in turn affects the operations of U.S. based corporations. As such with lower European demand companies may in turn decrease their operational capacity resulting in abrupt declines in consumer spending due to the increased jobless rate.

As such, though product demand may seem high at the present it is still uncertain whether the debt crisis may get worse resulting in a subsequent spillover effect in the U.S. economy, which would be disastrous for local demand.

Outsourcing

One factor that companies should be taking into consideration is the current trend in production outsourcing wherein companies outsources several aspects of their manufacturing operations to locations such as India and China. The reason behind this is due to the relatively low cost of labor in such countries which helps to offset the production costs of a particular product.

Not only that, in such countries labor laws aren’t as stringent as compared to the U.S. and as such this enables companies to reduce operational capacities on a whim without having to pay high severance pay costs.

Taking this into consideration a company that is deciding on whether or not to hire temporary or permanent workers could always turn towards the option of outsourcing their manufacturing operations in order to further reduce costs and give them the ability to have more options in terms of changing operational capacities based on increases or decrease in demand.

Benefits Related Costs

One of the inherent problems with hiring permanent workers versus temporary ones are the inherent costs differences in terms of the benefits accrued during their period of employment. This can take the form of health benefits, life insurance, as well as deposits to a 401k plan.

In fact, when measuring the difference in amounts paid over a specific period it can be seen that it costs companies considerably more in terms of benefits to hire a permanent worker as compared to a temporary one and as such before a permanent worker is hired it must be determined whether the added costs through benefits is something the company can handle.

Worker Unions

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is the issue of the establishment of worker unions and how firing workers on the basis of cost reductions often comes with significant added costs or even can’t be performed at all due to the presence of unions within a particular company.

As unions continue to become more aggressive in their tactics in preserving the jobs of their workers this in turn creates problems for the company since in an economy where fluctuating demand curves results in necessary changes to production output unions act as “open wounds” so to speak since at time they prevent the firing of workers on the basis of lower demand and could in effect cost a company millions.

Taking this into consideration a company should think long and hard before hiring any set of workers that belong to a union since removing them from the company may become harder than the company may think.

Theory of Consumer Behavior and Market Saturation

The theory of consumer behavior explains that even if a product is popular their value diminishes to consumers after consecutive purchase and consumption. As such over a given period of time consumers will continue to purchase a product till they no longer derive any value from it and would eventually stop its consumption.

While such a theory isn’t applicable to all types of products it is applicable to several thousand and as such should be a factor that companies need to take into consideration before hiring temporary or permanent workers in that they need to determine where in the demand curve does the current level of demand lie, either at the peak or at a downward trend.

Another factor that should be taken into consideration is the concept of market saturation and how no matter how high the demand of a particular product is in a given location eventually there will come a point where market saturation occurs where all possible consumers have already bought the product.

Measurement

For Temporary demand, Seasonal demand or popularity demand the measurement for this particular factor is estimated on projected increases in demand for a particular product versus normal rates of demand and a company history of demand curves for this particular point in time of the year (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009).

By utilizing this method of measurement the company will be able to compare the current projected demand curve to previous yearly data and determine whether demand for a particular product is based on a temporary seasonal increase or is a result of a period of prolonged demand which would necessitate the need to hire more workers.

In the case of severance pay, worker unions and benefits-related costs versus the hiring of contractual workers the unit of measurement is based on the amount of money lost when changes in demand curves deem it necessary to decrease the amount of workers in an operation (Fernández-Aráoz, Groysberg & Nohria, 2009).

When it comes to outsourcing this particular factor is based on the amount of money that it would normally cost to hire temporary or permanent workers versus outsourcing the means of production to another country.

In the case of the debt crisis in Europe, this particular factor is based on the amount of exposure a company has to European markets and the degree of demand reduction that would occur if an effective debt resolution isn’t reached.

Lastly, in the case of theory of consumer behavior and market saturation these particular factors are based on the amount of consumers that have bought the company’s product within a given area versus and the repeated buying behavior of consumers, which would gradually lessen the perceived value of a particular product.

Analysis

When it comes to assessing temporary demand, seasonal demand popularity demand as indicators of when to either hire temporary or permanent workers what must first be determined is the difference in increased demand as compared to what demand normal is and for how long the demand continues to remain at that particular point.

In this case if the demand for a particular product has risen to 20 to 30 percent of the norm then this does necessitate the need to hire more workers however it must be determined how long the demand will continue to remain at that particular point.

At this point in time it becomes necessary to compare past records on-demand increases within particular timeframes and to see how demand fluctuated during that previous period. If it shows that demand increased for only a short period of time and was during the holiday season then this is a seasonal demand increase and, as such, only requires temporary workers.

The same can be said for an instance where sudden spikes in demand occur yet are immediately followed by a sharp drop in the demand curve. In instances such as these demand can increase by 60% or more yet is often followed by a 70% drop in demand. This particular instance is indicative of a temporary increased demand and doesn’t necessitate the hiring of any workers at all.

In the case of an increase in demand that doesn’t fall under seasonal changes and lasts longer than previous increases in demand based on company records then this falls under prolonged (popular) demand and can be deemed a necessary period for hiring more workers.

It must be noted though that this is based on percentile increases of 40% increase or more and as such must exceed the ability of the company to properly meet demand thus the hiring of more permanent workers. In the case of the factors related to severance pay, worker unions and benefits what must be examined is the risk factor in hiring permanent workers versus just hiring temporary ones.

This is done by examining the demand curve and judging whether the rate of demand is slowly increasing or increasingly rapidly within a given period. If demand continues to increase at a rapid pace for 2 months or more without slowing down then this period can be stated as a “safe” period for hiring permanent workers (Mason & Schroeder, 2010).

On the other hand if demand is increasing within a period of two months yet is at a relatively slow and decreasing pace this can be determined as a “risky” period for hiring permanent workers since it cannot be determine whether demand will increase or sudden drop off and as such this particular period requires temporary workers (Mason & Schroeder, 2010).

It must be noted though that increases in demand for “safe” periods must increase by 30% or more within a given period while for risk y periods the demand curve will assume a slow 5% to 4% marginal increase which is indicative of demand reaching its zenith in the curve (Mason & Schroeder, 2010).

When it comes to outsourcing it becomes a question of labor costs and profit percentages; if a company has a labor cost which eats up 25% of profit yet if outsourced would only cost 5% of profits then outsourcing would be a viable replacement for either temporary or permanent labor and as such should be examined by a company based on cost savings accrued over a given period of time.

In the case of the European debt crisis what must be determined is the percentage of a company’s exposure to demand fluctuations in European markets. If 25% of a company’s market is in Europe, then it would be an implausible choice to hire permanent workers since demand may drop significantly should the debt talks result in a deadlock.

On the other hand if the company’s exposure is limited by 5% or less then if demand is increasing it may be advisable to hire more permanent workers. Lastly, in the case of the theory of consumer behavior and market saturation it all becomes a question of the amount of consumption versus the size of the population.

If the company is located within a particularly limited market then even though a particular product is popular it will eventually run the risk of market saturation and the lessening of perceived value due to the theory of consumer behavior.

As such in order to determine whether to hire temporary or permanent what must be examined is the degree of market consumption versus the current size of the population in order to see if demand is reaching a point where market saturation and marginal utility decreases. If it shows a trend in decreasing perceived value and increases in market saturation it would be best to hire temporary workers.

Summary

Based on the presented data it can be seen that the demand curve plays a crucial role in determining whether to hire temporary or permanent workers.

As such by examining various nuances of the demand curve and basing it on the percentile values given in this paper it can be determined what type of worker you should hire for your company within a given period. It must be noted though that this data set is limited in terms of its breadth and depth and, as such, requires further examination and elaboration before its usage in a real corporate setting.

Conclusion and Recommendation

Based on the data presented in this paper, it can be seen that an analysis of the demand curve versus constraining factors in the market environments proves to be an effective method of determining whether to hire temporary or permanent workers.

It is based on this that this paper recommends that for future studies examining choices of workers for particular companies it is necessary to first determine where demand lies along the demand curve in order to immediately determine what options are available for the company in terms of the types of workers that can be hired.

Reference List

Fernández-Aráoz, C., Groysberg, B., & Nohria, N. (2009). The definitive guide to recruiting in good times and bad. Harvard Business Review, 87(5), 74-84.

Mason, R. W., & Schroeder, M. P. (2010). Principal Hiring Practices: Toward a Reduction of Uncertainty. Clearing House, 83(5), 186-193.

Executive Summary

The report explores strategic management and strategic human resource management (SHRM) for Aristocrat Leisure Limited. The company has made losses in the recent past.

As a result, SHRM is necessary for turnaround and global strategy the company is pursuing. This is change management process for the company.

The report also explores how the company has applied principles of SHRM such as resource-based and employees’ behaviors in its strategic management.

At the same time, it also presents both internal and external environment of Aristocrat. The company faces social issues of gambling, risks, stiff competition, and changes in technology. However, the company has opportunities in growing markets, use of technology, and its global brand.

The company can only utilize its human resources for competitive advantage through recruitment, training, retaining, and managing performance. Thus, Aristocrat must focus on all the human resource life cycle when creating strategic advantage.

The report also presents SHRM plan for the next 12 to 36 months, which focuses on SHRM for change management.

Objective of the Report

The objective of this report is to explore the strategic management and strategic human resource management issues for Aristocrat Leisure Limited, and develop a strategic HRM plan in an attempt to solve issues identified.

Research Methodology

The report involved gathering relevant data from the company annual reports and review of the available literature on SHRM practices in the industry. This enabled the report to present a complete SHRM practices and HR policies of Aristocrat.

The report concentrates on HR aspects of the company so that we can understand issues that have led to decline in sales volumes of Aristocrat. It critically analyzed these issues so that it can present a conclusive plan.

Limitations

The report presents views of Aristocrat human resources in a single locality. However, the company has the global presence. It infers that the cultural aspects of the report may not give a complete insight of Aristocrat workforce diversity.

The report also relied heavily on the company annual reports and perspectives of the HR department. This may present bias due to self-reporting.

Strategy: Matrix and discussion

Turnaround strategy

Currently, Aristocrat Leisure Limited (Aristocrat) is using turnaround strategy to improve its business and profits around the globe. In 2004, the company made sales in excess of 1.1 billion Australian dollars with over 2000 human resources.

However, Aristocrat Leisure Limited experienced difficulties in Nevada and failure to conclude business deals in South America (Aristocrat, 2012).

The company attributed its decline in revenues in 2008 to the US global financial crisis. On the contrary, competitors like International Game Technology, GTECH Holdings Corporation, and WMS Industries among others noted growths in revenues.

As a result of these declines in revenues, the company management had embarked on budget cuts and widespread retrenchment of staff that covered every part of the business. However, the company still faced challenges of the euro crisis and market conditions of 2009. It made a net loss of $157 million.

Aristocrat shall apply strategic human resource management (SHRM) principle to deal with this situation. This is usually a resource-based approach in order to create a competitive advantage.

Barney referred to a competitive advantage as “when a firm is implementing a value creating strategy not simultaneously being implemented by any current or potential competitors” (Barney, 1991).

Aristocrat must create sustainable competitive advantage through unique human resources, resources for positive value, resources with imitable quality, and resources that competitors cannot substitute. Thus, SHRM must create competitive advantage through human resources for turnaround strategies.

First, employees must provide value to Aristocrat for turnaround strategy. This implies that Aristocrat labor force must consist of various skills in technology, gaming industry knowledge, and problem solving.

In addition, these skills must exist at different levels among management in Aristocrat and in different locations around the world especially in the US where the gaming industry remains competitive (Barney, 1991).

Second, Aristocrat must recognize that human resources for creating competitive advantage are rare. Wright and McMahan note that human resources with high ability levels are rare because of general distribution ability (Wright and McMahan, 1992).

Thus, Aristocrat must ensure that its current employees and potential recruits have the highest ability levels. In this sense, Aristocrat must be thorough in selection processes because of difficulties in attracting and retaining employees of the highest ability.

Therefore, the process of acquiring new staff must take into consideration the staffing needs, recruitment and selection of new staff as well as compensation programs (Ulrich, 1991).

Third, Aristocrat must ensure that its human resources have “inimitable quality for competitive advantage” (Ulrich, 1991). Therefore, SHRM practices must instill this quality by selecting the best talent in the gaming industry.

Fourth, Aristocrat must note that it cannot substitute its human resources that enhance competitive advantage amidst its retrenchment undertaking. Therefore, it must retain all productive employees across all business units around the globe (Barney, 1991).

Global strategy

Aristocrat must also create human resources strategy that focus on its global strategy. In Japan, the company struck a joint venture deal with Sammy Corporation (Aristocrat Hanbai). This process also followed a change in the name to Aristocrat Technologies.

Aristocrat entry into the Asian market presented new challenges to the HR in terms of cultural differences. In the US, Aristocrat had challenges getting a license for its operation in Nevada. At this time, Australia was implementing new restrictions in the gaming industry (Aristocrat, 2012).

The company used acquisition strategy to expand its presence in the US markets. In the year 2001, it acquired Casino Data Systems. In 2002, Aristocrat improved its stake in Aristocrat Hanbai by acquiring 40 percent stake in Sammy Corporation.

Still, in the same year (2000), Aristocrat acquired Hanson Distribution Company of the US, and the New York Lottery.

After acquisitions in Japan and the US, the company turned to Russia. Aristocrat began product distribution in 2003. In the same period, the company entered into a “strategic alliance with Mikhon Gaming Corporation of the US” (Aristocrat, 2012).

After this period of acquisitions in 2003, the company started incurring losses due to collapsed sales deals. Aristocrat revenues declined as well as its market value.

First, it is clear that Aristocrat did not put into place any SHRM for its globe workforce. The company did not recognize the importance of cultures in formulating HR strategies in Japan, Russia, and the US.

Second, series of expansion strategies resulted into massive losses and declines of the market value of Aristocrat.

Agency and transaction cost theory is applicable in solving these issues. It can allow Aristocrat to concentrate on both the environmental and related human factors that may force it to internalize transaction processes to reduce costs. Transaction costs occur due to “monitoring, negotiating, evaluation, and enforcing exchanges among organizations” (Jensen and Meckling, 1976).

Strategic management analysis (SWOT and PEST)

SWOT analysis

SWOT analysis will provide advantages to Aristocrat through identification of areas where it can concentrate and create a marketing niche. It will enable Aristocrat to understand the gaming industry across the globe. At the same time, it will show threats to enable the company formulate strategies to mitigate such threats.

Table 1: SWOT analysis (Source: Aristocrat, 2012; RocSearch, 2005; Fahrenkopf, 2001)

The PESTEL analysis

Economic factors

The global recession of 2008 and the euro crisis affected Aristocrats revenues from 2009 to date. These factors affected consumers’ behaviors and market conditions. Aristocrat did not close some sales deal in South America because of its customers’ withdrawals (Aristocrat, 2012).

Changes in the exchange rates also affected Aristocrat’s earnings as the US dollar became weak against other currencies. However, these factors remain difficult to predict, and Aristocrat must prepare for them (Jensen and Meckling, 1976).

Political factors

Aristocrat operates in politically stable countries. However, changes in taxes and regulations affect the company business activities. For instance, Australia introduced new laws to guide its gaming industry as the State of Michigan turned to the gaming industry for extra revenues (Aristocrat, 2012).

Initial license acquisition in the State of Nevada was difficult for Aristocrat. The industry must monitor its reputation through provisions of gaming tax revenues.

Different countries have gaming board with strict regulatory commissions that require effective internal controls to minimize risks, promote cost effective structure, and insight of the industry contribution to the economy (Aristocrat, 2012).

Social factors

In the US, consumers blame the gaming industry for the rise in pathological gambling. Such approaches have influenced consumers’ emotions, attitudes, opinions and interests regarding the gaming industry (Fahrenkopf, 2001).

People have also linked the gaming industry with crimes, corruption, and bankruptcy. Therefore, Aristocrat must ensure effective risk management systems and compliance (Aristocrat, 2012).

Technological factors

Technology in the gaming industry is ever changing. This trend results into advanced products with low costs (RocSearch, 2005). Aristocrat must also match its competitors in introducing new technology in the gaming industry at competitive prices.

Legal factors

The gaming industry remains among the most regulated in the world due to social concerns it raises in society. Consequently, legal issues are likely to occur with severe consequences of expensive lawsuits. Aristocrats must guard against such occurrences (Aristocrat, 2012).

Cost leadership strategy

Aristocrat has suffered declines in its revenues. The company should adopt low cost leadership strategy in order to improve its sales. This shall help the company establish competitive advantage. The company budget cuts and restructuring approaches should lead to efficiency and small size (Mello, 2010).

Aristocrat should rely on its human resources and technology in order to achieve cost leadership strategy. Low prices shall ensure that the company increases its customer base. However, Aristocrat may also use a combination of superior products, cost leadership, and excellence customer service to increase market share (Mello, 2010).

Implications for HRM practices: Life cycle

The success of Aristocrat shall depend on the decision-making abilities of its management team. In this case, HR department must make significant decisions for competitive advantage so as to improve the company’s revenues.

Retention

Aristocrat HR must retain valuable human resources when it is retrenching or when such employees express willingness to leave. The company can achieve retention strategy based on personalized and meaningful rewards systems.

Retention shall help Aristocrat to reduce staff attrition, costs of acquisitions and training, enhance productivity, customer loyalty and profitability (Mello, 2010). At the same time, the company shall achieve efficiency and quality standards in delivery of services.

This process must include career development programs. According to Bernthal and Wellins, organizations with proactive leadership development strategies and succession plans have shown improved business growths (Bernthal and Wellins, 2006).

Aristocrat must establish an effective succession plan that focuses on the business continuity by looking at talents and leadership qualities (Stone, 2002).

Aristocrat HR must develop a plan that shall identify multiple talents for its future business strategy based on the gaming industry trends. The company must evaluate current leaders, potential successors, and their levels of competence.

This implies that Aristocrat can turn to external human resources if their current employees have insufficient abilities. Thus, effective, career planning and development of employees’ skills shall ensure that Aristocrat has skills for the future and employees’ commitment (Mello, 2010).

Recruitment

The resource-based perspective views human resources as a limited resource. Thus, attracting and recruiting the best talent in Aristocrat must involve a robust selection process that provides opportunities for applicants to demonstrate their abilities (Stone, 2002).

Aristocrat must understand capability requirements in its restructuring program. This shall enhance effective and consistent recruitment process. This process also ensures that the company does not spend much resource on recruitment and selection processes.

The company must plan recruitment and selection of potential employees. This is because the labor market has become highly competitive, and Aristocrat must select employees that will develop its talent pool (Mello, 2010).

The company should create its list of alumni, relationship with other organizations, and better working conditions such as flexible working programs to attract the multigenerational workforce.

The search for talent must consider the global labor market due to the company’s presence in various countries (Mathis and Jackson, 2011).

Aristocrat must know the exact people it needs to retain or take responsibilities. However, the approach may not always give the best result because of its subjectivity.

Thus, the company must adopt an integrated approach that considers multiple aspects of employees’ capabilities and willingness to accept leadership and responsibilities. Thus, keeping employees’ data is necessary for SHRM.

Performance

Managing performance must become strategic role for the HR given the poor performance of the company in the previous, and the difficulties in getting highly qualified and experienced staff. Performance management shall also ensure that employees increase their levels of performances.

However, in most instances, many organizations still have not embraced the culture of performance review. This is because they fail to notice “the strategic link between HRM and performance review in creating competitive advantage” (Nankervis, Compton and Baird, 2005).

Aristocrat must give all employees chances to improve their performances. Thus, performance review should be objective to allow employees perform their jobs based on Aristocrat’s culture and value.

Aristocrat should manage employees’ performances for strategic objectives. Performance management involves identification of strategic goals of an organization.

The main outcome of performance management concerns employees’ retention, pay increase, incentive and rewards, promotion, career planning, training and development and disciplinary actions.

This is the only Aristocrat can achieve strategic business objectives and improve profitability from its human resources (Armstrong, 2003).

Develop

Aristocrat must develop its talent pool for strategic positioning. Aristocrat must recognize areas that need talent development. This is necessary for the future development of careers and succession plan.

Aristocrat should focus on developing high potential areas and areas that drive the company’s revenues. This shall ensure that the company maintains efficient and productive workforce (Stone, 2002).

The HR department must spearhead talent development in Aristocrat. This process also requires engagement of individuals and data based on past performances.

Separation

Strategic Human Resource for change management mployees may decide to leave the company voluntarily, or the management may retrench them. However, Aristocrat must only retrench workers that can no longer serve the company’s strategic objectives.

Fig. 1 Strategic Human Resource for change management

Strategic HRM plan for the next 12 to 36 months

Setting the strategic direction

Aristocrat aligns HR policies with its mission, vision, and strategic objectives. This stage involves identifying and adopting innovative HRM policies for competitive advantage and reinforcing employees’ behaviors (Schuler and Jackson, 1987).

The process involves analysis of the external environment and its impacts on Aristocrat, identification of strategic goals, and consultation.

Designing HRM System

Aristocrat shall focus on “selecting, designing, and aligning HRM policies with the gaming industry best practices so as to reduce risks” (Aristocrat, 2012).

The company shall adopt IT in most of its operation. This must focus on cost-benefit analysis. Aristocrat shall also promote diversity in HR at this stage.

The company will identify HR policies and plans that can support turnaround and global strategies, HR best practices, and review of the recruitment procedures Schuler and Jackson, 1987).

Arranging for the employees

In this stage, Aristocrat must determine needs of the business in terms of human resources. Workforce plan and succession plan are mandatory for the company, and lack of them can indicate poor strategic planning.

These plans shall show strategic HR needs of Aristocrat. They must show the steps Aristocrat shall take to attract and retain the best talent in the industry (recruitment, selection, and reward) (Mello, 2010).

Aristocrat must perform workforce requirements at all levels of the business across the globe and integrate the needs with the organizational broad strategies. It will ensure effective delivery of services and coordination of the organization at all levels.

At this stage, Aristocrat shall review competencies, jobs, strategic objectives, workers’ profiles, competencies need, and the possible gaps for the future (Nankervis, Compton and Baird, 2005).

Getting the necessary human resources

Aristocrat must concentrate on recruiting, selection, hiring, placing, training, and deploying human resources on strategic areas of the business. The process must identify training needs of Aristocrat both for now and the future.

Aristocrat shall evaluate recruitment and selection processes to ensure these processes meet its strategic objectives, identify training needs, and implement training systems and a culture of a learning organization (Mathis and Jackson, 2011).

Enhancing investment in human resources

The aim of this stage is to develop needed business skills, competencies, and instill appropriate employee behaviors for Aristocrat effective performances.

This process shall also create a culture of a learning organization in Aristocrat. The company must also review internal risk management processes at this stage (Mathis and Jackson, 2011).

This stage must aim at utilizing employees’ skills and competencies for increasing performances. Employees must express satisfaction with training and tools offered for performing the job.

This stage also identifies the need for teamwork, work flexibility, and aligning of competencies and skills with the strategic objective of Aristocrat. At this stage, Aristocrat must also review its performance and reward systems based on individuals’ performances and industry best practices (Mathis and Jackson, 2011).

Aristocrat must review career development, performance appraisal, learning culture, reward systems, promotion, and dismissal of employees.

Review of Aristocrat available skills, competencies, and performance

Aristocrat must assess how all the changes and inputs have impacted on its overall performance. This stages looks at how changes the company implemented have affected performances, skills, and competencies development. It also reviews the effectiveness of HR practices, procedures, and plans (Stone, 2002).

The process must be specific to certain objectives by using performance metrics based the balanced scorecard. This facilitates objective review of results against key performance indicators (KPIs).

This process must be a regular practice at Aristocrat. The company must concentrate on reviewing its culture, succession plan, SHRM approaches through KPIs and conducting thorough revisions and adapting of the HR strategies (Mathis and Jackson, 2011).

Conclusion

Aristocrat must realize that SHRM processes can change its performance as HR strategies have significant inputs in transforming its strategic objective. However, this process must rely on the overall objectives and goals of the company.

Therefore, Aristocrat must align its organizational goals, business strategies, HRM policies and practices and employees’ behaviors for strategic performances. At the same time, the management team must also adopt a similar approach, and support strategic, competitive strategy of an organization.

In this sense, implementing HR policies and practices is necessary to the success of Aristocrat in terms of driving a competitive strategy through employees and other resources.

Aristocrat leadership must also show commitment to support these change processes for achieving the overall organizational goals. Therefore, HR practices and policies must be superior to develop superior performances. The role of SHRM in Aristocrat shall focus on improving loss making trends the company experiences.

Recommendation

The company should align its turnaround and global strategies with the human resources strategy. In this case, HR department must apply the five elements of HRM life cycle. It must protect employees who add value to the company.

Aristocrat must also develop its human resource to manage risks such as social, regulatory, consumer behaviors, and financial market activities in the company.

For effective turnaround and global strategies, Aristocrat should adopt cost leadership to increase sales volumes and revenues. The company should put on hold any plans for expansion until the revenues increase.

The company must also adopt a resource-based approach in managing its skilled human resources for creating competitive advantage.

The company should share its global strategies with its employees for effective implementation.

Aristocrat should also develop its technological resources in order to develop products for its cost leadership approach.

Table 2: Strategic HRM Plan Matrix

Adapted from: (Mello, J 2010; Mathis and Jackson, 2011; Schuler and Jackson 1987; Stone, 2002; Aristocrat, 2012)

Reference List

Aristocrat 2012, Company Policies. Web.

Armstrong, M 2003, A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 9th edn, Kogan Page Limited, VA, USA.

Barney, J 1991, ‘Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage’, Journal of Management, vol. 17, pp. 99-120.

Bernthal, P and Wellins, R 2006, ‘Trends in leader development and succession’, Human Resource Planning, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 31-40.

Fahrenkopf, F 2001, The Gaming Industry: Current Legal, Regulatory and Social Issues, American Gaming Association, Las Vegas.

Jensen, M and Meckling, W 1976, ‘Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs, and ownership structure’, Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 3, pp. 305-360.

Mathis, R and Jackson, J 2011, Human Resource Management, 13th edn, South-Western Cengage Learning, Mason, OH.

Mello, J 2010, Strategic Human Resource Management, 3rd edn, South-Western Cengage Learning, Thomson.

Nankervis, A, Compton, R and Baird, M 2005, Human resource management: Strategies and processes, 5th edn, Southbank, Thomson.

RocSearch 2005, Video Game Industry, RocSearch, London.

Schuler, R and Jackson, S 1987, Linking competitive strategies with human resource management practices’, Academy of Management Executive, vol. 1, pp. 207-219.

Stone, R 2002, Human resource management, 4th edn, John Wiley & Sons, Milton, QLD.

Ulrich, D 1991, Using human resources for competitive advantage, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, CA.

Wright, P and McMahan, G 1992, ‘Theoretical perspectives for strategic human resource management’, Journal of Management, vol. 18, no. 295, pp. 1-16.

Summary

This paper looks at the human resource management strategies adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the various competing organizational pressures. It also looks at the organizational, sectoral, national and international contexts that affect the Human Resource Management policies and practices of the organization.

Introduction

The World Health Organization (WHO), which was developed in 1948, is an organization within the United Nations that coordinates on the various aspects of public health across the world. Its headquarters are situated at Geneva, Switzerland. WHO took over from the Health Organization which was in the League of Nations. The main mandate of the World Health Organization is to ensure that all people are as healthy as possible.

It therefore does this by controlling some of the diseases that are easily infected and they include malaria, TB and H.I.V/AIDS and come up with other programs that actually treat or provide preventive measures against those diseases. Preventive measures include use of vaccines whose effectiveness has been guaranteed. Use of condoms has also been encouraged by the organization so as to prevent the deadly HIV/AIDS.

WHO is well known for its success in the complete eradication of the smallpox in 1980. Polio is currently in its list and is to be eradicated in the coming few years. The World Health Organization employs and encourages its Members to use evidence-based strategies such as the use of data collection in health surveys in there health policy structure.

The WHO normally prints out the World Health Report that provide information on some of the issues to do with health globally. The organisation has also developed strategies to assess the capacity of the systems and the workers so as to ensure that it meets goals of attaining good health for the nations.

WHO is also involved in conducting campaigns that may help raise awareness of some of the health hazards such as the smoking of cigarettes that contain tobacco which pose threat to human health. It also encourages the consumption of certain foods such as vegetables and fruits which promote health. World Health Organization conducts research on health issues and tackles some diseases that are of global concern.

It has also developed networks that ensure that information on research done on health issues can be accessed in the third world countries. The organization obtains its funds from contributions from local governments, Non-organizational organizations and private sectors of its members and through donations. The WHO has developed partnerships with other bodies in doing its work and now has at least eighty partnerships.

The World Health Organization has a personnel policy which is similar to that of other United Nations agencies. Recently, the organization prohibited the recruitment of smokers to be part of staff so as to promote its integrity on having an environment free of tobacco. This principle was also adopted by other one hundred and sixty eight countries in 2003 and actually signed a convention that controlled the use of tobacco.

Methodology

This paper will use the World Health Organization (WHO) as a case study and its human resource strategies and policies will be looked at critically so as to analyze the various components of human resource management policy and practice which include recruitment and selection of staff, training, Human Resource Development, employment relations, employee participation and rewarding systems.

The various challenges faced will be looked at and recommendations will be made. Secondary sources of data collection will be used and will include books and internet information about the organization in question.

WHO’s HR strategies and policies

At the moment, the World Health Organization has estimated the number of the total health workers to hit the 59.2 million. Two thirds of the estimated number constitutes those that provide health services and the rest are management and subordinate staff (World Health Report, 2006). It has been identified that problems that face the health sector revolve around politics and the culture of a given country.

The economic status and the type of health systems employed also may cause problems in the health sector. In order to combat these problems, various factors can be considered. Inputting funds in the sector can help tackle some issues. Changing the training programs can also work towards solving some of the problems faced in the health sector.

Improving data accessibility and the working conditions in the sector can be huge change effectors. The above factors are however not directly controlled by the Human Resource for Health (HRH) policy makers.

It has therefore been hypothesised that, for countries to implement their Human Resource for health policies, it must make its strategies to be compatible with the reforms of that country and also to utilize processes based on sound data in making of policies.

The Global Health Workforce Strategy Group (GHWSG) was initiated by the World Health Organization in 2000. It was established so as to assist in the job of bettering the performance of the health workers. The various groups made discussions via videoconferencing.

The workshop attended by the GHWSG was aimed at informing other stakeholders and ensure their full participation in finding the important areas that would make-better the HRH policy. The Global Health Workforce Strategy workshop was a big step in the attempt to curtail the human resource issues faced globally and ensuring sustainability in human resource for health.

The issues to do with health workers and human resource for health are among the most challenging areas to change in especially for countries that are aiming at improving the health sector and its systems. WHO came up with certain strategies to aid in sustainability in human resource for health.

This includes developing ways of performing impact assessment for the human resource and induces human resource activities in other parts of the policy. This involves the incorporation of mechanisms that aid countries in performing impact assessment on the initiatives that are suggested for the health sector that affect the workers.

WHO advocates for the developing of competent staff through encouraging further training and education. This involves the use of experts in the field to integrate and apply necessary knowledge mechanisms.

WHO also advocates for human resource and encourages for networks to be created by raising the awareness among its stakeholders. One way in which this is done is through the development of web sites that provide the necessary information.

HRM policy and practice

The World Health Organization usually recruit workforce on either permanent terms or temporarily by offering contracts and are put into two broad categories; either General Service staff and professionals abbreviated as G and P respectively.

The professional workers are obtained internationally and hold senior management positions. They are therefore required to have high levels of training and expertise. The professionals are required to be flexible in terms of their working environments since they can be deployed for service at any part of the globe.

The general service staff (G) however are recruited locally and placed at respective stations where they are expected to work. Their main work is that of assisting the professional staff so as to ensure that there is smooth running of the activities.

National Professional Officers work in their come from and do their job in a professional manner. They are required to work in the country of origin since they require knowledge and experience of their country.

One of the requirements for one to qualify for the professional position at the WHO includes having a degree from the university and having pursued a postgraduate course that is management or health-related.

Some relevant amount of experience in the area is required at global level. The candidate must possess knowledge on policy issues and public health. Another additional requirement is the proficiency in a second language apart from English.

The WHO observes certain principles during recruitment and this includes maintaining diversity of staff in the organization and obtaining representatives in each member state. Only qualified staff is recruited and gender balance is assured. Some restrictions are however observed during recruitment and this includes age restrictions. People of the ages below 20 and 62 do not qualify for recruitment.

The policy against smokers disqualifies tobacco smokers in the recruitment process. WHO considers tobacco as a killer and takes away approximately 5 million people per year while this many cases of death are very preventable. As for members of staff who smoke, WHO encourages them to quit and provide them with assistance on how to quit.

The organization has developed several strategies to increase awareness about the organization and the employment opportunities available there so as to attract potential workforce from all over the world. Another method employed is the use of the missions in Geneva to look for potential candidate from various institutions and other organizations that participate in health-related stuff.

Another strategy yet is the use of e-mails in disseminating of the information. The WHO sent e-mails to its collaborators so as locate its potential candidates.

The WHO is involved in conducting quality assessments and quality assurance so as to ensure that the members of staff are competent and provide quality service to the organization. Assessment is done on individuals and groups so as to check for team work. Quality assessment is essential so as to attain quality assurance by an organization (Bandaranayake, 2000).

A World Health Organization report on activities done in South-East Asia to check on quality of its services on blood transfusion showed that they were at various levels in development when compared with other states. Thailand, for example is ISO certified due to its excellent systems.

Some countries do not attain this level of quality assurance despite having good infrastructure in form of qualified personnel, quality and funds. This is mainly because of the lack of full support of the government in the sector and many changes that occur in the government (Bandaranayake, 2000).

The World Health Organization however acknowledges that there are factors beyond control that prevent assurance of quality service by the country and these includes factors such as climate change, factors that impede communication, infrastructure and political influence. In an attempt to explain this, a report on the laboratory services at Maldives was considered.

One of the reasons that were identified as the reasons for the low quality of service were the difficulties faced during the transportation process. Another reason was the fact that some of the slides and reagents that were being used for the laboratory activities had actually expired.

The WHO uses staff appraisal as part of its practices so as to ensure achievement of its goals and objectives. It has however been argued that staff appraisal has more effect on staff behaviour than the organization’s performance (Martinez, 2000).

For a long time, appraisal of staff had only to do with relationship between a manager (head) and the individual being appraised and therefore the individual hardly ever knew of it as it was kept from him.

As much as it is advisable to maintain interactions at personal levels, it doesn’t necessarily mean that there will be incorporation between the person and the goals of the organization. The World Health Organization supports and encourages the use of teamwork in the performance of its activities.

The WHO ensures staff development through offering rewards to its workers both at individual and team levels. It has been proven that rewards contribute greatly in the performance of an organization and there are cases recorded where there was no evidence of enhancement of performance until a form of reward system was adopted (Martinez, 2000).

Many writers have however argued out that a integration of a number of incentives-both positive and negative-to either commend a staff member for impressive performance or to punish and discourage staff that perform poorly.

Several studies have specifically looked at the relationship that exists between human resources and the reforms that have been developed concerning health. Most have just looked at the way the reforms have changed the mode of interaction among health workforce within the place of work but only a small number of the researchers have actually looked at how the workers themselves affect the reforms.

These reforms have changed various important aspects of the health workers. These changes include the level of decentralization of areas of management, the working conditions, the level of skills needed for one to be recruited and the issues to do with incentives and payments.

The health workers have now on many occasions presented their ideas and have had their voices heard and therefore have had the opportunity to air their views on the various aspects of management (Dussault and Rigoli, 2003).

This evidences show the extent to which the workforce in the health sector-whether as individually or as a collection-have had in the changing of the reforms and therefore ensuring success in the participation of the staff (staff involvement). This provides a tool that can be used to predict the way in which the workforce can react to emerging issues to do with reforms.

Competing organizational pressures

Some of the challenges facing the World Health Organization in its mandate of promoting health throughout the globe include the acute shortage of trained health workers. This shortage has been caused due to various factors which include the moving out of people to other developed countries hence reducing their numbers.

The other reason include the under production of the workers in the health sector and the difficulty in paying high salaries and allowances to health workers and hence the difficulty in sustaining them in the respective countries. Some factors that are unavoidable such as illness and death of staff also contribute the acute shortage of the workers (Brito and Novick, 2000).

O’Neil (2008) confirmed that the major deficiency in all health systems is the presence of Human Resource managers and qualified specialists who can stand in the way of the challenges that face the health sector. Some managers and leadership figures in the health sector have complained of being forced to comply with some dictatorial rules laid by the civil service that impede their performance.

The presence of self-centred and disunified Human resource management systems and the inappropriate utilization of the health workforce is also a great challenge that faces WHO. Managers in many states acknowledge that the leadership force to combat these issues are lacking.

Human resource management systems in the health sector are not usually centralized and the different authorities in charge of planning, incentive, promotions and the other human resource activities being assigned to different ministries in stead of a single body. Another challenge facing the WHO is the difficulty in securing equal job opportunities in the health sector for women.

There is also a difficulty in motivating staff and ensuring high performance in the health sector through the utilization of incentives that involve pay or non-pay strategies. This includes providing opportunities for further learning to its staff and also opportunities to further develop their careers (WHO, 2000).

Conclusion

The world Health Organization is an important organization because of its task of ensuring that there is almost perfect health for all the people within its member countries.

It has been known to uphold its integrity in its policies and has been on the race in the attempt to raise awareness on such dangers as the use of tobacco cigarettes which is a killer and has claimed millions of lives. By ensuring a tobacco free environment, the WHO passes a strong message against the use of tobacco and in the process raise awareness on its dangers.

The WHO adopts transparency in its method of recruiting staff and in the process maintains highly skilled staff members that ensure that the goals and objectives of the organization are obtained.

The process of advertising for vacant posts within the organization ensures that many different states are alerted and the most qualified potential candidates only are given the opportunity to show their competence and skills. In this way it displays its corruption free nature and wins the trust of many who are looking forward to working for the organization or considering it the first choice when it comes to health issues.

Since the World Health organization recruits both male and female candidates in organization, it promotes equity and help to shape the mentality and the perception that women are less useful to the society and in the process acts as a role model to the many organizations that have not been able to attain this level of equity in the selection of staff.

This also helps promote the girl-child education especially in the third world (developing) countries. The world Health organization also appreciates its well performing staff by offering rewards and therefore motivates them and provides a good working environment and working conditions with its staff.

The offering of disincentives to the poorer performing staff also helps them realize their weaknesses and through the help of management and other leaders in the organization, they would be able to rectify their misdeeds and ensure a bright future for the organization and its staff.

This also helps in establishing good relationships between the management and the staff and therefore creating a good environment for the workers and in the long run lead to the overall success of the organization.

Recommendations

Since the World Health organization faces some challenges which include having deficiencies in staff numbers due to insufficient salaries and allowances offered to them by their countries, I would recommend that the WHO should partner with its other member states and form a baseline to which all staff occupying the same position in the organization should the same amount of pay irrespective to the country the person is working for.

Since some management figures in the health sector complain of being influenced negatively by political influence and being forced to comply with some law requirements that are set by the civil service, I would recommend that the WHO be made to be an independent body so that it can function independently from the political bodies within the country and therefore attain its goals and objectives much easily.

Human resource management systems in the health sector should centralized so that all activities are run by one centralized body instead of many group of bodies that may limit of success of the WHO.

So as to combat the problem of shortage of trained staff, the WHO should set aside more of its funds on training staff rather than spending a lot of its funds of purchasing medicines that are to be administered to people and yet there are no people to administer it.

References

Bandaranayake, D. (2001) Assessing performance management of human resources for health in South-East Asian countries. Aspects of quality and outcome. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/hrh/en/Assessing_performance.pdf

Black, C. (2011) WHO Employment: Who We need. World Health Organisation. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/careers/en/

Brito, G. and Novick, M. (2000) Labour relations, employment conditions and participation in the health sector. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/hrh/documents/en/Labour_relations.pdf

Dussault, G. and Rigoli, F. (2003) The interface between health sector reform and human resources in health. [online]. Available from https://human-resources-health.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1478-4491-1-9 .

Martinez, J. (2001) Assessing quality, outcome and performance management. London, The Institute for Health Sector Development.

O’Neil, L. M. (2008) Human resource leadership: the key to improved results in health. Cambridge, Human resource for health.

WHO (2000) Workshop on global health workforce strategy. Web.