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Abstract
The paper covers four employee policies formulated from four emerging issues in the field of human resource management. These emerging issues that are mentioned are health and safety, equality and diversity, recruitment and selection along with non-discrimination and anti-harassment. The paper covers the reasons as to why various managers have been failing to manage their firms.
The reasons as to why the policies on the issues must be included in an employee handbook have been covered with special emphasis on the negative impacts of these issues to an organization. The paper also examines some of the governmental laws that emphasized on the implementation of these policies within an organizational setting.
Research Paper
Several companies in different nations around the globe have failed continuously to attain their set goals, visions, and objectives. This has necessitated the investigation of emerging issues in the Human Resource Management sector in order to fix the weaknesses affecting most organizations.
There has also been a need to give the advantages of creating certain policies that prohibit individuals from going against the accepted codes of conduct for the set goals to be attained.
Among the emerging issues, this paper will concentrate on health and safety, equality and diversity, recruitment and selection along with nondiscrimination and anti harassment. The paper will also explore the relevance of formulating policies on these issues along with governmental laws that support the policies (Barrett, 2006).
In the recent past, most firms have failed to attain their set goals and objectives due to the fact they have lost their highly skilled personnel through death among other fatalities. The accidents on the employees of a certain firm may happen either from within the firm or outside. Furthermore, the living environments for such workers are usually poor to an extent that they are affected health wise.
The health and safety of a work force also affect the processes taking place within a firm thus there will be no consistency. When there is lack of a safety and health policy, the chances of missing innovation within the firm is also high. In fact, a good working environment is in most cases associated with high productivity.
A good working environment can only be created through the implementation of an effective health and safety policy (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2009).
This policy is in line with one of the community strategies of the European Commission which states, health as well as safety is part and parcel of the social and moral obligations of a firm. The policies of a company should not be permanently based on economic parameters.
The workers cannot be in a comfortable environment if they have other problems to attend to such as sufferings, reduction in the status of life, family-related problems, damages, and decrease of life span. The reason as to why the health and safety policy was included in the policy manual was to create a comfortable working environment through various ways so that the set goals and objectives are attained.
First of all, a comfortable workplace will be created through the creation of fewer health and safety risks to provide better chances for rehabilitation. A health and safety performance of various activities will lead to a smaller number of accidents, injuries, and liabilities.
The workers will also be relieved from legal expenses and medical costs. There will also be minimal cases of absenteeism, thus, higher job performance. The provision of safety and health measures through investments, management practices, and training will ensure a safety and healthy workforce.
The other relevant aspect of the implementation of the health and safety policy within the firm is that the workers will be able to fit easily into the working processes. The personnel will also be highly motivated and will have a likelihood of improving on the levels of their skills for the jobs performed. This policy within a firm ensures that the processes and activities taking place are not disrupted.
The health and safety policy is also relevant as it is associated with better performances, efficacy, quality services, and an innovative workforce leading to higher job performance. Furthermore, this makes it easier for the company to attain the set goals and visions. In fact, most researchers have attested that the incorporation of health and safety measures bring about positive impacts on the performance of a firm (Drucker, 1955).
Companies from different nations tend to lose their highly proficient staff due to the fact that there is no equality within their working environment. Managers usually have the mentality of treating their workers unfairly by either rewarding individuals that are not supposed to be rewarded or by favoring others while being strict on others.
In most cases, the rights of the disabled within the working environment are never considered while in other firms; special attention is granted to men while less concentration is put on women. Some companies solely employ their citizens, relatives, or members of royal families. Some firms reward persons from specific ethnic groups while they do not reward individuals from other ethnicities.
The absence of equality and diversity within a firm cannot lead to the attainment of the set goals and objectives. With special regard to this, equality and diversity are a very fundamental issue that needs to be addressed in each and every workplace. The major obligation of any management is usually to ensure that equality and diversity are embraced within the worker’s environment.
The availability of equality usually leads to team work. If individuals within a working environment are offered equal opportunities on the available resources, all the workers will work towards the achievement of the set goals and objectives (Banjoko, 1996).
In order for the set goals and objectives to be attained, all services within the workplace should be made available to all members of staff in spite of their gender, disability, race, age, religion, or belief. Inequality along with lack of diversity is some of the major attested obstacles to a company’s development.
For a firm to attain its set goals and objectives, it should be devoted to eradicating prohibitive inequalities and enhance diversity within the organization’s practices and procedures. Members of staff should be treated equally and with the same interest, attention, courtesy and reverence in spite of their sex, race, religion/belief, disability, age, and caring obligation.
The legal service of London supports the notion of equal payment of workers in the Equal Pay Act of 1970.
This firm has tried to come up with the equality and diversity policy within its employee manual so as to be in accordance with the Sex Discrimination Act 197, the Race Relations Act 1976, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Human Rights Act 1998, the Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favorable Treatment) Regulations 2000, the Fixed-Term Employees (Prevention of Less Favorable Treatment) Regulations 2000, the Employment Equality (Religion or Belief Act) Regulations 2003, and the Employment Equality (Age) Regulations 2006.
All the laws were proposed by the legal service commission of London (Burns, 1978).
In the creation of a comfortable environment for all the employees, there is need to treat all the members of staff equally and fairly without any form of discrimination. The enhancement of equal chance in relation to access to the available materials along with equality in the convening of the needs of the workers will lead to a higher job performance.
Most departments within the companies fail to perform well simply because of a poor recruitment and selection criteria. Most managers tend to allocate workers basing on their physical well-being instead of basing on the knowledge and familiarity of an individual to the task. Workers are usually allocated to departments that they are unwilling or rather unfamiliar with.
When a member of staff performs a job that he is unwilling to do, then the probabilities of producing a good job are nil. The allocation of jobs to workers basing on their relationship with a manager may also have a negative impact on the performance of an organization (Armstrong, 1999).
Recruitment and allocation of members in fields that they are not qualified tends to weaken the performance of that particular sector. If a proper selection criterion is not followed in the allocation of workers to a certain field, then there will be higher chances of another weakness in any other department.
Weak departments that produce poor results will have a negative impact on the general performance of the company. The company may also be defeated by highly competitive firms.
The purpose of creating this policy was to allocate workers in departments that they are familiar with. This is for the purpose of creating a strong workforce in different departments of the firm.
The allocation of workers in sections that they are highly versed with the expected knowledge and skills aids in the provision of a comfortable working environment free from stress. Allocation of workers in different fields basing on the best selection criteria will make the company to have a higher propensity of achieving the set goals and objectives (Mintzberg, 1973).
The policy was also created to shun away from assumptions that a woman can do well in certain departments while a man does well in other departments. The members of staff should be allocated in different sections basing on their skills, aptitudes, talent, and know how.
The policy was also developed in order to conform to the requirements of the Sex Discrimination Acts 1975 and 1986, Race Relations Act 1976 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Human Rights Act 1998 of the United Kingdom. The policy was also developed to shun away from future challenges that may arise from the damages caused by allocation of an untrained staff in a certain field.
The relevance of including this policy in the employee’s manual was to avoid wastage of time by an employee in attending to a task that he/she has never done before. Apart from spending a lot of time in performing the task, the worker may also produce a shoddy job leading to a poor job performance. This may make it difficult for the firm to attain its set visions, goals, and objectives.
The policy will ensure that the shortest time possible is taken in performing a certain task. The policy will also aid in minimizing the burdens on other highly experienced workers in other fields that they have not been allocated to. In the absence of the policy, workers may experience the burdens of being allocated departments that they are not familiar with (Bass, 1985).
This firm regards employees as its indispensable assets. They are therefore worth shielding from perils like harassment and discrimination. In most cases, organizations that allow harassment and discrimination at the work places are always at risk. The policy is raised to prevent employees from engaging in such activities that may harm other professional leading to poor job performance (Guest, 1991).
Individuals within the working environment may create hazards by subjecting their colleagues to unlawful activities for instance harassment of workers by their colleagues. As a matter of fact, this has been a major growing liability trend in human resource.
If the employees, who are the major contributors of success within the organizations, are harassed, then the set goals, objectives, and visions will not be attained. To protect professionals from such activities, certain strategies must be put in place to guide the behavior of the members of staff (Weisinger, 1998).
Discrimination and harassment within an individual’s working environment can cause injuries to employees. This behavior also promotes poor morale among the workers and reduces the levels of productivity. The concerned organization may also be exposed to expensive litigation losses. Some of the losses may be in terms of larger amounts of money, time, and energy as well as highly trained members of staff.
This necessitates prompt implementation of the non discrimination and anti harassment policy. The policies that prohibit discrimination and harassment were also developed to conform to the standards of two imperative federal antidiscrimination laws. These laws are the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA).
These policies are usually aimed at being hired, receiving compensations, upholding a job, obtaining training, getting a job promotion and receiving equal opportunities in different working situations. Most of the laws from different nations outlaw discrimination and harassment on the basis of age, sex, racism among other aspects.
Other federal as well as state laws outlaw sexual harassment. This is in most cases very expensive to an organization. This is due to the fact that there is reduced productivity and morale, wastage of time, high medical expenses, officially authorized fees along with liabilities.
According to Luthans, harassment through the creation of hostile environments includes “unwelcome sexual advances, requests for sexual favors, job-related threats for rejecting sexual advances, and other verbal or physical conduct of a sexual nature that has the purpose or effect of unreasonably interfering with an individual’s work performance” (Luthans, 1998).
Either form of harassment where men harass women and women harass men is costly to a company. Due to the fact that discrimination and harassment are expensive to a company, there is a need for measures to prevent such perils and wrongdoing.
The inclusion of the policy of anti discrimination and non harassment of the employee’s manual will act as a guiding material regarding the behavior of the workers to avoid causing harm on their colleagues (Burns, 1978).
Conclusively, all the issues that may affect the performance of an organization should be addressed in order to enhance a good working environment for the set goals and objectives to be attained.
The formulation of policies to be followed by the employees should be effected in organizations that are aimed at achieving their visions. Formulated policies ought to be strictly implemented by the employees for the visions to be met. Disciplinary measures should also be formulated to ensure that individuals who break the set policies are attended to accordingly.
List of References
Armstrong, M. (1999). Human resources management practice. London: Kogan Page.
Banjoko, S.A. (1996) Human resource management. Lagos: Saban Publishers.
Barrett, D.J. (2006). Leadership communication. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Bass, B.M., (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectation. New York: Free Press.
Burns, J.M. (1978). Leadership. New York: Harper and Row.
Drucker, P. (1955). The practice of management. Portsmouth, UK: Heinemann.
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2009). Managing human resources. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Guest, E.A. (1991). Human resource management. London: McGraw-Hill.
Luthans, F. (1998). Organizational behavior. Boston: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
Mintzberg, H. (1973). The nature of managerial work. New York: Harper & Row.
Weisinger, H. (1998). Emotional intelligence at work. San Francisco: Jossey Bass.
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