Human resource management in organization mainly focuses on the matters related to employees such as recruiting, managing, and directing the people who work within the organization. Human Resource management mainly deals with the issues related to compensation, performance of the management, development of organization, safety of employees, employment rights, wellness, benefits, employee motivation, training and others. In other words, HRM department play strategic role in managing the people and also the workplace culture and environment (Guest, 1999; Wright & McMahan, 2011). If HRM departments work effectively then it greatly contributes to the success of the company.
This paper discusses the people management issues faced by the GTR, how GTR can implement a sustainable HR planning, development activity which must be employed by GTR, and provisions related to employment legislation. Lastly, paper is concluded with brief conclusion which also contains the recommendations for the GTR.
GTR facing various issues related to employees management, but two most severe issues faced by GTR are stated below and this section also state that how HR department can proactively manage that issue:
Pay Roll Issue: responsibility related to payroll system falls between the remits of the account and human resource department, and this department commonly face the issues of accurate payment to the staff. It is the duty of organization to maintain the satisfaction level of employees related to their wages and remuneration. GTR is facing the issue related to wages and because of this issue employees can even opt for strike. This will adversely affect the profit as well as reputation of the company.
For the purpose of maintaining the morale and prevent the future problems related to payroll, it is necessary that HR department must consider following things while dealing with the issues:
Growing burden of Work: Another issue faced by organization, while managing the people at workplace is maintaining the work life balance of employees in the organization. Excess workload is the issue which is faced by the employees and it makes the situation worst in this economic challenging environment. GTR is also facing this issue by introducing the scheme of DOO and train drivers are not ready to opt for this scheme, as they argued it will cause disruption in their work life balance.
Work life balance is considered as an approach which ensures that time of the employees must be efficiently split between the work and other important aspects of their lives. HR department can resolve this issue effectively by suing following methods:
There are number of definitions of sustainability and many experts define the role of human resource department in achieving the sustainability. Business which is sustainable is ready to face the challenges coming in future and it also deals effectively with the internal issues faced by the organization. It cannot be considered as practice which is related to risk management, but it is considered as an approach which helps in managing the employees, products, and process of the organization. Organization which ensures sustainability approach easily adopt the changes occurred in external and internal environment. Sustainable HR planning ensures quick adaptation of changes and also helps in resolving organizational issues (CreativeHRM, n.d.).
For the purpose of ensuring the continuous growth it is necessary to frame effective sustainable HR planning process in the organization. It is also necessary that HR department redesign its plans and policies on continuous basis, especially those policies which are related to performance management, training and development, rewards and recognition, payroll policies, and selection process.
The main aims of HR planning process is to ensure that policies and procedures designed by HR department is to ensure sustainability in organization and second purpose is to ensure that factors which are related to sustainability are introduced in the competencies of both individual and organization, teams, and plans and goals of department (Schroeder, 2012).
There is strong evidence which states that implementation of effective sustainable HR planning process significantly affect the motivation level of employees and development and retaining of staff. This can be understood through example, Novo Nordisk, a high-value CSR pharmaceutical company situated in Denmark include their values in action program which aligns their business objectives with the principles of sustainable development and this result in reduction in turnover of staff by 5%. International study related to practitioners of Human resource is conducted by Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) shows that CSR practices are very important employee morale (50%), loyalty (41%), retention (29%), recruitment of top employees (25%) and productivity (12%) (SHRM, 2007).
Compensation and management program is the important tool of strategic HR planning and it is the central to the HR function. In this program HR must ensure that accurate performance standards and expectations are set, and must monitor the results related to performance objectives. GTR can adopt this program and introduced this in organization for the purpose of resolving payroll disputes with the train drivers. This program includes the policies and procedures related to total reward and recognition program which includes the base salary, pay related to incentive, long term incentives, and other monetary and non-monetary recognition benefits. Such practices must be aligned with the CSR values and strategy of organization.
Other tool which can be used by the human resource practitioners is changes made in corporate culture, management process, and team building. These changes must be done on time to time basis as per the changes occurred in external environment (Government of Canada, 2009; Weinreb, 2012).
It must be noted that even one underperforming employee of the company can result in short falling of company’s potential. Therefore, it is the priority of HR department in organization to identify the underperformance of employees and reason behind that underperformance, but improving the performance of employees is not an easy task. Number of activities is present which help in improving the performance of employees. This section states the development activity through which GTR can increase the performance of their employees.
It is necessary to identify the reason because of which employees are underperforming, as sometimes the problem would be lack of resources or may be employees are not properly trained. However, it might be possible outside factors are also influencing the employees and distracting them from their work. It might be possible that interest of the employee conflict with the goals of the company or lack of motivation. No matter, what the reason is it is necessary to find the issue for solving it. For the purpose of identifying the reason, it is necessary that management clearly communicate with the employees. Mangers must make it easy for underperforming employee to communicate the barriers which result in underperformance, so that manager and HR department can remove those barriers. If manger clearly and openly communicates with the employee then it will also encourage the team to communicate every issue and concentrate on their work. Clear and effective communication is the key which helps in improving the relationship between employees and organization. In case of GTR, there is lack of clear and effective communication between the trade unions and management which lead to strike in the organization nad such adverse effect on GTR operations.
Effective communication also leads in positive work environment because employees are intimidated with the superiors and share their problems with them. It helps in creating the work culture under which employees can share their ideas, issues, and opinions with their superiors because of which it becomes easy to solve the issues at initial level. Providing positive environment for employees in the organization helps in achieving the goals of the organization (Smither, London & Reilly, 2005).
Other important tool which enhances the performance of the employee is the effective training and development programs. From start, it is necessary to provide proper training to the employees as it informs the employees about their actions and how efficiently they can perform their actions. Once the process of training and development program is completed then it helps the employees in contributing their best performance and unique ideas for the success of the organization. However, it is important for HR department to ensure that training and development program is not the onetime thing, which means training must be provided on time to time basis for adopting the changes occurred in external and internal environment. It must be noted that, ongoing training is the only way through which performance of the employees can be improved on continuous basis (HR bartender, 2016).
Workers in UK aged 16 years or over the age of 16 years are legally entitled to a national minimum hourly wage, and such wage does not depend on the location of the work, size of the business, and occupation of the worker. It also includes the casual laborers, agency workers, home workers, etc. The minimum age of worker in UK is depends on the age of the worker and apprenticeship. Minimum wages of workers in UK are set in the National Minimum Wage Act 1988, and workers has right to receive a minimum gross hourly wage. Rates set by Act are usually increased on annual basis and these rates are set on the basis of recommendations of the Low Pay Commission. Currently minimum wage rate for workers in UK are £7.50 per hour for workers aged over 25, £7.05 per hour for workers aged 21 to 24 and £5.60 per hour for workers aged 18 to 20.
All the employees of the organization have right to get paid for the work they have done, and they also has right to get the pay if they are willing to work but their employer is not able to provide work to them, unless contract signed by worker contain any other provisions. The ways through which wages of the employees are paid completely depend on the employment contract provisions signed by the employee. Therefore, it is necessary that employment contract signed by worker must state the rate of remuneration and method of calculation (McGrath & Clark, n.d.).
Maximum working hours are stated by the Working Time Regulations 1998, and as per this Act employers must consider all the reasonable steps for the purpose of ensuring that workers of the organization must not work more than an average of 48 hours in each week. This average is taken over a reference period of 17 weeks (which is extended to 26 weeks for certain workers). It is the duty of employer to maintain the records for the period of two years.
Other provision related to maximum working hours is Opt-out agreements, and as per this agreement workers can opt out of the weekly limit of 48 hours by signing the agreement. This agreement gives right to the worker to terminate the same by giving notice for 3 months. This agreement must be entered into voluntarily and it is not lawful to victimize or dismiss a worker for not signing the agreement (Rusell, n.d.).
Conclusion:
After considering the above facts, it is clear that effective working of human resource department is very necessary for managing the people. It is the only department which play strategic role in managing the people and also the workplace culture and environment. Issues faced by GTR can be considered as clear failure of the HR department in managing the employees and resolve the issues. As sated above, underperforming employee of the company can result in short falling of company’s potential. Therefore, it is the priority of HR department in organization to identify the underperformance of employees and reason behind that underperformance.
It is recommended to GTR that they must establish effective communication system in their organization which helps the organization in creating positive environment and solve the issue faced by employees at initial stage in the organization. For solving these issues GTR can introduce Compensation and management program, which is considered as important tool of strategic HR planning and it is the central to the HR function. GTR can also introduce various training and development programs.
References:
Clark, K. & McGrath, P. Employment and employee benefits in UK (England and Wales): overview. Available at: https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/7-503-4973?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Creative HRM. HR Goals and Objectives: Sustainable Business and Organization. Available at: https://www.creativehrm.com/hr-gos-sustainability.html. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Government of Canada, (2009). Human Resources for Sustainability. Available at: https://www.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/csr-rse.nsf/eng/h_rs00552.html#step6. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Guest, D. (1999). Human resource management – the workers’ verdict. Human resource management Journal, Volume 9 (3), Pp 5–25.
Heathfield, S. (2016). Work-Life Balance. Available at: https://www.thebalance.com/work-life-balance-1918292. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
HR bartender, (2016). 10 Activities that Encourage Employees to Take the Lead in Their Development. Available at: https://www.hrbartender.com/2016/career-development/10-activities-encourage-employee-development/. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
National Minimum Wage Act, 1998
Ruhland, T. (2015). 5 Common Problems With Payroll Management. Available at: https://blog.accuchex.com/5-common-problems-with-payroll-management. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Rusell, T. A guide to uk employment law. Available at: https://www.tim-russell.co.uk/upimages/employment%20guide.pdf. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Schroeder, H. (2012). The Importance of Human Resource Management in Strategic Sustainability: An Art and Science Perspective. Journal of Environmental Sustainability, Volume 2 (2), Pp- 75-81.
Smither, J. London, M. & Reilly, R. (2005). Does performance improve following multisource feedback? A theoretical model, meta-analysis, and review of empirical findings. Journal of Personnel psychology, Volume 58 (1), Pp 33–66.
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2007). 2007 Corporate Social Responsibility: United States, Australia, India, China, Canada, Mexico and Brazil: A Pilot Study. Virginia, US: Author.
Weinreb, E. (2012). When sustainability meets human resources. Available at: https://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/07/22/when-sustainability-meets-human-resources. Accessed on 2nd November 2017.
Working Time Regulations 1998.
Wright, P. & McMahan, G. (2011). Exploring human capital: putting ‘human’ back into strategic human resource management. Human resource management Journal, Volume 21 (2), Pp 93-
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