The Role of HR Practitioners in modern organisations



UNIVERSITY OF PORTSMOUTH BUSINESS SCHOOLThe Role of HR Practitioners in modern organisations Olabisi Johnson This report attempts to critically evaluate the service provision role of the HR practitioner in a modern organisation; with emphasis on recruitment and selection and reward management. It also explores Coca-Cola as a practical example.Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u Introduction PAGEREF _Toc377040332 \h 2Roles of HR practitioners PAGEREF _Toc377040333 \h 2Service provision roles PAGEREF _Toc377040334 \h 3Recruitment and Selection PAGEREF _Toc377040335 \h 3Rewards Management PAGEREF _Toc377040336 \h 4Example – Coca Cola PAGEREF _Toc377040337 \h 5Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc377040338 \h 6REFERENCES PAGEREF _Toc377040339 \h 7IntroductionThe aim of this report is to critically evaluate the role of an HR practitioner in modern organisations and illustrate with Coca-Cola Company. The core text used is Armstrong’s handbook on human resource management practice (2009) with focus on service delivery roles and emphasis would be on recruitment and selection, and reward management. Human resource management in an organisation is a strategic, integrated and coherent approach to the employment, development and well-being of the people working in organisations hence an HR practitioner sees to the development and well-being of people working in an organisation, and ensures that an organisation achieves success through these people (Armstrong, 2009). Strategic Human resource management is an approach to managing people that deal with how the organisation’s target are attained through the human resources by means of integrated HR strategies, policies and practices (Armstrong, 2011).Roles of HR practitionersAccording to Armstrong (2009), the basic role of an HR practitioner depends solely on the need of the organisation and the extent within which they can work. The HR practitioner could take on basic roles like Pro-active roles; which means they could act like business partners, develop integrated HR strategies, get involved, innovate, and work as internal consultants. They generally maintain the core values, standards and they consistently strive to achieve the goals and improve organisational performance.Another basic role is the Reactive roles; when the HR practitioner responds to instructions from top management in order to increase organisational performance. Sometimes, reactive roles done by HR practitioners are unfavorable to organisations as being told what to do might not be the percised strategy to administer to the organisation. HR practitioners should be trusted with their judgment to implement policies to help improve organisational performance.Other roles include; Business partner roles; which means that HR practitioners work alongside line managers, to intervene in implementing business strategies and the running of the business.Strategic roles shows that HR practitioners help create, execute and contribute to the development of business strategies.Change agent role explains the HR practitioner as change agents, they clear the way for change in an organisation by giving advice and provide support to the management of the organisation.Internal consultancy role shows HR practitioners as persons who examine problems, identify issues, and proffer solutions.Guardian of values roles explain HR practitioners represent guardians towards an organisation’s values and ethical standards concerning people. Service provision role is providing services to internal customers (line managers, team leaders and employees). It covers all aspects of HRM which includes; recruitment and selection, training and development, managing diversity, performance management, reward management and health and safety. Service provision rolesAccording to Caldwell (2003), an HR practitioner is a service provider who is summoned in by line managers to provide certain HR assistance and support as required or requested. A line manager is one whom the employees or teams directly report to and has responsibility to a higher level of management for these employees or teams (CIPD, 2012). Service provision role aims to proffer productive services that satisfy the need of the business, management and employees, and to administer them competently (Armstrong, 2009). It is used by most HR practitioners in most organisations as it deals with maintenance of organisational infrastructure for “managing the flow of employees” (Ulrich 1997, p.27), throughout the various stages of a project’s life cycle. The service provision involves two internal clients’– management and employees who could have conflicting needs with resultant conflict and lack of this role can have a noticeable effect on staff morale (Welch & Welch, 2012). When there is quality service provision, HR practitioners may be able to attain more competence and impact in their organisations and increase their opportunities to be involved in strategic decision making thereby allowing them to take up strategic roles in the organisation (Uen et al, 2012).Recruitment and Selection Recruitment is the attraction of competent applicants to a vacancy while Selection is the evaluation and identification of the suitability of such job seeker. It has a noticeable impact on organisation’s future effectiveness and productivity (Collings & Wood, 2009). HR practitioners ensure that organisations have the necessary human competence, knowledge and potentials to enable organisations proceed into the future. The significant emphasis is acquiring the precise individual for a particular position (Kramar & Syed, 2012).Tools used by HR practitioners are; media and the internet, word of mouth, interview, cognitive ability tests, personality tests, work sample, integrity test and many more (Collings & Wood, 2009).The role in recruitment and selection is to correctly advertise the job (proper definition of requirements) to attract those with suitable capabilities. They determine the most effective procedure for recruiting applicants in order to suit organisation’s needs, and then categorize applications either manually or on the computer. They coordinate the first rejection of applicants who do not fulfill the job’s demand afterwards send the rest for further evaluation by the line managers. Following the line managers’ review, orders will be given to the HR practitioner to interview chosen applicants; this is where the selection process comes in. They are obliged to understand the line managers’ desires in order to filtrate the list of possible applicants. Additionally, they plan meetings for applicants who appear “suitable” to meet the line managers for another interview. They do not make hiring decisions but work alongside line management to affect good hiring decisions in accordance to organisation’s workforce needs. Once Line managers choose their applicants, HR practitioners’ role is to deliver the job offer and conduct the routine paperwork related to hiring an employee (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2005).A major issue is that line managers are taking up more HR roles in organisation. In the future, it might affect HR practitioners and the management may not see the need for HR practitioners in the organisation and leave everything to the hands of the line manager. Also, small and young organisations do not see the need to have HR practitioners to recruit or select employees in the organisation as they would be cost effective in the first years of running the business and trying to keep the company out of debt or difficulty. However, HR practitioners are important as they help with analyzing and describing job required, attracting applicants, managing the selection process and choosing the right employee suitable for the job required (CIPD, 2013).Another issue about recruitment and selection is there could be cheating with the use of the internet when applicants are attempting to apply for a job. Although HR practitioners have found the use of the internet to be cost effective with high administration across wider geographical areas, applicants seeking job positions could do everything in their power to get the position advertised by the organisation. This might be a barrier in getting the right applicant due to applicants cheating online (Collings & Robbins, 2009). Rewards ManagementReward management is related with establishment and application of strategies suitable for rewarding people reasonably, persistently in conformity with their effectiveness to organisations (Armstrong, 2009). Rewards could be extrinsic (financial, developmental, social) rewards or intrinsic rewards (Kramar & Syed, 2012).The purpose of reward management is to attract the right people at the right time for the right job, to maintain the best people by fulfilling their work related needs, to improve the obliged workforce capabilities and motivate employees to contribute to the best of their abilities (Kramar & Syed, 2012).The role here is to analyze job positions with detailed investigations appropriate to determine job worth to company. They determine the job worth through internal and external factors, skills, job responsibility, effort and accountability. They put together benefits bundle that satisfy the employees’ needs, they also ensure it is cost effective to the organisation. This can be done by searching for lower-cost producers like health or worker’s indemnity and simultaneously, retaining and enhancing high quality employees. Subsequently, HR practitioners work as resource information officer to employees concerning their benefits; which may include assisting employees prepare for retirement, updating them about tax laws changes, searching for different pay-out options and many more (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2005). They also prepare information for the salary budgets; give attention to pay on performance, salary benchmarks. They also make sure they adhere to corporate guidelines on salary modification (coordination of increase in salary) and promotions of staff (Goyal, 2013).An issue on reward management is increased costs for organisations, supplying bonuses or benefits to employees’ increases business costs. Money is used to fund rewards and these cuts into organisation’s dividend which may become conspicuous expense if rewards are given to many employees or at several periods during the year.Also, if the gifts given are performance-based, employees who did not get a reward may have less motivation to get work done, as their work quality was judged to not be good enough; this effect can be made worse. Likewise, rewards given solely at precise times of the year may make employees feel the only time their performance is of significance is exactly in anticipation to when the rewards are given out.Example – Coca Cola Coca-Cola is a manufacturer, distributor and marketer of non-alcoholic beverages, concentrates, syrups and still beverages. The company owns more than 500 brands including diet and light beverages, waters, juice, tea, coffee, energy drinks. It operates in 200 countries with the headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia and employed 139,600 people as of December 2011 (Datamonitor, 2011).Coca-Cola HR practitioners take up roles in Business partnering, talent acquisition, talent and development, compensation and benefits, mobility, employee relations, workplace and Support Services (Coca-Cola, 2010). For this report, the focus would be on talent acquisition and compensation and benefits.Talent acquisition is a role of an HR practitioner involving the process of finding, acquiring, accessing and hiring skilled human labor for organisational needs and to meet any labor requirement (Recruiter, 2013). It is explained as recruitment and selection above. Job advertisements are placed in newspapers, company website, institutions to invite and attract applicants, when applications are received; selection is done by interviews, group exercises, presentations, psychometric tests, role plays (Khurana, 2011).Compensation and benefits is explained above as rewards management. Coca Cola HR team believes that making investment in their staff would drive sustainable growth for their company and so they see to it that the pay is competitive for attracting and retaining most talented staff, incentives are structured in a way that top performers are rewarded. Company cars, mobile phones, laptops, private health insurance, financial planning, free internet at home and holidays are benefit schemes that can be gotten by staff depending on their positions or grade (Coca-Cola, 2014).Conclusion HR practitioners are important personnel in an organisation as they help to coordinate the employees and address effective management of people in order to maintain competitive advantage in organisations. According to Banfield & Kay (2008), HRM is essential in every organisation because without the right set of employees and management, organisational performance and employees will suffer which could lead to unproductive staff and thereby causing organisation to fold up in future. HR practitioners should refuse to be sidelined by line managers, they should however ensure that their impact towards organisational excellence is seen by ensuring the right strategies’ are implemented when carrying out their specific roles.Appropriate measures like identification of applicants before and after a test, limited time frame to take the test should be taken by HR practitioners during the recruitment and selection process online. They should be cost effective about rewarding employees for work well done or getting better performance from them. They need to spend prudently in order for organisation’s profit to be well managed.For reactive roles, HR practitioners’ priority should be getting the right strategies and being capable of getting senior managers to reason along with them in order to achieve what is best for the organisation.HR practitioners take up reactive, pro-active, strategic, business partner, internal consultancy, change agent, guardian of value, service delivery roles to ensure business excellence.REFERENCESArmstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong’s handbook of human resource management practice. (11th ed.). London: Kogan Page.Armstrong, M. (2011). Armstrong’s handbook of strategic human resource management practice. (5th ed.). London: Kogan Page.Banfield, P., & Kay, R. (2008). Introduction to human resource management. Oxford: Oxford University.Caldwell, R. (2003). The changing roles of personnel managers: Old ambiguities, new uncertainties. Journal of management studies, 40(4).CIPD. (2012). The role of line managers in HR. Retrieved from.. (2013). Recruitment: An Overview. Retrieved from.. (2010). Employment: Our people. Retrieved from.. (2014). Benefit. Retrieved from., D.G., & Wood, G. (2009). Human resource management: A critical approach. London: Routledge.Datamonitor. (2011). The Coca-Cola company. Retrieved from.DeCenzo, D.A., & Robbins, S.P. (2005). Fundamentals of human resource management. (8th ed.). U.S: Von Hoffman press.Goyal, A. (2013). Set of 20 Key responsibilities of HR manager. Retrieved from., A. (2011). Human resource management of Coca-Cola. Retrieved from., R., & Syed, J. (2012). Human resource management in a global context; a critical approach. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.Recruiter. (2013). Talent acquisition. Retrieved from., C.L., & Welch, D.E., (2012). What do HR managers really do? Management international review, 52, 597-617.Uen, J.F., Ahlstrom D., Chei, S., & Tseng, P. (2012). Increasing HR’s strategic participation: The effect of HR service quality and contribution expectation. Wiley periodicals Inc., 51(1), 3-24.Ulrich, D. (1997). Human resource champions. Boston: Harvard business school Press. ................
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