University Name

2009

Human Resource Management Essay Resit Questions - UMPCNM-20-2

Your Name

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

Critically examine the claim that flexible working practices are of greater

benefit to employers than employees. You should support your answer by

drawing upon at least two forms of flexible working.

The flexible working practices are basically all the innovative ways employers and

employees can agree upon structuring work to accommodate business and individual working

needs and conditions. And these practices are very useful for flexible firm in shedding light

for the changes in the nature of work and work organisation, these practices may be less

useful in explaining the issues that are facing by the employers regarding how best to manage

and utilize employees to achieve organisational objectives and goals. And that is why they

have been against flexible hours. But if we see rationally, we‟ll find that the flexible working

practices are very beneficial to the employers more than employees. There are certain forms

of flexible working. The most famous among them are the part-time working, job share and

flexitime. If we consider the benefits of the job sharing and the flexitime to the employers, we

will find that when there is the freedom to work in any way they choose outside a set core of

hours determined by the employer and also has an opportunity to share work among peers,

potentially it looks dangerous to the employers, but in fact it is covering much more benefits

to the employers. When employees have such option there is greater staff morale and job

satisfaction. In the organization where employers offer flexitime working and job-sharing to

the employees it report improvements in recruitment, absenteeism and productivity. These

practices have ability to attract a higher level of skills because the business is able to attract

and retain a skilled and more diverse workforce. When a good employee or expert will listen

that some organization is so much flexible that it offers too much flexibility, they will surely

rush towards that organization, in this way the employer has most potential, satisfied and

highly talented employees in their firms. At the same level by these employers has to bear

less Recruitment. Similarly it reduces stress, fatigue and unfocussed employees. When there

is the matter of job-sharing, no employee will work with lazy and unfocussed employees and

it would be easy for an employer to catch a lazy person and get him out of the work. As

discussed above it increases employee satisfaction and when satisfaction is there you will

have more production which will contribute more to your profits. When you have such

options like flexitime and job-sharing, you have not to face French leaves; employees will

visit doctors or have medical examination without postponing their work and within the

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

office timings. In this way you have some others benefits too, like Measurement of

employee‟s attendance, you only pay or time in attendance (delayed arrival caused by traffic

congestion, delayed trains etc. are entirely employees responsibilities). These types of

practices creates an incentive to complete tasks instead of being carried forward to the next

day as extra hours worked count towards the final target Greater competitiveness under the

practice of overtime and part time. So by sharing work and having flexitime employees have

no excuses to delay work. By all of the above mentioned benefits to the employees it gives

strength to the customer satisfaction and loyalty when they have quality product and services

on time.

Critically assess the ways in which organisations can gain from workforce

diversity.

Workforce diversity means employing people within an organization without discrimination

on the basis of gender, age and ethnic or racial background. Due to greater benefits and the

globalization current trend in business workforce diversity in the workplace is a better

accepted and applied concept now more than ever. There are many potential ways in which

an organization can gain from the workforce diversity. In the today atmosphere every

successful corporation learn to manage to their full advantage through adopting new structure

and work practices that are different from those traditional and old fashioned conservative

organizations. They try to manage acquire a competitive advantage in the global market

place. And that is all brought in by the workforce diversity now days. The whole purpose of

managing diversity is to bring out the best of employees Talent, Abilities, Skills and

Knowledge for the benefits of individual employees and at the same time for the progress and

the creating value of the corporations. When workforce diversity is properly managed in it, it

lead employee towards the satisfaction, loyalty, productivity, efficiency and many more.

Similarly the organization‟s success and competitiveness depends upon its ability to

commence diversity and realize its potential benefits. When organizations actively learn and

implements their handling of workplace diversity issues, develop and implement diversity

plans, multiple benefits.

The diverse organizations have better solution to the problems. They have the increasing

adaptability as they can offer greater variety of solutions to problems in service, sourcing, and

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

allocation of resources. When you have employees from diverse backgrounds, they bring

individual talents and experiences in suggesting ideas that are innovative, flexible to adapting

in the market situation now days and it work according to the customer demands as it has

greater extent for the adaptability. And when an organization has diverse employees from

different background, it can offer variety of services to the customer. It will be presenting a

diverse collection of skills and experiences (e.g. languages, cultural understanding) that will

be helpful for the organization to provide service to customers on a global basis. When you

have different type of mind from different cultures with you, you have an opportunity to have

variety of viewpoints in the problem solving or innovation process. It will also be helpful for

the organization to meet business strategy needs and the needs of customers more effectively.

Organizations that encourage diversity in the workplace inspire all of their employees to

perform to their highest ability. So such diverse and flexible strategies in the organization

will be helpful to execute higher productivity, profit, and return on investment. Organizations

that encourage diversity in the workplace inspire all of their employees to perform to their

highest ability. So such diverse and flexible strategies in the organization will be helpful to

execute higher productivity, profit, and return on investment. There also countless benefits to

the organization like diverse workforce leads to develop the organizational unique culture, it

help to improves client relations, different minds from different cultures leads to the

creativity, increase employees morals, greater retention and the last but not the least it help

the organization to move into emerging markets

Explain why the attainment of a ‘work-life balance’ is important for

employees and critically examine the extent to which current legislation

supports this.

Work-life balance is a concept that has its broader meanings giving proper priority to career

and ambition by comparing it with family, pleasure and leisure. As the separation between

work and home life has diminished, this concept has become more important relative to the

old days. Today trend is very hasty in most of the organizations. Currently most of the

organization keeps their employees working for late hours, over times and work at homes.

This is totally distracting the balance between the work and the family life. When you do not

have balance between these two pillars of life, you have to face many difficulties. It may lead

you to the stress and many problems due to this stress. It is very much clear that problems

caused by stress have become a major concern to both employers and employees. We can

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

find that symptoms of stress are manifested both physiologically and psychologically orders

of human body. So when you get ill, it will also disturb your house life and efficiency at

work place. So when you have standard of working seventy four hours per week, it will lead

you to the very little time for your kids, families, parents and for spiritual needs. And when

you don‟t have these benefits it will lead you to the dissatisfaction with life and lose your

hope. And this trend will make you psycho. It may also perpetuate the habits of binge

eating, smoking, and alcohol consumption. So these are the basic reason that increases the

attainment of the work-life-balance for the employees as it very much helpful. And when you

have time spent with family, friends, and community as well as pursuing activities that one

enjoys it helps you grow personally and spiritually and make you a healthy and prosper

person without ill-mannered habits.

Now a days you can have many laws for the benefits of workers, like Family and Medical

Leave Act, Small Necessities Leave Act and Maternity Leaves etc. But they have not too

much existence in most of the organizations. The legal terms are for just developed and top

level managers but at the lower level it is a tough target. Legislation just supports it in the

written laws; we see little practical implication to this. The biggest obstacle behind the failure

of this practice is this; the employers do not to accept more flexible working arrangements in

order to attain more productivity.

Compare and contrast the Resource Based View (RBV) and Best Practice

(Universal) models of human resource management and identify the

contribution of each to sustainable competitive advantage.

Resource bases view is the corporate strategy that that is basically emerged from the concept

of economic rent, it views the company as the basis of the capabilities that it has. The

fundamental principle of the RBV is that it make basis for the competitive advantage of a

firm lies from the available resource that this firm posses. While on the other hand best

practice are the Methods and techniques that have been showing results superior than those

achieved with other means, and they are being used as the benchmark. In this way a company

just adopts a strategy that has been continuously being used effectively rather seeing their

available resources. That is why the RBV is looked as more realistic than second one. The

purpose of the both methods is used to improve company performance and attain a

sustainable competitive advantage. Best practices sets the rules of thumbs that make easy

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

process but in the RBV you have to first insight look over the resources available etc. It takes

time and effort and needs a high level of expertise. At the same time best practices fails when

we go beyond these straightforward practices. It is because when you move away from

uniformity it leads you to betray from the defined practices, while it is not like this in RBV

model of HRM.

As the question arises about the contribution of both to the sustainable competitive

advantage, yes both models have much mutual interest. When you attain the best available

resources through RBV and you refers it to the best practice model. And depending upon the

model you determine the required best alternative for the purpose of any function of human

resource management. It keeps it up in sustaining competitive advantage, because it leads to

the very low chances of failure. When you know about the available resource and have a best

practice according to those resources then your employees, customers‟ believe remain tight

on you and you are not going to lose your competitive advantage. And whenever there is lack

of resources, the RBV refers to available best practice for the resources in hand, and again

you are not going to lose your place.

Compare and contrast two different types of human resource planning

techniques and critically evaluate their contribution to organisational

success.

HR planning is the process in which help to understand the contribution and scope of success

for the organization. HR Planning is a process that goes through different techniques and

types. It does the job analysis, environmental scanning, internal and external verifiers of the

organizations like SWOT analysis for the organizational success and the decision and plans

for the organizational success. When you being job analysis it is the way seek the different

requirements of the jobs you are having regarding your business environment while when

you are doing an environmental sacking, it means you are looking for the whole business

industry. In the job analysis you mostly have an internal analysis relating to the jobs to do,

while in the environmental scanning you do the analysis regarding the external factor in

which the corporation need to operate its operations. So as a comparison in the both ways you

determine specific needs and the requirements for the certain organization to contribute and

make a scope for the success of the business. Purpose of them is the same but area of the

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

operation is different. In the one type you have a internal verifiers scanning while the other

supports the external verifiers. Both of these techniques support two different types of HR

planning. In one planning type you seek whether the organization need to ne proactive or

reactive about strategies and planning while in the other type organization make decision

regarding breath of the planning. Critically both lead to the organizational success. It helps

the organization to have good people at the best jobs. Similarly it reduces cost and increases

employees moral that lead to the organizational success. When you perform efficient HR

planning, it appreciates the four component parts of HR planning – namely, analysing the

environment; forecasting future HR needs; analysing the current situation and projecting

forward; and reconciliation, decisions and plans and when these components are without any

flaw how an organization can be unsuccessful. These components get efficient level when

they are properly supported by the decision process. And a good decision leads one to the

success. And these two types have a major contribution in the success of any organization.

Critically assess the argument that the concept of ‘well being’ goes beyond

traditional concepts of health, safety and welfare and examine the

implications of this for the way organisations manage their human

resources.

Maslow hierarchy of needs suggests that there are five stages for the well being of the

personal requirements. According to that hierarchy need chart you have at the lower level as

the physiological need like food, sex, cloths all you need for a living. After that you need

security and then you need relationships. Afterwards you look forward to the self esteem and

self actualization. In the age of stone when man was a beast all he requires for his living was

the food. Then he requires the security by having power and arms. They were not more

interested in the relationships etc. When we get a little bit development then regions of

different races developed, people come into the need of their relationships with the other

communities to trade, security or to satisfy the below needs very well. But as the time passé

and we entered in the 21st century. Its needs level has boosted up. Now most of the

employees want to attain a self actualization and self esteem because they can have enough

support from the governments and the NGO if they have nothing to do. And law has made

security very well in developed economies. So now people have been looking forward to the

level of self esteem where they can humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem,

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

self-respect. Also requires the belonging need, esteem presents the normal human desire to be

accepted and valued by others.

So now this trend has changed the concept of “well being”from the traditional concepts of

health, safety and welfare. Recently it was found that in Norway the suicide rate is too high.

When psychologist determined the reason they concluded that the people are very prosper,

they have money, security and belongings. But they left with nothing to do. So they try to

suicide when they feel that you are just useless. Now a days the different organizations have

implemented different platforms to recognize and help employees to achieve their well being

extra needs. They provide proper feedback and evaluation system by which they evaluate the

performance of the employees and give them an opportunity of progress. They arrange

different training session and competitions to prove employees their self and have a better

opportunity to attain the self esteem.

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

References

Emmott, M. And Hutchinson, S. (1998) „Employment Flexibility: Threat or Promise?‟

in P. Sparrow and M. Marchington (eds)(1998): HRM: The New Agenda, London:

Pitman.

Fynes, B., Morrissey, T., Roche, W.K., Whelan, B.J., and Williams, J.(1996a),

Flexible Working Lives: The Changing Nature of Working Time Arrangements in

Ireland, Dublin: Oak Tree.

Priem, R.L., Butler, J.E. (2001b), Tautology in the Resource-Based View and

Implications of Externally Determined Resource Value: Further Comments. Academy

of Management Review.

Fottler, M.D., Phillips, R.L., Blair, J.D., Duran, C.A. 1990. "Achieving competitive

advantage through strategic human resources management". Hospital and Health

Services Administration.

Maslow, Abraham (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper

Srinivas R. Kandula, (2004), Human Resource Management in Practice: With 300

Models, Techniques and Tools, Phi publishers.

Top Grade Papers GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com

GET YOUR WORK DONE BY www.TopGradePapers.com