Most of the dominant players on the global market keep focusing on production, finance, and marketing while improving such an essential component of an enterprise as staff continues to be the weakest link in the overall control system. Nevertheless, they are one of the factors that ensure leadership in competition. A number of authors believe that this term focuses on the strategic aspects of making personnel decisions. Let's look at the meaning of human resource management definition. In simple words, it can be presented as a set of actions and solutions aimed at the most successful hiring and increasing the productivity of staff.
Human Resource Structures and Positions
The organizational structure of the human resources management system is a set of interrelated units of the control system and officials. The simplest type is called a linear one. It is characterized by the division of zones equal in volume and content of responsibility, one-man management, the deployment of the division of labor and the formation of vertical hierarchy. An example of such framework may be in the army, the church or the university.
The second type of corporate structure is a functional one, built on the principle of distribution of duties within the company. All work in this direction is reduced to the grouping of personnel for the broad tasks they perform. In the real life of modern firms, this type could be viable only for a separate division of the company.
Another type is divisional frameworks. They are based on the allocation of large autonomous production and business units with the provision of operational independence. The youngest type of organizational structures is the project one. Its meaning is to assemble the team of the most qualified employees in the company to carry out a complex project in a timely manner with a specified level of quality, within the approved budget. The task is completed, the team dissolves.
In the matrix framework, the members of the project team report to both project manager and heads of those functional departments in which they work continuously. Therefore, a lot of problems arise due to a superposition of vertical and horizontal vectors, which undermines the principle of one-man management. Thus, organic and mechanistic structures are only two extreme points in the continuum of such forms. Real institutional frameworks structures in the marketplace lie between them.
Also, distinguish hard and soft options for HRM. A rigid approach emphasizes quantitative, calculable and business-related aspects. A soft model focuses on communication, motivation, and leadership. It emphasizes the need to involve workers in activities, developing a high level of commitment to the organization.
The HRM cycle consists of four main processes:
- Selection as matching available human resources to workplaces;
- Attestation of performance indicators;
- The reward system is used to stimulate organizational performance indicators;
- Reward of high-quality laborers.
The management of human resources is influenced by such important features of the environment as the availability of resources, its dynamism, and complexity. The provision of resources should be optimal. Their excess, as a rule, is accompanied by irrational use. However, a lack of resources could lead to conflicts between firm’s units.
The dynamism is defined as the degree of mobility in response to changing conditions. Where frequent changes occur, for example in the sphere of high technology, the selection, evaluation, training strategy should be structured in such a way as to stimulate high labor mobility of workers. Not the least role is played by the availability of human resources information systems reducing the labor intensity of the cycle by accelerating the data exchange.
The degree of complexity largely depends on the level of rivalry in the industry and the regional market for products and services. The environment is considered quite complex if there are several strong competitors on the market, between which there is a struggle for redistribution. So, HRM could be viewed as an approach to traditional personnel management. However, concepts such as strategic integration, commitment, the aggregate quality, investment in human capital, are the main components of the social responsibility model.
Thus, the incorporation of business HRM into practice includes strategic integration, the development of a coherent and consistent set of methods for the employment service and the achievement of adherence. This requires a high level of determination and competence at all levels of government. The idea of human resources responsibilities can be a kind of philosophy that shows how it is in the interests of this organization to treat employees. But the latter may be used in various ways. The choice of the model remains for the leader.