KENYA METHODIST UNIVERSITY

MASTERS OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION COURSE

HRMG 541

EMPLOYEE RESOURCING

PRESENTED BY

GIKINGO JAMES MURAGE

ADM NO.

BUS-3-5317-2/09

PRESENTED TO

DR. MAINA WAIGANJO; COURSE INSTRUCTOR

Question: Discuss the following Human Resource Management Approaches: 1) High commitment 2) High performance. 3) High environment Critically discuss their contribution to managing voluntary labour turn over. (1) High commitment model One of the defining hallmarks of HRM is its emphasis on the importance of enhancing mutual commitment. The high commitment model has been described as a HRM approach aimed at eliciting a commitment so that behaviour is primary self-regulated rather than controlled by sanctions and pressures external to the individual and relations within the organization based on high levels of trust. This model will influence HR practices that will be aimed at eliciting high commitment to work, the organization and fellow workmates. Components of high commitment model (1) Employment security (2) Selective hiring and sophisticated selection. (3) Extensive training, learning and development. (4) Employee involvement, information sharing and workers voice. (5) Self-managed teams / team working. (6) High compensation contingency on performance (7) Reduction of status differentials / harmonization. (1) Employment security Employment security fundamentally underpins the other six human resource practices, principally because it is regarded as an unrealistic to ask employees to offer their ideas, hard work and commitment without some expectation of employment security and concern for their future careers. The contribution of a positive psychological contract contributes to open and trusting employment relationship, and the notion of mutuality that is seen as a key component in partnership agreements both relate to this. There are obviously limits to how much employment security can be guaranteed. It does not mean that employees are able to stay in one job for life, nor does it not prevent the 2

dismissal of staff who fail to perform to the required level. Similarly, a major collapse in the product. Market that necessitates reductions in the labour force should not be seen as undermining this principle. The most significant point about including employment security as one of the high commitment HR practices is that it asserts that job reductions will be avoided wherever possible, and that employees should expect to maintain their employment within the HR organization. Employment security can be enhanced by well devised and forward looking systems of human resources planning and an understanding of how organisations may be structured to achieve flexibility. Indeed, there is also a business case for employment security. Laying people off too readily constitutes a cost for firms that have done a good job selecting, training and developing their workforces. Lay offs put important strategic assets on the streets for the competition to employ. Compulsory lay off and downsizing undermine employment security, the following can act as alternatives. 1. 2. 3. 4. Proportionately reducing work hours to spread the pain of reduced employment costs across the entire workforce. Reducing wages to reduce the labour costs. Freezing recruitment to prevent overstaffing.. Putting production workers into sales to build up demand.

(2) Selective hiring and sophisticated selection Recruiting and retaining outstanding people and capturing a stock of exceptional human talent is seen as an effective way to achieve sustained competitive advantage. Even though employees have wanted to recruit the best people available, this is nowadays more likely to be systematized through the use of sophisticated selection techniques and taking greater care when hiring. Increasingly, employees are looking for applicants who possess a range of social, interpersonal and team working skills in addition to technical skills.

The proxies used to measure selective hiring include: Number of applicants per position or as many good applicants as the organization needs. The proportion administered on employment test prior to hiring. Sophistication of selection process such as the use of psychometric tests and realistic job previews. These measures capture quite different components of the selection process and on whether the focus is on the overall approach taken by employers or the precise techniques they may use. Moreover, some of them emphasize inputs rather than outputs in terms of the quality of those recruited. For example, attracting a large number of applicants for a position may indicate poor HR procedures due to failures to define the job and the field adequately prior to advertising. It is possible that selective hiring, especially when it focuses on how well new recruits might fit with the prevailing organizational culture, can lead to under-presented groups being excluded from employment. Moreover an excessive cloning of employees could be problematic if the organization is keen to promote initiative and diversity and counterproductive if business needs and markets change. On the other hand, there may be situations where it is impossible to attract sufficient applicants due to skills shortages as some professional jobs in the health sector where the emphasis shifts to generating a pool of potential recruits rather than finding more sophisticated ways to choose between them. Recruiting high quality, committed staff is seen as central to best practice HRM, and the use of psychometric tests, structured interviews and work sampling is likely to increase the validity of selection decisions. Competencies to be sought at selection stage include trainability, flexibility, commitment, drive and persistence and initiative. (3) Extensive training, learning and development Having recruited outstanding human talent, employees need to ensure that these people remain at the forefront of their field, not only in terms of professional expertise and product knowledge but also through working in teams or in interpersonal relations. The idea that employees aim to synergise the contribution of talented and exceptional employees should be viewed as one element in organizational process advantage. There is little doubt that there has been a growing recognition of the importance of individual and organizational

learning as a source of sustained competitive advantage as employees introduce more skills specific forms of training and experience continuing skills shortages in some areas. The use of the word learning is crucial as it demonstrates employee willingness to encourage and facilitate employee development rather than just providing specific training to cover short term crisis. There exists problems in trying to measure and evaluate the concentration of training and learning. While it is clearly important to establish how much time and resources employees invest in formal training, and whether or not this covers the entire workforce, it is also crucial to identify the type of training which is provided and who has responsibility for managing this. Quite a number of studies have looked solely at the financial or quantitative aspects in terms of money or time invested in training and ignored the quality or relevance of training and learning that is provided. There have been incidences where workers are overqualified for the job they do, and as such training may add little to organizational performance or worker skills. (4) Employee involvement, information sharing and worker voice There are a number of reasons why employee involvement is an essential component of the high commitment paradigm. First, open communications about financial performance, strategy and operational matters not only ensures workers are informed about organizational issues, it also conveys a symbolic and substantive message that they are to be trusted in an open and positive manner. Second, for teamworking to be successful, workers require information in order to provide a basis from which to offer their suggestions and contribute to improvements in organizational performance. Third, participation can provide management with some legitimacy for its actions on the ground that ideas have been put forward by workers and/or at least considered by them before decisions are ultimately made. Information sharing can include downward communications, upward problem-solving groups and project teams, all of which are designed to increase the involvement of individual employees in the work place.

Employees voice is essential as it provides the workers with opportunity to express their grievances openly and independently, in addition to being able to contribute to management decision-making on task-related issues. Employee voice may be achieved through trade union representation and collective bargaining as well as through formally established grievance and dispute procedures.

(5) Self managed teams / team working This practice has become more prevalent over the last decade for a variety of reasons, not least as a way of pooling ideas and improving work processes it has been identified as a fundamental component of organizational success. It is also one of the key attributes that employees look for in new recruits. Team work is especially seen as leading to better decision-making and the achievement of more creative solutions. Evidence suggests that employees who work in teams generally report higher levels of satisfaction that their counterparts working under more traditional regimes. (6) High compensation contingent on performance There are two elements to this practice higher than average compensation and performance related reward although both send a signal that they deserve to be rewarded for superior contributions. To be effective, this needs to be at the level in excess of that for comparable workers in skill organizations so as to attract and retain high quality labour. In addition, rewards should reflect different levels of worker contribution. (7) Reduction of status differences / harmonization Symbolic manifestations of egalitarianism seen in the HR practices of some companies are meant to convey messages to manual workers and lower grade staff that they are valuable assets who reserve to be treated in a similar way to their more senior colleagues. It is also seen as a way to encourage employees to offer ideas within an open management culture. This can be seen through egalitarian symbols, such as staff uniforms, shared canteen and car-parking facilities, but it is also underpinned by the harmonization of many terms and conditions of employment such as holidays, sick-pay schemes, pension and hours of work. The principal point behind moves to single status and harmonization is that it seeks to break down artificial barriers between different groups of staff, thus encouraging and

supporting teamwork and flexibility. Extending employee share ownership to the workforce as a whole is a further way through which status differences can be reduced. 1. High Performance Model

The high performance model originated from the US high performance work practices aimed at making an impact on the performance of the firm through its people in areas such as productivity, quality, levels of customers service, growth, profits and ultimately the delivery of increased shareholder value. High performance management aims to make an impact on the performance of the firm through its people in such areas as productivity, quality, levels of customer service, growth, profits and, ultimately, the delivery of increased shareholder value. High performance management practices include rigorous recruitment and management development activities, incentive pay systems and performance management processes. There is some overlap between this concept and that of high commitment management. High performance work design as described by Buchanan (1987), requires the following steps; Management clearly defines what it needs in the form of new methods of working and the results expected from their introduction: Management sets goals and standards for success; Multi-skilling is encouraged that is job demarcation lines are eliminated as far as possible and encouragement and training are provided to acquire new skills; Self managed teams or autonomous working groups are established. Managers and team leaders adopt a supportive rather than an autocratic style (this is the most difficult part of the system to introduce); Support systems are provided that help the teams to function effectively as operating units; The new system is introduced with great care by means of involvement and communication programmes; Thorough training is carried out on the basis of an assessment of training needs; The payment system is specially designed with participation of employees, to fit their needs as well as those of management;

Payment may be related to team performance but with skill-based pay for individuals; In some cases, a peer performance review process may be used that involves team members assessing one anothers performance as well as performance of the team as a whole.

2.

High Involvement Model

This approach involves treating employees as partners in the enterprise, whose interests are respected and who have a voice in matters that concern them. It is concerned with communication and involvement. The aim is to create a climate in which a continuing dialogue between managers and the members of those teams take place in order to define expectations and share information on the organisations mission, values and objectives. This establishes mutual understanding of what is to be achieved and a framework for managing and developing people to ensure that it will be achieved. Having stated what way management approach 1) Comprised of, it is imperative to discuss each approachs contribution to management of voluntary labour turn over. Although several sets of innovative HR practices have recently been proved to enhance effectiveness in an organization and to retain talented employees, this configuration of practices is narrowly focused and often lack theoretical grounding. The three complementary frameworks i.e. high involvement, high performance and high commitment conceptual frameworks have received much attention in the academic press. The high performance model suggests that five distinct, supportive HR practices may influence employees work related attitudes and performance behaviours. First through empowerment, organizations allow employees to assume several roles and responsibilities and thus exert a greater influence at work while enjoying increased autonomy. Employee discretion and influence through task involvement fosters a great sense of support, trust and intrinsic motivation and provides work attitudes (Eby, Freeman, Rush, Lance, 1999; Lawlet, 1986). This increased sense of responsibility also stimulates

more initiative and effort on the part of everyone involved. This way employees are motivated to remain in the organization. Second, high-performing firms use competences development practices e.g. job rotation programs, mentoring and training, or both improving productivity of existing employees and sending the employees the signal that decision makers are willing to invest in them beyond short-term returns. Such practices go a long way in retaining employees in an organization. Third, previous research shows that information sharing practices favour the internalization of organizational goals and values by employees, enhance feelings of mutual trust, and make individuals important to the company. Information sharing is one of the easiest and most effective ways to foster employee involvement within organizations. Information sharing also represents an important component at high performance organizations because the sharing of information on such things as financial performance, strategy and operational resources conveys to the organizations people that they are trusted. Employees into which such feelings have been inculcated would want to stay with the organisation for long. Important components of high performance organizations because the sharing of information on such things as financial performance, strategy and operational measures conveys to the organizations people that they are trusted. Employees into which such feelings have been inculcated would want to stay with the organization for long. Fourth, motivational researchers have long acknowledged that the need for recognition is a fundamental driver of human behaviour. For most highly skilled professionals, much of their motivation ensues from the recognition they get from managers for a job well done and the feeling that they are a pivotal part of the organization. Several scholars found that high performance organizations persistently sought to recognize and reinforce valuable contributions made by employees. Such highly motivated employees will remain in an organization for a long time. Fifth, fair organizational rewards refer to the perceived fairness of various job outcomes, including compensation conditions, performance evaluations and job assignments. A high level of perceived equity signals to employees that the organization supports them and has

their well being at heart. Such practices create a sense of belonging to the employees which all individuals crave for. It is widely accepted that employees commitment to the organization can take various forms and that antecedents and consequences of law can be quite different. First, affective commitment corresponds to an employees personal attachment and identification with the organization resulting in a strong belief in and acceptance of the organisations goals and values. Employees with a strong affective commitment continue employment with the organization because they want to do so. Affective commitment plays a central role in the turnover literature studies conducted confirm that affective commitment is well established as an important antecedent to withdrawal behaviours. Scholars also have found a negative relationship between continuance commitment and turnover intentions. When employees recognize that availability of comparable alternatives is limited elsewhere, they will be more predisposed to stay in their current organization to avoid losing their relative advantages or privileges.

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References 1. Talent Management. Avoid The Threat of Mass Voluntary Turnover. (2009)

Retrieved, October 13, 2009, from Article base: Official website: http://wwwvoluntary-turnover-1228397.htm. 2. Pare G., Tremblay M. (2007). The Influence of High Involvement Human

Resources Practices, Procedural Justice, Organizational Commitment, and Citizenship Behaviours on Information Technology Professionals Turnover intentions. Group & Organization Management 2007; 32; 326 DOI: 10. 1177/ 105960110628685.

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