Human Resource Knowledge

Human resources in India

The structure, values and the level of education of human resources in the country influence much of the HRM functions of any organization. The influence of manpower in the country can be studied through the changes in structure of employment.

Change in the structure of Employment:

Structure of employment in an organization changes with the entrance of people from different backgrounds (social, economic, region, community, sex, religion, culture etc) in to the workforce. There has been a significant change in the structure of employment with the entry of

1.Candidates belonging to scheduled caste, scheduled tribe and backward communities, thanks to government’s reservation policy, and with
2.More female employees, due to increased career orientation among women or suitability of women for certain jobs, women becoming more acclimatized to the working climate and having a higher level of commitment. Organizational workforce is composed of people from different regions, mostly due to increased transportation facilities and mobile character of people. Further, technological revolution has brought occupational mobility. These changes in workforce have naturally complicated the task of HRM as the personnel manager has to deal with the employees with different backgrounds.

Changes in Employee Roles and their Values

It was the opinion of the management that the employees had to obediently follow the management’s decision, as the management was the boss. But gradually, this hierarchical relationship has been replaced by a relationship in which employees and management are partners in the organizations.

Further, changing structure of the workforce has led to the introduction of new values in organizations.
Among these are moves towards—

(i)Emphasis on quality of life than quantity
(ii)Equity and justice for the employees over economic efficiency.
(iii)Pluralism and diversity over uniformity and centralism;
(iv)Participation over authority,
(v)Personal convictions over dogma, and
(vi)The individual over the organizations.

Alienation from the job, increasing counter-productive behavior, rising expectations and changing ideas of the employees are some of the other factors responsible for change in the values and the roles of human force. Consequently, it has been imperative for the management to provide various fringe benefits to improve morale, to introduce negotiating machinery to redress grievance; to encourage employee participation in decision making and the like, to pave the way for industrial democracy to meet the situations of workforce.

Another change in the values is the declining work ethics. Further employees prefer flexible working hours to fixed time schedule. A flexible schedule fit not only with the values of modern workforce but also benefits the employer with the enhancement in productivity, reduction in employee tardiness, absenteeism and turnover, improvement in morale and the like. Since, the rights of citizenship are entering the organizations freedom of speech and the right to privacy is becoming part of the work ethics.

Level of Education

Workers have been entering the organizations with increased level of formal education in recent years. Increased formal education led to the changes in attitude of employees. The well educated employees always challenge and question the management’s decisions and want a voice in the company’s affairs affecting their interest. “As the base of education broadens, management must plan to deal with employees on a higher plane of logical interactions? Thus, management of well educated employees is a problem to the organization though they make valuable contributions.

Labels: HRM

posted by Paresh @ 10:16 PM