Discussion
Discuss about the Main Function Of The Human Department.
Reilly and Williams (2016) depicted that the main function of the human department is not only to maintain the recruitment and upholding salary structure of the employees but the concerned department is also liable for analyzing the benefits attained from developing partnership with a third party or a consultancy services for the organization. (Flamholtz 2012) furthermore depicted that HR are well aware of the necessary skills and expertise needed for accomplishing the organizational goals and utilize this knowledge for recruiting personnel and developing partnership. HR of an organization should also have to concern about safety and risk management, Training and Development, assuring maintenance of dignity and respect of every employee, assessing employee attrition rate and evaluating whether or not all the stakeholders properly follow the code of conduct. In spite of these responsibilities modern Australian organization suffers from many human resource management challenges like- unlawful discrimination, adhering to work health and safety complaints and incorporating effective strategies to retain the employees.
This business report thus highlights human resource management challenges in Australian workplace (1) unlawful discrimination, (2) unproductive maintenance of the work health and safety and (3) ineffective strategies to retain the employees. Moreover, the solution to overcome the challenges along with the effective implementation strategies will also be highlighted in this report. The report is then followed by a conclusion based on the entire discussion made.
According to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act 1986 (AHRC Act 1986), nullifying or impairing equality including opportunity among the employees in a workplace is known as workplace discrimination (Humanrights.gov.au 2018). The main areas where the unlawful discrimination occurs are promotions, transfers, training opportunities and redundancy or dismissal (Humanrights.gov.au 2018). Australian workplace suffers from the discrimination based on the sexuality of the staffs and one such incident is found that in schools the recruitment of LGBTI people is opposed on the basis of religion (The Guardian 2018). Moreover, in some workplaces, men are recruited more in the place of managerial position and women also have to face pay gap compared to their male counterpart. It has been also found that on an average 200 female judges were paid $20,000 less than their 546 male counterparts (The Sydney Morning Herald 2018). Additionally, the taxable income of a female anaesthetist is $265,923; while that of the men that is $402,384 which makes the difference of $136,461 (The Sydney Morning Herald 2018). According to the social dominance theory the major components of the discrimination are sex and gender discrimination, status discrimination, socialization discrimination and temperament (Dipboye and Colella 2013). Thus, based on the analysis made through this model, it can be stated that the HR should educate all the employee of the organization regarding the policies and punishments that can be implemented once anyone breaches the policies. The HR should also invite other people with different background to work collaboratively.
Possible Implementation Strategies
Furthermore, the HR is also liable for maintaining the work health and safety incidents of the staff and listen to the complaints related in this aspect. Vickers (2016) argued that Work health and safety legislation are typically enforced by regulators and provides no individually enforceable cause of action. Coles in Australia suffers from employee bullying, which is also a part of the HR management issue. Most workers fewer than 25 years age old are harassed in their job and 36.9% of the employees recruited informally in retails and sales; while the number is 23% for hospitality and tourism (Canberra Times 2018). In this case, the workplace health model should be followed by the Australian organization (Refer to Appendix, Figure 1). This model highlight important elements for maintaining effective health and safety procedure for the employee that are assessment of the individual, organizational procedures and community benefits (Cdc.gov 2018). Moreover, planning and management, implementation and evaluation are the next steps that is required for the maintaining a healthy working environment. Thus the Human Resource Department of the organization needs to develop workplace health program like Health education classes, company policies that promotes healthy behaviors, provision of accessing local fitness facilities and offering employee health insurance coverage (Goetzel et al. 2014).
Moreover, organizational sector like retail industry and telecommunication industry the rate of employee attrition is high as people have to work in target basis and the workplace environment is also not suitable for lower end employees. Telstra on the other hand decides for job cuts so that they can attain more profit (The Sydney Morning Herald 2018). The major issue in this case obtain in this case is that the employee feel insecure and it is the liability of the HR to inform the employee prior regarding the management decisions. According to the ERC’s (Employee Retention Connection) Retention Model, employees are assigned with variety of different assignments, offer sufficient resources and support for accomplishing the work, opportunity to learn, offering positive and constructive feedback and autonomy to make decisions (Choudhary 2016).
Image 1: The Employee Retention Connection Approach (ERC) model
(Source: Choudhary 2016)
Thus, the HR is liable to fulfill all these needs so that employee can be retained in the organization. (Torp et al. 2012) on the other hand suggested that HR should assess the strength and weakness of each employee and then identify whether or not they need any assistance for accomplishing their desired job roles and responsibilities. HR should also conduct training and coaching sessions for the employees so that their competency can be enhanced. These strategies are suggested based on the factors affecting employee’s retention highlighted by (Kehoe and Wright 2013) that are skill recognition, learning and working climate, job flexibility, training, financial and non-financial benefits, career development and superior-subordinate relationship.
The possible implementation strategies for overcoming the problem of the workplace discrimination are focusing on the strength of the employees working in the organization. The HR can also take sessions on benefits of adopting the workplace diversity and how to utilize their knowledge base not only to enhance their competency but also to develop a strong interpersonal relationship with them. Another implementation strategy is giving provision to the employee to raise complaint if they face any kind of discrimination in the workplace. The management should also take immediate action once such complaint has been raised so that all the employees can learn that their organization is strictly following their code of conduct.
The possible implementation strategies for overcoming the work health and safety complaints is to provide the effective training session to the employee in their initial time after getting recruited. The overview of the training can be given in the induction session and then the employee should have to provide on-job training. The HR is liable for making the employee understand about the health and safety policies and the steps that can be taken by the employee in occurrence of some risks in the workplace. The policies of the employee compensation need to be transparent and HR should make the employee learn about any changes made in the policies the time it has been planned to be implemented. The HR of the Australian organization should also develop a strategy to take regular survey from employees regarding the issue that they are facing in the organization. This anonymous way of asking for the feedback concerning the company’s strategies can help HR to identify the improvement areas.
The last problem that is identified in this essay is incorporating effective strategies to retain the employees. This problem can be overcome by hiring right people for the organization. This approach can be obtained through tightening the recruitment procedure and incorporating situational assessments. This assessment helps the HR to identify the areas of strength and weakness of the candidate which will help them to identify whether or not the candidate is suitable for the available job roles in the company. HR should also suggest the management to de-centralize the organizational culture where the employee can freely share their concern to the management people. The leaders on appreciating the effort of the employees results in greater motivation among the employees. In addition to that, the Human Resource department of the organization is also responsible for conducting the employee appraisal sessions. These appraisals should be based on the target the employee has archived compared to the destined roles for which they have been recruited. Moreover, the employee should also be asked about their short-term and long-term goals along with the suggestion that the employee want to give for the betterment of the employees. This will help the employee to gain the sense that the company care for the enhancement for the employee which furthermore leads to the development of trust for the organization.
Conclusion
The three HR issues that are identified in this assessment is unlawful discrimination, adhering to work health and safety complaints and incorporating effective strategies to retain the employees. It has been also found from the report that the main areas for overcoming the unlawful discrimination occurs are promotions, transfers, training opportunities and redundancy or dismissal. In such case the HR should educate all the employee of the organization regarding the policies and punishments that can be implemented once anyone breaches the policies. It is also found that the organizational sector like retail industry and telecommunication industry suffers from high rate of employee attrition. In this case, ERC’s Retention Model has been proposed to be used that helped in identify the recommended strategies of employees are assigned with variety of different assignments, offer them with sufficient resources and support for accomplishing the work, opportunity to learn, offering positive and constructive feedback and autonomy to make decisions.
Reference List
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Vickers, L., 2016. Religious freedom, religious discrimination and the workplace. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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