Operations management is also playing a huge part in the staffing decisions that affect a company today. To enhance efficiency operations management believes in staffing only the number of people required because labor that is not required eats efficiency and also reduces the most effective amount of work that a labor could do. By using the efficiency rules we can know the amount of labor required and how much work they should do to get an equilibrium output that is the most efficient and cost effective.
In times of high labor requirement operations management theories can practically allow the HR manager to decide if he needs to increase the work time, higher part time workers, and contract workers or get fulltime employees and what he is going to do of them in times of low labor requirement. These kinds of decisions are very crucial for any workplace and Operations Management links with HR decisions in these kinds of scenarios. Another decision where HR links with Operation Management is when specialization and cross department experience decisions are to be made.
Where Adam Smith believed in specialization and one person for one kind of job so he can achieve the dexterity required many new proponents say that cross department experiences are important and should be taken into consideration so that people can have an idea of the different work environment and understand their need in the organization as a whole. Operations Managers can calculate the efficiency increase from both decisions and give their decision which would allow an HR manager to make a crucial future decision and understand what effect it could have on the total scenario and company’s base.
Another quadrant of management where HR and OM link together are the Layout decisions. There is always a strategic importance for these decisions as they can acculturate the person working more quickly, increase communication, enhance the working environment and also improve the efficiency. This is why a decision between office layout, Retail Layout and other type of layouts has to be made and this is where Operations Management links with HR trying to maximize the quality of work and work environment quality for their customers, employees and the products that are developed.
Another Place where OM and HR have linked is the study of hepatics, the Hawthorne studies and the Ergonomics and Work method studies. In these studies a careful consideration is given to the overall methods used and how human factors are involved. These studies than are used to maximize the work quality which automatically results in better product and also tries to increase the safety of the working environment. In a modern organization HR has achieved a higher importance than it had ever before.
Labor and Employees are being given more importance to reduce turnover and increase the job identity that employees may have because a happy employee is worth 2 unsatisfied ones. Operations management both try to increase the efficiency that can be received from an employed labor and this is why there linkages are so often and recurring. If used effectively they can both help in changing the dynamics an organization maybe suffering from. ?