Human resource

Human resource refers to the general body of knowledge on talent, creativity, innovations, past-experiences, and enthusiasms that exists in an organization’s workforce. HRM details a set of goals, strategy, functions, and practices that focus on the organization’s workforce such as training, staffing, time, competency, and compensation and performance appraisals and amongst others. This paper reviews the human management experience through Maersk Oil’s lense.
Table of Contents
TOC o “1-3” h z u EXECUTIVE SUMMARY PAGEREF _Toc463849258 h 11.0.Introduction PAGEREF _Toc463849259 h 12.0.HRM Functions and Practices PAGEREF _Toc463849260 h 22.1.Aligning HR function with Organization Strategic Plan PAGEREF _Toc463849261 h 22.2.How Global Conditions have affected MERSK Oil HRM practices PAGEREF _Toc463849262 h 23.0.Staffing PAGEREF _Toc463849263 h 23.1.Recruitment and Selection of New Employees PAGEREF _Toc463849264 h 23.2.Internal Versus External Candidates PAGEREF _Toc463849265 h 54.0.Training PAGEREF _Toc463849266 h 54.1.Components of a Need Assessment PAGEREF _Toc463849267 h 54.2.Value of Training Needs Assessment PAGEREF _Toc463849268 h 54.3.Importance of Creating SMART objectives for a training plan PAGEREF _Toc463849269 h 55.0.Compensation PAGEREF _Toc463849270 h 55.1.Compensation Philosophy PAGEREF _Toc463849271 h 55.2.Value of Salary Surveys PAGEREF _Toc463849272 h 76.0.Evaluation PAGEREF _Toc463849273 h 86.1.HRM’s role in the Performance Management Process PAGEREF _Toc463849274 h 86.

2.Differences PAGEREF _Toc463849275 h 86.3.Best-suited Appraisals PAGEREF _Toc463849276 h 96.4.Performance Rating Scales PAGEREF _Toc463849277 h 97.0. Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc463849278 h 9Appendices PAGEREF _Toc463849279 h 9Appendix 1 PAGEREF _Toc463849280 h 9
IntroductionToday’s changing global business environment has certainly increased the need to make human resources an important partner to the ordinary conduct of business. The changes changing factors originate mainly from the socio-political, economic legal, and cultural changes as well as the increase competition for the technical resource. HR has therefore gained more credence in the deployment as well as the redeployment of skills and knowledge as the global conditions have serious consequences to the function and practices of HR.
HRM Functions and PracticesHuman resources functions are considerably dissimilar from practices. Functions encompass transactional tasks that can either be completed in-house or outsourced from third parties. On the other hand, practices are partly conceptual and partly an HR implementation strategy that consists of systems that formal ordinary conduct of business. The best practice implies the systems that have the biggest impact on the company’s workforce. HR transactional functions include the following: payroll processing, record keeping and benefits and compensation administration. The level to which an HR handles the transactional functions depends on their size, budget, proficiency and the workforce. However, large companies such as Maersk Oil can support outsourcing of the transactional functions, which may allow the company’s HR staff to concentrate their attentions on HR’ strategic management.
Aligning HR function with Organization Strategic Plan
Alignment of the company’s HR functions to organizational strategic plan makes good business sense for several reasons. First, empowering of the HR functions contributes value to the success of the business strategy, which ensures it embarks its functional activities in a way that contribute the growth, and success of the organization. Certainly, an effective HR strategy with unambiguous the connections to the business strategy allows the organizations to align its activities properly with that of HR. An aligned HR function with the organizational strategic plan is often better positioned to expect training and development changes and hence can employ the best methods to aid the organization more rapidly to adapt to the changing circumstance.
How Global Conditions have affected Maersk Oil HRM practicesManagement of HR in different cultures, markets, and legal systems often manifests certain challenges. Cross-cultural adaptations are a key obstacle to an effective management of HR. Different workforce values, as well as dissimilar management style and turnover, are all linked to cross-cultural adaptations (Hendry, 2012). Doing business globally demands adaptations that reflect these conditions. It is important that such concerns be observed as linked employees and the management as they do business and show commitments to their work.
StaffingRecruitment and Selection of New EmployeesRecruitment and selection of new employees is an organized decision-making process that involves individuals to be employed and those who fill created and vacant positions in an organisation. The primary goal of the process is the identification and employing individuals who have the required skill, knowledge and ability to fill the needs required. Job analysis is an important step in the entire process, as it is undertaken to determine implicitly determine what the position demands. The selection process must take into consideration the requirement that the applicants provide names of a certain number of referees, who would substantiate the applicant’s abilities, or alternatively provide credence to the truth to the information submitted by the applicants in the resumes (Boxall, Purcell & Wright, 2008). However, the use of letters of recommendation has its shortcomings as they predisposed to be positive regardless of the qualities of the applicant, and it might be advantageous ignoring them. The selection process of the new employee cannot be complete without the usage of tests of mental ability and personality. The emphasis on these assessment tests are pegged on the need to identify certain qualities that the tests predict. The other important characteristics that are exposed by the tests could include the issues of communication skills, independence in mind and thought, delegation, and personality. When the organisation applies the tests, they get to understand the leadership qualities, particularly when the applicant is seeking an executive position in the company. The tests can also be relevant for the internal selection and recruitment process. Interviews are often the last item on the process before either the rejection of the candidates application or the acceptance into the rank and file of the company.
Internal Versus External Candidates
Internal Hiring is anchored on promoting the existing employees from within the ranks and files of an organization and then moving them to new positions. The movement can be either horizontal or vertical, that from one department to another primarily on the same level or on a higher level respectively. External hiring is a methodical search through potential employees that are not currently employed by the organization. They have the potential to bring new energies and new visions into the company. Moreover, they might bring new skills and knowledge that might not exist presently in the company.
Training
Components of a Need Assessment
In general, training needs assessment entails triple parts: person analysis, task and job needs analysis, and strategic as well as organizational analysis. Organizational needs analysis refers to the way the HR conducts things like increasing competition for new business, more emphasis on cost reduction and efficiency, research and innovation, and other items such as mergers, acquisition, expansion and diversifications (Mathis et al., 2016). Task analysis and jobs need assessment refers the process of gathering data about the job, for usage in the development of training plans. There are four basic phases concerned with task evaluation: the development of a list of task statements, development of a list of task groups, development of a list of skills, abilities, and knowledge.
Value of Training Needs Assessment
Training need assessment is the division of a specified needs to establish its foundations, causes and the relationships of the specified needs. Needs assessment implies the selection and prioritization of the training needs. Selection of the training need begins with the establishment of knowledge and skills vital for the optimum efficacy in the organization. In the training needs, the causes, failure, or non-performance are assessed to see whether insufficient or unsatisfactory training was a reason. Needs assessment is important because the lack of capability might not have been the reason for failure. Training needs assessment is an analysis of the organization to know what the learning needs of the employers are.
Importance of Creating SMART objectives for a training plan
The ascertainment of all the objectives should be created using the SMART philosophy. The term is an acronym that guides the development of quantifiable goals, and the goals include specific, measurable, achievable, relevance and time-oriented. Establishment of goals is very important, much in the same way as hitting the gym and doing daily exercise. However, people set for themselves unrealistic goals such as completing this milestone in this period. Using the SMART objectives can aid one in organizing and reaching the goals one-step at a time.
CompensationCompensation Philosophy
The Compensation and Benefit Plan for Maersk Oil are designed to attract a highly competent class of employees, and the firm must seek a remuneration level that is at par or above the current industry standard ensures that the firm recruits employees with positive employment histories and those with valuable experience. The business shall certainly benefit from a qualified employee, as the transitive logic shall work to the benefit of the firm (Boxall, & Purcell, 2011). A qualified employee provides high levels of productivity as well as effective customer services, and this can increase the company’s revenue and profit and aid the company to establish a brand identity in the market. A compensation and benefits package that is based in part on the aspect of seniority with the firm affirms that new employee that the firm values the employees who make a decision to remain in his firm for the long-term. Consequently, this encourages new employees to make a firm commitment to build their career with the firm and block senior employees from jumping to the opportunities provided by other firms. In the end, those experienced workers at Maersk Oil shall have second thoughts before considering jumping to new opportunities in other firms.
Value of Salary Surveys
A sample survey questions for the job position of an oil industry employee, for the position that will be enumerated fairly and will ensure that the individual is retained in the near future, is detailed below. The first batches of questions to the participants are the name of the company, city, state, phone number and position. The second batch of information shall be on the demographic information and it include an indication on market classification, with options provide, then the location (city and state), the number of employees fully employed, annual sales volume, and whether the employees are represented by a trade union. Then the third batch of questions is Hr policies and benefits information, including written employee handbook, drug-free workplace policy, drug tests, and specific job descriptions for an employee. The next batch cover shifts in results and methods of pay. Then overtime policy, the basis of overtime worked, and when it is available. Then Holiday, vacation, and other policies on legal absence; the leave of absence policy, such as earning when on civic duties, jury duty pay, written sick leave policy. Personal time off; maximum hours provided in a year’s period of employment, vacation policy and the number of days that are offered are the headings containing the batch of questions that will e provided. Health Insurance; and deductibility, medical and dental questions are provided with the rate offered by the company and the other percentage provided by the company.
The list below enumerates the questions that are normally asked in a salary survey from organizations that have the same position discussed above
EvaluationHRM’s role in the Performance Management Process
The performance management process must be properly linked with the other HR processes such as compensation and benefits, talent management and training and development. HR cannot run the performance appraisals without the use of the outcomes and discussions (Wright & McMahan, 2011). The performance management process is costly, each management must be prepared for the appraisal, and the explanation has just an hour for every employee. It can be an enormous loss of productivity when results have not been used. The role of HRM in the PM is all about making the process to be transparent, unambiguous, and constant across the entire company. The outcomes of employees must be compared as the results can be used in other human resource processes.
Differences between Performance Appraisal Systems
Often, the terms performance management and performance appraisal are used interchangeably in certain contexts, but the truth is that they are semantically different. Performance management refers to a comprehensive, continuous and dynamic approach to organizational management of teams and individuals that entail the maximum amount of conversation between the parties concerned (Jiang et al, 2012). On the other hand, a performance appraisal is a restricted approach involving managers scaling down assessments then rating the performance of their junior colleagues at a periodic performance appraisal meeting.
Best-suited Appraisals
Appraisals should be taken as a continuous workplace conversation, while employees and managers should be trained on providing and receiving either negative or positive feedback on the continuous basis. Managers should be held accountable for having continuing conversations around word and objectives.HR manager should actively seek to align personal goals and those of the organization. Employee participation and ownership of the appraisal process should be encouraged. An environment where the employer and the employee can question, challenge and engage in discussing the goals and objectives in order to gain clarity should be created.
Performance Rating Scales
Rating scales used in performance management indicate the individual’s levels of performance, and they are relevant as they provide a quantitative assessment which is comparatively easier to administer and assist in differentiating between employees. Even though there is no consensus on the specific scale that is the best, however, most performance rating scales used by most people share some common aspects. The rating scales are often numeric, but might be alphabetic, with the numbers relating to a specific adjective such as ‘7 for excellent’ or ‘5 for satisfactory’.
7.0. Conclusion
The strategic framework for employee compensation is established the amount of remuneration the employees receive, and the categories of employees that are likely to be recruited by the firm. The compensation and benefits framework incorporates different elements, which include reward programs, pay scales; company perks, and benefits packages. The successful compensation and benefits strategy can act as a catalyst for the business, fueling it to compete in the labor market for the best talents in the industry.
References
Boxall, P., & Purcell, J. (2011). Strategy and human resource management. Palgrave Macmillan.
Boxall, P., Purcell, J., & Wright, P. M. (2008). Human Resource Management
Hendry, C. (2012). Human resource management. Routledge
Jiang, K., Lepak, D. P., Hu, J., & Baer, J. C. (2012). How does human resource management influence organizational outcomes? A meta-analytic investigation of mediating mechanisms. Academy of management Journal,55(6), 1264-1294.
Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., Valentine, S. R., & Meglich, P. (2016). Human resource management. Nelson Education.
Wright, P. M., & McMahan, G. C. (2011). Exploring human capital: putting ‘human’back into strategic human resource management. Human Resource Management Journal, 21(2), 93-104