netrashetty
Netra Shetty
Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc. (MMC) is a US-based global professional services and insurance brokerage firm. In 2007, it had over 57,000 employees and annual revenues of $10.49 billion. Marsh & McLennan Companies was ranked the 221st largest corporation in the United States by the 2009 Fortune 500 list, and the 5th largest U.S. company in the diversified financial industry. It has its headquarters in Midtown Manhattan, New York City.[3]
Persistent efforts to improve the performance of an employee represent a phenomenon that is largely attributable to pervasive dissatisfaction with the field's traditional preoccupation with narrow techniques and the overly enthusiastic enforcement of regulations. HRM certainly has not been indifferent to such demands in the past. Witness the important adjustments that occurred in the field during the 1970s and 1980s. There is much greater attention to measuring and enhancing employee and organizational performance; equal employment opportunity and affirmative action policies designed and implemented by personnel offices have contributed greatly to the diversity of the public workforce; staffing techniques have become more sophisticated; employee benefit systems have expanded; and job designs and processes have become more creative. These modifications in the practice of HRM represent incremental modifications (Hays & Kearney 2001).
Basically, among the activities of the Human Resources Management and the CEO of the company as well, perhaps the most crucial is the Recruitment Process or the process of selecting employees, which involves the interviewing, recruiting, screening, and selecting the most qualified candidates, filling some positions through transfer or promotion, and temporary employment coordination. In addition, the recruitment is the process, by which organizations discover, develop, seek, and attract individuals to fill actual or anticipated job vacancies, or is a bridge-building activity, bringing together those with jobs to fill and those seeking jobs (Ahlrichs, 2000).
With the increased complexity of positions to be filled and equal employment opportunity, the recruitment process requires sophisticated procedures to identify and select prospective employees. This means that the Human Resources Management must carefully determine the available job openings and the job qualification of the candidate, to ensure the organization’s benefit and maintaining the good image of the CEO. In its participation in maintaining balance, it serves to mediate the company and the new candidates. It upholds in itself the goals and values of the company, tries to search for qualified individuals having the same goals and values.
Moreover, most organizations have an ongoing need to recruit new employees to fill job vacancies when employees leave or are promoted, to acquire new skills, and to permit organizational growth. Given the rise of competition in the market, both the company and the prospective candidate employee must benefit from the situation by the efficient and careful decisions made by the recruitment team (Wood, 1998). The recruitment process is a very expensive process considering the costs of advertising, agency fees, employee referral bonuses, applicant and staff travel, relocation costs, and recruiter salaries. However, these costs will not be given much importance with making the right decisions from proper planning, for without accurate planning, organizations may recruit the wrong number or type of employees, and without successful recruiting to create a sizable pool of candidates, even the most accurate selection system is of little use.
Personnel Mistakes
Hire the wrong person for the job
Experience high turnover
Have your people not doing their best
Waste time with useless interviews
Have your firm in court because of discriminatory actions
Have some employees think their salaries are unfair and inequitable relative to others in the organization
Allow a lack of training to undermine your department’s effectiveness
Commit any unfair labor practices
Basic HR Concepts
The bottom line of managing: Getting results
HR creates value by engaging in activities that produce the employee behaviors that the organization needs to achieve its strategic goals.
Looking ahead: Using evidence-based HRM to measure the value of HR activities in achieving those goals.
Line and Staff Aspects of HRM
Line Manager
Is authorized (has line authority) to direct the work of subordinates and is responsible for accomplishing the organization’s tasks.
Staff Manager
Assists and advises line managers.
Has functional authority to coordinate personnel activities and enforce organization policies.
Line Managers’ HRM Responsibilities
Placing the right person on the right job
Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
Training employees for jobs that are new to them
Improving the job performance of each person
Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
Interpreting the firm’s policies and procedures
Controlling labor costs
Developing the abilities of each person
Creating and maintaining department morale
Protecting employees’ health and physical condition
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
The National Center for Vocational and Educational Research Ltd, in its report “Research at a Glance:
Returns on Investment in Training” (2001), draws a number of conclusions regarding the returns to
training investments 2 :
•
Returns on training are nearly always positive and can be very high, depending on the nature of the
training and its relevance to the business needs of the organization;
•
Returns come in many forms, not just labor productivity and profitability, but also value-added
activities, which may arise as a result of greater employee skills, increased flexibility, reduced
overhead and a greater ability to innovate;
•
The immediate returns from training are highest when the training is highly focused on a clear
business problem;
•
Measuring returns is not always an easy task and may be achieved through productivity studies or
cost-benefit analysis:
•
Training acts as a mechanism for other changes in the organization. It does not act alone to improve
the performance of an organization, but allows the organization, to introduce change more
successfully;
•
returns from training can be enhanced by other human resource policies that encourage employees to
remain with the organization after training.
•
be linked
•
•
•
managers are equipped to support staff development
development activities have clear learning outcomes
the impact of development activities are assessed
In the context of CGIAR Centers, a staff development framework for a Center might usefully include
•
articulation of the philosophy of the Center with regard to staff development and the respective
responsibilities of the Center, managers, and individual staff
•
the manner in which resources are allocated within the Center for staff development, at
organizational, unit, and individual levels
•
•
•
•
how equality of opportunity for development is managed
whether and how managers are evaluated on staff development
guidelines for on-the-job competency development activities and rotations within the organization
guidelines for Center support for staff development activities leading to academic or professional
qualifications or to the maintenance of professional accreditations
•
•
guidelines on sabbaticals and secondments to other organizations for development purposes
reporting and evaluation of staff development activities
There is a wide variety of literature and research that focuses on analyzing development needs within
organizations. Analyzing development needs effectively will help ensure that informed decisions are
made regarding resource allocation and that the performance of individuals and of the organization
overall improves.
Individual development plans that are prepared as part of performance management processes are a
widely used tool to make the linkage between current performance, training requirements to bridge any
gap between this and future expected performance, and linkage to the development priorities of the
organization. They provide a transparent means of engaging staff and their managers in discussions
around development needs.
Persistent efforts to improve the performance of an employee represent a phenomenon that is largely attributable to pervasive dissatisfaction with the field's traditional preoccupation with narrow techniques and the overly enthusiastic enforcement of regulations. HRM certainly has not been indifferent to such demands in the past. Witness the important adjustments that occurred in the field during the 1970s and 1980s. There is much greater attention to measuring and enhancing employee and organizational performance; equal employment opportunity and affirmative action policies designed and implemented by personnel offices have contributed greatly to the diversity of the public workforce; staffing techniques have become more sophisticated; employee benefit systems have expanded; and job designs and processes have become more creative. These modifications in the practice of HRM represent incremental modifications (Hays & Kearney 2001).
Basically, among the activities of the Human Resources Management and the CEO of the company as well, perhaps the most crucial is the Recruitment Process or the process of selecting employees, which involves the interviewing, recruiting, screening, and selecting the most qualified candidates, filling some positions through transfer or promotion, and temporary employment coordination. In addition, the recruitment is the process, by which organizations discover, develop, seek, and attract individuals to fill actual or anticipated job vacancies, or is a bridge-building activity, bringing together those with jobs to fill and those seeking jobs (Ahlrichs, 2000).
With the increased complexity of positions to be filled and equal employment opportunity, the recruitment process requires sophisticated procedures to identify and select prospective employees. This means that the Human Resources Management must carefully determine the available job openings and the job qualification of the candidate, to ensure the organization’s benefit and maintaining the good image of the CEO. In its participation in maintaining balance, it serves to mediate the company and the new candidates. It upholds in itself the goals and values of the company, tries to search for qualified individuals having the same goals and values.
Moreover, most organizations have an ongoing need to recruit new employees to fill job vacancies when employees leave or are promoted, to acquire new skills, and to permit organizational growth. Given the rise of competition in the market, both the company and the prospective candidate employee must benefit from the situation by the efficient and careful decisions made by the recruitment team (Wood, 1998). The recruitment process is a very expensive process considering the costs of advertising, agency fees, employee referral bonuses, applicant and staff travel, relocation costs, and recruiter salaries. However, these costs will not be given much importance with making the right decisions from proper planning, for without accurate planning, organizations may recruit the wrong number or type of employees, and without successful recruiting to create a sizable pool of candidates, even the most accurate selection system is of little use.
Personnel Mistakes
Hire the wrong person for the job
Experience high turnover
Have your people not doing their best
Waste time with useless interviews
Have your firm in court because of discriminatory actions
Have some employees think their salaries are unfair and inequitable relative to others in the organization
Allow a lack of training to undermine your department’s effectiveness
Commit any unfair labor practices
Basic HR Concepts
The bottom line of managing: Getting results
HR creates value by engaging in activities that produce the employee behaviors that the organization needs to achieve its strategic goals.
Looking ahead: Using evidence-based HRM to measure the value of HR activities in achieving those goals.
Line and Staff Aspects of HRM
Line Manager
Is authorized (has line authority) to direct the work of subordinates and is responsible for accomplishing the organization’s tasks.
Staff Manager
Assists and advises line managers.
Has functional authority to coordinate personnel activities and enforce organization policies.
Line Managers’ HRM Responsibilities
Placing the right person on the right job
Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
Training employees for jobs that are new to them
Improving the job performance of each person
Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
Interpreting the firm’s policies and procedures
Controlling labor costs
Developing the abilities of each person
Creating and maintaining department morale
Protecting employees’ health and physical condition
STAFF DEVELOPMENT
The National Center for Vocational and Educational Research Ltd, in its report “Research at a Glance:
Returns on Investment in Training” (2001), draws a number of conclusions regarding the returns to
training investments 2 :
•
Returns on training are nearly always positive and can be very high, depending on the nature of the
training and its relevance to the business needs of the organization;
•
Returns come in many forms, not just labor productivity and profitability, but also value-added
activities, which may arise as a result of greater employee skills, increased flexibility, reduced
overhead and a greater ability to innovate;
•
The immediate returns from training are highest when the training is highly focused on a clear
business problem;
•
Measuring returns is not always an easy task and may be achieved through productivity studies or
cost-benefit analysis:
•
Training acts as a mechanism for other changes in the organization. It does not act alone to improve
the performance of an organization, but allows the organization, to introduce change more
successfully;
•
returns from training can be enhanced by other human resource policies that encourage employees to
remain with the organization after training.
•
be linked
•
•
•
managers are equipped to support staff development
development activities have clear learning outcomes
the impact of development activities are assessed
In the context of CGIAR Centers, a staff development framework for a Center might usefully include
•
articulation of the philosophy of the Center with regard to staff development and the respective
responsibilities of the Center, managers, and individual staff
•
the manner in which resources are allocated within the Center for staff development, at
organizational, unit, and individual levels
•
•
•
•
how equality of opportunity for development is managed
whether and how managers are evaluated on staff development
guidelines for on-the-job competency development activities and rotations within the organization
guidelines for Center support for staff development activities leading to academic or professional
qualifications or to the maintenance of professional accreditations
•
•
guidelines on sabbaticals and secondments to other organizations for development purposes
reporting and evaluation of staff development activities
There is a wide variety of literature and research that focuses on analyzing development needs within
organizations. Analyzing development needs effectively will help ensure that informed decisions are
made regarding resource allocation and that the performance of individuals and of the organization
overall improves.
Individual development plans that are prepared as part of performance management processes are a
widely used tool to make the linkage between current performance, training requirements to bridge any
gap between this and future expected performance, and linkage to the development priorities of the
organization. They provide a transparent means of engaging staff and their managers in discussions
around development needs.