HRM has to act quickly in the economic crisis. As many organization fight for their survival and the credit crunch spreads all over the world, the HRM has to support the business in protecting the cash flow and to help to cut the overall operational costs of the organization.
The recession brings a huge pressure on the HRM and the costs for the organization. The HRM has to change its focus quickly – from designing and implementing nice policies and initiatives focused on the employee satisfaction to the initiatives focused on the unpopular cost cutting activities. The recession needs a completely different approach from the HRM employees as the HR Professionals have to focus on very specific groups of employees.
The HRM Function has to follow on the following main areas of concern:
The segmentation is very important and the HRM has to put very strict limits on each of the categories as the managers has to identify the groups of employees with the significant decrease of investments and the group, which will be really kept as a group of key employees.
Many organizations have their segmentation from the time of the constant growth, but this has to be strongly reviewed as the numbers can be different. The managers do not like this task, but they have to do it as the groups of key employees and top players can be recognized and the special initiatives and special communication can be sent to them.
The most difficult item is about having just one shot. The HRM Function has to get the full support and buy-in from the top management and the managers has to do the identification right and at the same time without sharing any information with their subordinates.
The HRM Function has one goal in the recession – it has to decrease the personnel expenses of the organization. The managers have to understand to this goal and they have to support the HRM Function in this effort.
The fluctuation is seen as a danger for the company. The fluctuation is not dangerous, when the organization has a clear plan for the protection of know how and knowledge in the organization. The employee can leave the company, but the organization has to keep the knowledge to make sure, the smooth operation can continue.
The market and economic news are not optimistic today. When you do the HR Management in the big global bank you can be worried about your best employees as everyone wants to discuss what is in the accounting books. The HR Management Employees in other sector can keep calm… so far.
This is a simple question with a very difficult answer. The HR Organizational Structure has to fit the needs of the organization, the business strategy and the HR Strategy. The HR Structure has to support the HRM Function and it does not have to fit all the new HRM trends.
The modern HRM Models are based on the communication, HRM expertise and clear definition of the HR Roles and Responsibilities. As the modern HR Models are very complex, the communication can become very chaotic, when the roles and responsibilities in the HRM Function are not clearly described.
The managers always wish to pay high bonuses. They want to provide the employees with a huge feedback, how they are satisfied with their effort. But in reality, the employees ask for the real feedback, the money is a nice extra for them. The bonuses cannot work as the supplement for the real feedback provided by the manager. The managers have to respect the real performance management cycle and the bonus is just a small part of the whole performance management cycle.
