Essay: The Future trends in Human Resource Management

Introduction:
Human resource management has undergone extraordinary changes in the past generation, a fact we have continually noted in the previous many years. We suggest that the next generation will bring changes of similar magnitude. While the next nature and direction of changes are difficult to predict, it can be stated with little changes.
Forecasting the future carries certain risks. If anybody is going to make an effort, he should either limit his forecast to the very near term, or to a time frame so for in the future that he can be sure that he will have long been buried when the results are finally in.
Our approach to forecasting will be to describe some of the major changes in our society and then attempt to interpret the possible implication of these changes on HRM. Whether or not these forecast turn out to be accurate is not as relevant as the process itself. But it must consider the future if only for the realization that you will work and manage in the future.
Implications of these changes on HRM
The Future of the HRM will Reflects the Recent Past, i.e., advancement and effect of the significant changes in our society brought about by technological advancements, social alterations, economic influences, and political pressures.
Technological advancements: The organ transplants, The space shuttle, Artificial organs, Fourth generation computer software, etc will fall under this category.
Social alterations: Human rights movement, Women’s movement, unprecedented growth in higher education enrolments, Skyrocketing health care costs will be considered in this category.
Economical influences: The dramatic rise in the average living standards, Rapid expansion of the checkless society (credit cards), highly fluctuating interest rates, Foreign competition etc will be fall under this category.
Political pressures: The budget deficit, Medicare for the aged, Government employees allowed bargaining collectively; Star Wars, space defence system, etc are considered.
The changes listed above, are reflects only the past and consider the impact of these changes for HRM practices.
Increased concern for HRM:
Today it has become more important and human resources Managers have become more powerful. This can largely be attributed to such factors as increasing labour costs, concerns for improving the workman productivity, searching for compensation plans which motivates, and the requirement for interpreting and implementing new government laws and regulations.
Successful HRM executives will have become strong decision makers and will accept the responsibilities that go with greater influence.
Removal of termination as a threat:
Legislation regarding the appraisal and termination of employees has increasingly placed the burden of proving inadequate performance on the employer. This trend coupled with greater demand by the unions for guaranteed life time employment, should find more employees permanently attached to organization.
Life time employment, whether controlled by legislation or contract, will reduce the Manager’s power to extract compliance through the threat of termination. There will also be a greater need for the organization to become actively involved in career development and planning with its employees.
Creation of Bimodal workforce:
Growth in the workforce will be concentrated at two extremes of the incomes spectrum. There will be a greater demand for the educated professionals who earn high salaries and among low skilled service workers who make only the minimum wage. The workforce of the future will tend toward a bimodal distribution-two large group with very different wage rates.
Major salary and benefit structure changes will have to be made to reflect and accommodate this bimodal workforce. The competition among companies for the highly skilled workers will increase, reflecting the need for even higher wages and benefits. Career development efforts will focus towards providing forced skill, retraining in as effort to enlarge the pool of qualified, educated professionals. This retooling of skills will be needed to allow the organization to adapt to the dynamic environment. Because of the bimodal nature of the workforce, tension between the two groups will grow. Motivating the low paid worker will become a major challenge. The question of how to motivate an employee, who makes the minimum wage and has a little opportunity for advancement, will challenge both manager ands and researchers. The answer is likely to suggest the need for more employee participation and non financial rewards.
Management move to make to make their organisation lean and mean:
As a result of deregulation, foreign competition and the like, organisations will further act to trim the fat, inefficiencies, from their ranks. We can expect more layoffs. Furthermore all employees will feel less secure in their jobs.
Organisation will embark heavily on de hiring practices. There will be a significant increase in emphasis, ranging from providing career growth opportunities to providing outplacement services. Organisation will be buying out their employees, especially older employees and senior executives. This will involve large out lays of cash, a severance pay will be required. Commitment and loyalty to the organisation are likely to suffer. Employees will become more self oriented and will act as if they were in fact individual entrepreneurs. Those individuals close to retirement, either by age or by years of service, will increasingly be forced into voluntary retirement. Many individuals in their middle to late fifties will find themselves back in the job market. Accordingly unemployment rates for this group are likely to rise dramatically. Age discrimination suits can be expected to increase. Organisations will rationalise buying out employees and forced retirements on the grounds that it necessary to improve productivity and efficiency and to make room at higher level for younger workers.
Dual-Career Couples:
The woman’s movement and inflation have caused the proliferation of dual career couples. The one bread winner householder’s rapidly disappearing. Because of the greater number of dual career couples, employees mobility will decrease. Organisations will continue to face more resistance to offers of promotions that require geographical moves.
Organisations will also have to implement better human resource planning systems. Promotions from within will become more prevalent, especially at the middle to upper levels. However because of the leanness of organisations, there will be a fewer of these positions to fill. The search for applicants will focus on the local job markets. Increase of dual career couples also witness a redundancy of benefits especially in the offering of health insurance. Companies will become more concern about this duplication and will seek a better co-ordination of benefits. That is, a company will pay for health coverage for its employee and the spouse’s coverage will be paid by the spouse’s organisation. Children of the marriage will usually be cover under the husband’s health plan.
Benefits and health:
To attract and keep good female employees, the organization will provide expanded day care benefits. This will be especially true of organizations that require its employees to work evening or night shifts. Healthier work environments will become a political issue. For instance, smoking on the job is likely to be banished or highly restricted.
Operating and paying for day care services will increase an organizations cost. To remain competitive, however, organizations will have little choice but to offer this as a benefit. More and more organization will recruits non smokers and make non-smoking a condition of employment. Companies will have gymnasium facilities to their premises or offer corporate membership at health clubs. Time off from work will be given to those who participate reflecting the organization’s commitment to improving the health of its employees.
Working at Home:
Through the use of personal computers, more workers will be able to process information by working at home. In an organisation’s efforts to become ‘lean and mean’ more work will be done at home by employees. Individuals who need more flexibility in their schedule and older individuals seeking to augment their retirement income will be doing work at home that was once done on the company premises the outcome of more individuals doing work at home will likely be a major restructuring of pay levels. Company will have to determine the worth of each job and pay accordingly. This will probably results in wide variance of pay being offered to different individuals.
Working at home will also require the organisation to implement new quality control measures. Performance evaluations will have to be revised, for close supervision of the work will not be possible. Monitoring techniques will have to be developed to ensure accuracy and timeliness of the work.
Matching the environment to the employee:
Organizations are studying their office furniture, their work environment and their space utilisation in an effort to provide a productive atmosphere. New kinds of office furniture are being designed to ease fatigue and back strain. Experiments with various office decors are being conducted in an effort to provide pleasant workstation, one that promotes efficient work in a supportive environment. The new decors, office furnishings and space utilization will make employee’s surroundings more pleasant and more conductive to working. Work related health problems, especially back strain should be reduced by having offices furnished with ergonomically designed furniture’s.