Introduction to People Management Skills

This document provides an introduction to people management skills, including the contemporary issues faced by line management, the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to be an effective people manager, and the HR processes that support effective performance management. It also includes recommendations for managers and concludes with a discussion on the importance of human resource management in organizations.

Introduction to People
Management Skills

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................4
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................4
Contemporary Issues face line management faces when it comes to People Management...4
Knowledge Skills and Behaviours needed to be an effective people manager......................5
What HR process underpin and support management when it comes to effective performance
management............................................................................................................................7
Recommendations..................................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................8

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Human resource is a very wide department in an organisation. This department deals with
the management of operations that are related to the employee. HR department is the most
important department as it deals with the most valuable assets of an organisation which is its
employees. Human resource team manages the activities of the employees starting from
recruiting , training and their development, compensation and benefits, etc. These functions are
not simple and sometimes gets really complex. These issues are to be faced by the HR team to
overcome the problems faced by employees and come with a solution in the form of various
theories. These theories help the management team to deal with the employees in an
understanding way. The organisation must have an effective communication system which will
always be proved helpful. Barriers in the communication could interrupt the growth of the
company and to avoid this there are various theories which help human resource management
team to apply onto the organisation. The companies should also have effective performance
appraisal systems to motivate the employees so that the employees give their best outputs and
help company to grow and achieve its goals. Secondary research is being used in completing this
report.

INTRODUCTION
Human resource is described as a department who works for an organisation. This
department is also responsible for the activities that relate4s to employees. This is a process
which involves recruiting people and provide training to them. This also includes deciding
compensation, creating new rules and policies and developing new strategies for the employees.
This is the management of all the functions in an organisation which relates to planning,
organizing, directing and controlling (Bragaru, 2016). To control people or employees in an
organisation is also the work of Human Resource team. Employees are considered as the great
asset of any company. It is performance and determination of an employee which results a
company to fail or succeed. The management team is responsible further to encourage employees
in an organisation and provide them with proper training. The main aim is to create an
environment for the employees where they can work to give positive output to the company and
help to achieve common goal of the company. This report contains the issues faced by the human
resorce management team while managing people, attributes needed in a manager to lead role
effectively and process & support given by the managers to effective performance management.
MAIN BODY
Contemporary Issues face line management faces when it comes to People Management
Management is a very difficult task when it comes to managing the people of the
organisations. There are several problems which are faced by the management units while
dealing with the people management. It is not limited to only recruiting and training, it is much
more and wide range of activities are involved which needs to be managed by the human
resource management. The 2 of the many issues faced by the management are discussed below:
 Management Changes: A small change in the business leads to the change in the
management. Change can be related to the growth of the company, change in strategies,
structure, etc. few employees find it difficult to adapt those changes due to which
company's growth is affected (Cook, 2018). For e.g. British airways back in 1981, was
facing problems for which they wanted to make management changes in the company.
There were several problems which needs to be focused on.
A company can use Action Research Theory in case an organisation have in house
problems. This theory consist of 5 steps which are to be followed by the company in case of

management change. The first step is the diagnosis stage. In this stage all the information are
gathered which is related to the problems. These problems are then analysed and the solution is
planned by the manager in the second stage which is analysis stage. The third stage is of
feedback in which the plan of action is shared with the employees of the company for their
feedbacks and suggestions. The fourth stage is action stage. In this stage all the planned actions
to resolve problems are implemented. The fifth and the last stage is of evaluation where the
effectiveness of the plan executed is evaluated. This is a problem focused theory.
 Training and Development: It is one of the problem which is faced by the human
resource management team. It is very important to give proper training to the lower level
employees as they help an organisation with its goal achievement and profit generation. It
gets really difficult for the companies manager sometimes to find proper resources to be
used in training and development (Delamain and Spring, 2020). For example: Amazon,
which is an e-commerce organisation. They have planned structure to train its employees
before they are hired. But still sometimes company faces challenges while training
employees because of the difference in their grasping skills. Different people have
different ways to think and process and thus it gets difficult for few to understand the
work easily.
A company can use Theory of Reinforcement. This theory is all about motivation. The
managers motivate people to perform certain behaviours which would result in positive outcome
or avoid such behaviour which could have negative outcomes. These are all decided by
comparing the past outcomes that have resulted in those outcomes. The company can include
many strategies and ideas to generate positive outputs. To motivate the employees at an
organisation a company can use various rewarding methods like giving bonus, raise in their
salary, promoting employees to higher position, etc. these all rewards motivates employees to
have enthusiasm and determination to efficiently work and help company reach the common
target or goal.
Knowledge Skills and Behaviours needed to be an effective people manager
To be an effective People manager there are certain skills which are needed in an
individual as a manager so as to run that organisation or business efficiently (Garg, 2017). The
most important knowledge skills and behaviour needed are as follows:

 Planning (Management function)- For being a better manager a individual has to attain
a good knowledge about how to execute and manage the organisation, so the manager
should have the ability to plan and focus on all the areas. The manager should make a
plan about the team working and should organise the team(IKOLI and Onoh, 2018).
Manager should use the available resources in a proper way with management of all
money, labour and time. There main management function is for planning, organizing,
staffing, meeting. For example: TESCO follows strategic planning management where
they make proper plan on team working with employees.
Strategic planning theory involves a process in which an organisation makes proper
strategies. It requires lots of thought process which is mainly done by the upper level
management team to generate outputs. This planning is done in 3 steps. The first step is the
formulation of all the strategies by identifying the company's strength, weaknesses, opportunities
and threats i.e. SWOT analysis and then managers draw conclusions on what plan they are to
keep their focus on. The next step is the implementation of the strategy planned in the earlier
stage. This is the every important step as managers have to communicate this to all the
employees and thus have to make proper communication to avoid confusions. The third and the
last stage is evaluation of strategies. In this phase the performance of the strategy implemented is
reviewed and the performance is measured. Later all the effective steps are taken to make the
strategy more effective.
 Good Communication: It is very important to have good communication to be a
effective peoples manager. An effective leader shall have good written, oral and listening
skills while communicating (Shields Jr, 2018). Manger is the only link between the
employees and the seniors, heads of the department or the CEO of of an organisation.
There should be trust in the relationship of manager an employee so that they feel
comfortable sharing work problems with them and create transparency. For example:
McCann Erickson is a famous advertising agency in the UK. They have to share
information on the requirements of the clients to the employees working in the company
to work on the ads. Any barrier in the communication can affect the company.
A company must use Organisational Information Theory in its organisation to have
effective and good communication. Organisational communication mainly includes sharing of
information and ideas from one person to another. It should be effective an barrier free. This help

organisation to have transparency amongst themselves and avoid confusion and
misunderstandings. It is very important for the people in an organisation to say things clearly and
the person listening should listen to them in the same manner and understand it in the same
manner. Not understanding the information in the same way as it was conveyed, it will create
confusion and will impact the company's growth and reputation.
What HR process underpin and support management when it comes to effective
performance management
 Performance Management Review: performance review is the best way in which
manager can assess and evaluates the work performances of all the employees. This
evaluation helps manager to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the employee and
then later offers feedbacks. This all analysis and evaluation further helps the manager to
set future goals. Many organisations conduct performance reviews to get the frequent
feedbacks of the performance of the employees. Reviews can be evaluated in quarterly,
monthly or even on weekly basis (Sousa and González-Loureiro, 2017). It depends on the
company which performance review term should help the company to grow. There are
many tips which employees may follow to have the review successful. For e.g.: prepare
notes covering topics which they want o discuss like strengths, goals, problems etc., give
examples on how earlier they have met the goals of the company, employees should also
make self evaluation to identify themselves and work upon it and employees should also
ask questions in case they have any query or doubt. It is very important in an organisation
to take the performance review seriously by both the employee and the manager. The
manager should help balance the environment and should avoid various situations and
words to be done and said to the employees. They are: comparisons between the
employees to avoid jealousy, false praise as it would mislead employees and this will also
affect the company, speculation of the employees, etc. an organisation should evaluate
performance reviews on priority basis and make sure that all the employees are working
together in the same direction to achieve the common goal of the company.
 360 Degree Appraisal: This is a kind of appraisal system in which the performance of an
employee is evaluated on the basis of the reviews taken by the 7- 12 people's group.
These people are those who are working with the employee who is being evaluated by an
organisation. The feedback given by the group of people is reviewed after gathering it on

the basis of the competency. This is an appraisal system in which the understanding of
the employees are improved with the help of the feedbacks received. There are 3 main
reasons for which this appraisal method is used by the company. Firstly, to get enhance
review of performance and future ideology of the employees. Secondly, to enhance the
development of the manpower and specifications of its needs. Thirdly, to collect the
overall feedbacks from the employees and ensure that fairly justice is provided to the
organisations (Webb, 2017). This type of review is mainly to focus on the employees
contribution in the skills together with its competencies. This type of review is also
helpful in a way that it helps in analysing the fact that how employees are affected with
the employees working with them.
Recommendations
It is recommended that management team should posses qualities of good communication
and shall have ability to deal with the changes in an organisation effectively. This will help
organisation to make plan or action easily if the management team itself have ability to deal with
those changes. In this way they can also motivate its employees to adapt the changes and work
through them. The managers must use 360 degree appraisal approach to motivate employees in
various different ways to get quality work and growth of the company.
CONCLUSION
It is concluded from this report that the work of human resource management team is not
only limited to the recruiting and training of the employees but the work is very expanded. While
managing the workers or employees of the company it gets really difficult for the managers
sometimes to face challenges. There are various theories which a company can use to face those
challenges and help organisation to achieve success. The managers have to be careful while
performing all its duties and responsibilities and they should also posses all the skills to deserve
to be the manager. They should keep on evaluating the performances of the employees to boost
their morales and help them grow individually.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Bragaru, C., 2016. THE ROLE OF THE PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR-MAIN TENDENCIES
IN MANAGEMENT AND LEADERSHIP SKILLS OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATOR
IN ROMANIA. Challenges of the Knowledge Society, p.886.
Cook, T.A., 2018. Developing Masterful Management Skills for International Business. Crc
Press.
Delamain, C. and Spring, J., 2020. Teaching Critical Thinking Skills: An Introduction for
Children Aged 9–12. Routledge.
Garg, A., 2017. Soft Skills and Its Importance for Employment and Success in India. Asian
Journal of Research in Business Economics and Management, 7(8), pp.96-104.
IKOLI, E. and Onoh, B.C., 2018. MANAGEMENT SKILLS REQUIRED BY SELF-
EMPLOYED ELECTRICAL CRAFTSMEN FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP
DEVELOPMENT IN ABUA/OPUAL LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF RIVERS
STATE. Journal of Research in Science and Technology Education, 5(1).
Shields Jr, R., 2018. A Phenomenological Study of the Experiences of Voluntary Organization
Leaders with Business Management Skills (Doctoral dissertation, Northcentral
University).
Sousa, M.J. and González-Loureiro, M., 2017. Comparative study on skills needed by
organizations and effectively developed in eLearning management courses. Universal
Access in the Information Society, 16(4), pp.877-888.
Webb, S.P., 2017. Knowledge management: Linchpin of change. Routledge.