Managing People: Importance of Progressive HRM Policies

This essay discusses the importance of progressive HRM policies in managing people effectively. It explores the strategies and policies followed by Interplast Limited, a leading manufacturer of plastic pipe systems, for employee engagement, workplace diversity, and training and development.

Managing People

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Why organisation needs progressive addition to HRM policies. ................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
People management is said to procedures of training, motivating, developing and
directing workforce so to optimise productivity together with promoting professional growth
Armstrong, 2016). Now a days, managing people is one of difficult area in human resource
management as people have complex nature and unstable emotions due to which huge hurdles
arises in front to managers. Human resource management is all about procuring suitable people,
training along with developing their competence, rewarding them, influencing them and building
an urge within them to work with dedication and commitment for success addition to growth of
busienss. Managing people is more than art rather that a science as there is no set principle or
rule that managers can adopt. Effective managers have skills and competence in managing
people. Workplace leaders uses people management in order to oversee workflow addition to
boost employee performance. To gain knowledge for managing people, Interplast Limited is
selected that is fully Ghanaian owned entity which was founded in 1970 and is popularise as one
of leading manufacturer of plastic pipe system. The institution adherence for quality standards
and is committed for delivering consistent addition to highly professional products (Interplast
Limited, 2019). It is active export business that has made relations with across 22 countries and
currently employs more than 600 people. The present essay is based on reasons organisation
need robust as well as progressive HRM policies.
MAIN BODY
Why organisation needs progressive addition to HRM policies.
Human resource management refers to one of strategic and effective approach for
managing people within organisation so to workforce contributes in gaining competitive edge for
the business. In other words, It is a system which concentrates towards developing human
resources along with efficaciously managing people through developing and implementing
appropriate programmes. It focuses on aspirations, needs and aspects of each manpower. It is
basically designed for maximising performances in context to strategic objectives set by
employers. It mainly focuses on managing people with policies and systems. At workplace, HR
department has responsibility to oversee employee recruitment and selection, compensation
management, performance appraisal, training and selection, employee benefit designs and
employee engagement (Carnall, 2018). At any organisation, managing people is needed for
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handling interpersonal conflicts, managing deadlines, building corporate culture and leading
employee training. In present era, managing people is becoming difficult due to increasing pace
of work, hiring addition to retention challenges, limited management layers, constant pressures
for improving quality together with productivity and increasing interdependency. At Interplast
Limited, managing people is done through understanding the aspects that motivates people,
achieving employee engagement, brushing performance reviews, leveraging technologies,
making people feeling sense of valuables and providing training and development. The company
has good and effective managers that motivates, encourages together with inspires people to
work according to predetermined criteria in executing operations properly. Some of the strategies
that are followed by the management team of such company to manage people for business
success are recruitment, on boarding, training and development, engagement, performance
review and rewarding (People management strategies, 2018).
HRM policies are characterised to continuing guidelines through which a company
manages its people. Sound HRM policy is related to objectives and facts. Effective HRM
policies helps in providing guidances addition to tools to managers, developing company culture,
reflecting business standards, making rules surrounded with consistency, clarity addition to
fairness, engaging employees with distinct workings, meeting legal obligations and providing
required training and development on appropriate duration. According to the viewpoints of
Cascio (2015), HRM policies are made according to the strategies as framed by the HR
professionals so that they can gain maximum outcomes after implementation of the policies.
These policies presents principles which guides actions of the entity as well as reflect faith
within ethical values of people. Such type of policies of Interplast Limited are clear, definite and
easily understand by all people that serve guidance for improving workings of people in present
times and for future.
Some of the common HRM policies that all the companies follows are workplace
diversity, reward system, training and development, compensation and benefits, employee
engagement and labour management relations (Cascio, 2015). From the all, Interplast Limited
follows HRM policies of employee engagement along with training and development. In context
to training and development policy, it presents prime opportunities for expanding knowledge
and skill base of all employees. Training programs helps in strengthening skills that are required
by employees to perform activities in unique and fast ways. In this, various types of training and
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development such as soft skill development, quality training, technology training, professional
development team training, safety training and many more are provided to improve skill set and
knowledge base of the people employed at organisation. At same time, development programs
brings major changes within employees which results in having similar knowledge addition skills
within all employees and they works by coordinating with each other. With this policy, weak
lines that are within the organisation are reduced and work tasks for making pipe lines are
completed on time (De Anca and Vega, 2016). The policy is needed at Interplast limited so to
improve employee performance, addressing weaknesses, adhering with quality standards,
enhancing innovation within new policies and improving morale and satisfaction of manpower.
The management considers framework of Harvard Model of HRM while setting the procedures
to provide training and development. With this model, managers of selected institution focuses
on aspects related to situational factors, interest of employees, HRM policy choices, HR
outcomes, long term consequences and feedback loops by which output flows directly into
company and its employees. As per the viewpoints of employees, the human resource managers
focuses on interest of their manpower and accordingly state training and development policy. At
same time, HRM policies are framed as per pertaining situational factors so to achieve positive
outcomes that leads towards long term consequences. The robust and progressive training and
development policy ensures that workforce gains consistent experience as well as background
knowledge regarding the ways a work can be completed in distinct and unique manners which
enhances efficiencies of manpower. In addition, by providing necessary training and
development creates totality of knowledgeable workforce with employees who wither works on
teams or groups as well as independently without ongoing direction, help addition to supervision
from others.
Organisation like Interplast Limited also follows HRM policy of workplace diversity in
which they employ people having different attitude, physical appearance, sexual orientation,
religion, education and national origin. Diversity provides access for having greater talent range,
expanding pool of talents, improving overall business morale, enhancing employee productivity
and innovating ideas which are needed for improvements. With this policy, selected entity
fosters mutual respect between manpower, develops employee working capability, provide
empowerment to marginalised people, reduces chances of conflicts, increases exposure of one
person with different types of humans and enhances business reputation. The managers have
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framed an inclusive work place model where talents from distinct geographical location are hired
and motivated to work in team that not only benefits in achieving more productive outcomes but
also helps in providing flexibility to employees such that they remain loyal and connected with
the entity for long time. In present era, there are various tactics that enhances diversity at
workplace (Denhardt and Et. Al., 2018). Some of the tactics that are used to enhance workplace
diversity at the institution are challenging unconscious bias, educating company leadership,
creating cultural events, stimulating remote workers, collecting inclusion feedbacks
continuously, training empowerment and creating core values of the entity.
The another HRM policy that human resources professionals of Interplast Limited
follows is employee engagement. In employee engagement policy, various activities are
planned and implemented that improves engagement of employees with other people and
organisational objectives. With this policy, the organisation ensures that staff members are
committed and loyal to the vision, objectives and values of the entity as well as are encouraged
to make huge contributions for the business success along with enhancing their own well being
sense. As per the thought of Petrick, (2017), the HR manager beliefs that the three components
such as behaviours, outcomes addition to attitudes are crucial for enhancing employee
engagement. To met the employee engagement conditions, a virtual ground is provided that
triggers the engagement as well as reinforce people for workings. As per the employee
commitment level, the managers of selected entity classifies them into three types that are
actively engaged, not engaged along with actively disengaged. According to these classification,
further policies to boost their engagement with the working are formulated. To enhance
employee engagement, HR managers along with superiors provides a work culture to manpower
in which supportive superiors, transparent communication, talent acquisition, regular meetings,
get-together programmes and events are emphasised more that leads in more engagement of
employees that further drives performances (Hayes, 2016). To measure employee engagement,
managers conducts time to time surveys, readiness assessments and one on one interviews
through which they identifies the reasons of low employee engagement and accordingly set
aspects that influences their engagement in positive manner. This progressive addition to robust
HRM policy is needed at selected institution so to boost productivity, increasing their work
satisfaction, retaining best people, enhancing corporate culture and achieving success.
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At Interplast Limited, HRM policies such as employment engagement addition to training
and development are considered as the most robust and progressive policies that are needed for
managing people effectively, communicating values, providing clear picture about employee
career growth, developing skills and knowledge, managing expectation and creating healthy
work environment. According to Vance and Paik (2015), employment engagement policy is
needed at organisation for reducing staff turnover, retaining customers along with employees for
long duration, improving efficiency, intensifying corporate culture and boosting productivity so
that huge profits are achieved and more people at attracted towards the entity. At same time,
training and development policy is needed for hiring new orientation, tackling shortcomings,
increasing knowledge base, strengthening skill set, developing human resources, fostering
growth, improving work quality with work-life and carry out organisational practices smoothly.
HRM strategies are termed to the approaches for managing people and supports business
goals with strategic framework. In other words, these are the plans which leads into
implementing distinct functions within human resource department. Overall business strategies
plays huge role in guiding HRM strategies so to attain all the objectives via employees. While
taking cognisance of HRM strategy and HRM policies, the managers considers Warwick Model
of HRM in which the managers identifies important influences on strategies on policies. The
model involves macro environment forces, micro environment forces, business strategy
content,HRM context and HRM content. The model helps in mapping out connection among
internal and external forces as well as exploring the ways people are managed by adapting
changes in the environment. The viewpoints of Johnson (2016) says that there is linkage of
human resource management policies with human resource strategies such as while framing the
strategies for human resources, HR professionals of Interplast limited considers all the aspects
such as manpower requirements, training and development, performance appraisals, engaging
employees and compensation. HRM strategy is considered as long term plan which dictates
policies throughout the entity. When the company has human resource management strategy of
strengthening employee relations so to ensure commitment and motivation of workforce which
they can attain through implementing the human resource policy of employee engagement in
which that can boost engagement and involvement of employees (Kirton and Greene, 2015). In
addition, the strategy of human resource mangers for knowledge management, learning and
development and continuous improvements. With the help of human resource policy of training
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and development, this strategy can be achieved by providing effective training programs and
development sessions to employees that will manage their knowledge, help them to learn and
develop as well as making ongoing improvements among them. Hence, the HRM strategies are
closely linked with HRM policies that helps the entity in achieving the objectives with huge
beneficiary outcomes.
CONCLUSION
As per the above discussion, it has been concluded that managing people is an essential
task of the managers in which they performs activities of recruitment, selection, ongoing support,
compensation, development, motivation, communication and administration. Human resource
management emphasis towards employing people, compensating services, developing resources
in tuning with requirements of the company. At the time of managing people, administrative
authorities emphasis on the practice of hiring right candidate and getting best from these
candidates. Organisational managers makes tremendous efforts so that people within the
premises are effectively managed. Some of the progressive together with robust policies
followed by human resource management are employee engagement, workplace diversity
training and development that are needed for creating desired culture, ensuring operational
efficiency, improving skill set together knowledge base, clarifying expectations of behaviour
along with performance, tackling shortcomings, enhancing work satisfaction, improving
employee engagement and accomplishing objectives. HRM policies have direct linkage with the
HRM strategies as policies are set after considering the strategies.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Armstrong, M., 2016. How to manage people. Kogan Page Publishers.
Carnall, C., 2018. Managing change. Routledge.
Cascio, W. F., 2015. Managing human resources. McGraw-Hill.
De Anca, C. and Vega, A. V., 2016. Managing diversity in the global organization: Creating
new Business values. Springer.
Denhardt, R. B. and Et. Al., 2018. Managing human behavior in public and nonprofit
organizations. CQ Press.
Hayes, P., 2016. Managing people. Good Practice, (1-2), p.17.
Johnson, G., 2016. Exploring strategy: text and cases. Pearson education.
Kirton, G. and Greene, A. M., 2015. The dynamics of managing diversity: A critical approach.
Routledge.
Martin, G. and Siebert, S., 2016. Managing people and organizations in changing contexts.
Routledge.
Petrick, J., 2017. Total quality in managing human resources. Routledge.
Reason, J. and Hobbs, A., 2017. Managing maintenance error: a practical guide. CRC Press.
Seah, X. Y. and Et. Al., 2017. Knowledge, attitudes and challenges of healthcare professionals
managing people with eating disorders: a literature review. Archives of psychiatric
nursing. 31(1). pp.125-136.
Thomson, R., Arney, E. and Thomson, A., 2015. Managing People: A Practical Guide for
Front-line Managers. Routledge.
Vance, C. M. and Paik, Y., 2015. Managing a global workforce. Routledge.
Wehrmeyer, W., 2017. Greening people: Human resources and environmental management.
Routledge.
Online:
Interplast Limited. 2019. [Online]. Available through: <https://interplast.com/>
People management strategies. 2018. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.hrinasia.com/leadership-2/people-management-strategies-for-business-
success/>
Agyepong, Sena A., Frank D.K. Fugar, and Martin Morgan Tuuli. 2019. “The Applicability of
the Harvard and Warwick Models in the Development of Human Resource
Management Policies of Large Construction Companies in Ghana”. figshare.
https://hdl.handle.net/2134/11549.
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