Challenges Faced by Manufacturing Sector in Attracting and Retaining Employees

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human Resource Management
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Introduction
The essay helps in analyzing the different key challenges which are being faced by the
manufacturing sector in attracting and retaining the different talents and workforce in the
different organizations. The human resource management is one of the crucial functions in all
the organizations as this helps in dealing with issues which are related to performance
management, compensation along with development of the organization in an appropriate
manner (D'Netto et al., 2014). The different kinds of challenges are required to be discussed
which will be helpful in managing the effectiveness and reduce the different kinds of
dissimilarities in an efficient manner.
The employees are the integral part of the different organizations in which proper
encouragement is required to be provided to the different employees and this will be
beneficial for the overall success of the firm in an effective manner. There are different
manufacturing sector companies, which are not being able to perform the human resource
activities in an effective manner and this is becoming ineffective in nature for gaining the
success in the organization. The diversity related issues are being faced by the different
companies which are required to be addressed in an efficient manner to solve the issues in an
appropriate manner (Jackson, Schuler & Jiang 2014).
Challenges faced by the manufacturing sector in managing and retaining the employees
It is a common belief that the best workers tend to do a considerable amount of work
and at a fast rate however, most of the employers find it considerable difficult to attract and
retain the right kind of employees in the organization. Although many organizations have
increased their pay and other related aspects which they tend to believe will keep the different
employees considerably happy, however, this is not the case and there are a large number of
challenges which are faced by the organizations with respect to the attraction and retention of
the employees (Brewster, 2017). This challenge is one of the most commonly faced
challenges as present in today`s competitive world whereby the leaders know that although
talent is valuable, they are also aware of the fact that talent is indeed rare and it is important
for the purpose of the organization to ensure that they have the right kind of employees.
According to Aravamudhan and Krishnaveni (2016), 82 percent of the companies find it
difficult to believe that they have hired the right kind of people for the task. Only 23% of the
employees believe that they should deploy appropriate talent and retention strategies in order

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to attract the employees and make them stay for a longer time frame in the organization. For
this purpose, the following section will outline certain challenges which are faced by the
organizations to attract and retent the employees in the manufacturing sector.
Challenge 1- Lack of a Secure Working Environment
The primary challenge which is faced by the different employers is the challenge
related to the lack of a secure working environment. With the rise of the e-commerce and
other related websites, the manufacturing industries have been greatly impacted whereby
there has been a consistent increase in the operations of the manufacturing sector and hence,
with respect to this the business environment has become increasingly competitive in nature
and this has led to a lack of a secure working environment for the employees. According to
Cascio (2018), many employers believe that it is only the salary and pay structure which
tends to encourage the different employees and helps the firm to retain them for the long run
of the organization but in reality this is not the case and it is a conducive and secure work
environment which tends to encourage the workers to continue working in the specific
organization.
However, as stated previously due to the increased competition in the workplace and
the presence of a constant pressure of engaging in high sales and other working hours, the
work environment has become highly insecure which then tends to contribute towards a work
culture which is highly unsafe for the general welfare of the organization (Kramer et al.,
2011). Hence, as the organizations are unable to provide a safe working environment to the
different workers due to the pressure on them and for this reason, they are being faced by the
challenge of attracting and retaining the employees.
As stated previously, one of the major reasons behind this is that the lack of job
security which exists at the workplace. As the manufacturing organizations are unable to
provide a sense of job security to the different people at the workplace, it becomes
increasingly difficult for them to manage these employees and their job tenure as they have to
succumb to the work environment pressure.
Challenge 2- Mechanization
Mechanization is the process of changing the workplace in a large manner and the
main aim of the same is to perform the different activities in the organization through proper

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usage of machinery (Busse, Aboneh & Tefera, 2014). There is a huge reduction in the
different number of employees working in the organization and this is causing resistance
among the different employees working in the organization in an ineffective manner
(Kramar, 2014). Due to mechanization and the advancement of the technology in the working
environment in different organizations, this has affected the morale of the different
employees and this has increased the resistance among the employees in the organization in
an ineffective manner (Massingham, 2014).
This kind of mechanization is affecting the morale of the employees as they are not
being informed about the any kinds of changes which are taking place in the different
organizational structure and set-up (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). Furthermore, the
business relationships are ineffective in nature due to the implementation of the machineries
and other techniques such as video calls and messaging which is affecting the overall
ineffectiveness of the firm in a negative manner. The advancement of the technology in the
different organizations are instilling a negative kind of work culture and they are demotivated
in performing the activities efficiently (Cooke, Saini & Wang, 2014). Along with this, as the
mechanization has thereby contributed to reducing the costs of the firm, the different
employer tend to believe that instead of placing a large amount of investment on the different
members of the organization, they should instead use it on machines which then reduces their
problems. In relation to this, the employees view this as a threat and choose to leave the
organization which makes employee retention a challenge for the different companies in the
manufacturing sector.
Challenge 3- Workplace health and safety problem
The second challenge which is faced by the different organizations with respect to the
management of the attraction and rejection of the employees at the workplace is that the
different employers are unable to guarantee a protection of workplace mishaps (Kramer et al.,
2011). As the manufacturing sector has become highly mechanized, there are a large number
of machines used at the workplace and tend to pose a threat to the workplace health and
related safety problems. Moreover, as stated previously, due to the increase growth rate of the
sector the working hours as spent by the different workers has increased considerably and due
to this reason, the employees tend to lack a work life balance and are faced by various health
consequences. It is due to this reason that the different employees who work in an