Human Resource Management: Contemporary Issues and Recommendations

This report provides an executive summary and in-depth analysis of contemporary issues in Human Resource Management. It begins with an introduction outlining the importance of HRM and its impact on business operations. The report then delves into three key HRM issues: the Fair Work Commission ruling on casual rates in horticulture, the changing face of employment, and navigating mandatory personal data breach notifications. Each issue is discussed in detail, referencing relevant news articles, frameworks, and theories. The report examines the implications of these issues on HR practices, including recruitment, selection, and policy development. Finally, it concludes with recommendations for future improvements, focusing on adapting to changes in labor markets, enhancing HR planning, and ensuring data security. The report highlights the need for businesses to proactively address these challenges to maintain effective and ethical people management practices.

HUMAN RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The present report will explain about various news story and articles describing about the
contemporary issues related to Human Resource Management. The importance of human
resource management is also discussed in the report within the context of effectively and
ethically managing the people within the business organisation. The report will briefly discuss
about various news articles in connection with its effects and influences on the practices of
Human Resource Management and its functions as well. The structure of the report will be such
as it will first provide brief summary about the new article or story. Then three different key HR
issues from news story will be identified. Brief discussion about them will be done in context of
frameworks and theories. Further some recommendations will also be provided for future
improvements.

Table of Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES......................................................................................................1
Fair Work Commission ruling on casual rates in horticulture...............................................1
The Changing face of employment........................................................................................2
Navigating mandatory personal data breach notification.......................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
RECOMMENDATIONS.................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

1.0 INTRODUCTION
Human resource management plays a great role in the working of organisation. The
human resource management aims at effectively managing the business activities and operations.
There are many issues associated with the human resource management which bring influences
on the business and its activities Campbell, Macdonald & Charlesworth (2019) pp. 67-90.
The present report explains about the functions, practices, concepts and also the
contemporary issues of the human resource management. The report briefly discusses about the
various contemporary issues and news articles that are associated with the HRM models and
theories.
2.0 HUMAN RESOURCE ISSUES
2.1 Casual pay rates in horticulture
The news article is based on the Fair work commission and it rules on the casual rates for
the horticulture farms. The Fair Work Commission is the national workplace relations tribunal of
Australia and is an independent body that has the power for carrying out various functions such
as facilitation of good faith bargaining, make enterprise agreement, provide safety net for
minimum conditions and includes minimum wage is awards Randall & Kroll (2016) pp. 55. The
news article suggest that this commission is not a good and effective decision for food producers
and this may lead to bring negative results and outcomes. One of the food producer of Australia
states that this ruling commission may broke some farmers and also force up the vegetables and
fruits prices Stone, R. J., & Stone, R. J. (2013).
The ruling commission also brings changes on how business operates. For example, the
managing director of the Piñata Farms said that influences or changes in the horticulture awards
will lead to ring changes in the way Piñata operates. The fruit and vegetable producers has to pay
extra money or overtime to people who work more than 38 hours in a week (Fair Work
Commission ruling on casual rates in horticulture, 2019). The producer says that they cannot
afford for paying any more overtime to workers. The ruling commission bring both positive and
negative influence for the Australian economy. Australian Manufacturing Worker's Union agrees
with the changes in the casual rates and supports it. He states that the impacts of ruling
commission and increase in worker's wage will flow on and through Australian economy Carter
& Hartridge (2018) pp. 204-205.
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This ruling commission may lead to bring immense impacts and challenges on the
Australian organisations and producers. Such as producer will lead to lose workers due to this
ruling commission. Overall whole economy will get impacted as people will not come to
Australia for work as they will not be allowed to work for extra hours so that they can get
enough dollars Reilly & et.al., (2018). The changes in the business environmental bring great
influences on the working of the business activities, operations, policies and HR practices as
well. The human resource of the business organisations gets impacted as it has to frame new
policies and procedures for attracting new people to organisation. The influences in the
government policies in relation to labour cost or working hours leads to bring great impacts and
influences on the organisation and its HR department as well. The recruitment and selection
function of HR will get affected and HR planning as well McCrystal (2018) pp. 131-156.
2.2 The Changing face of employment
The news article is based on the changes in the today's business environmental and
Australian economy. This news article states that The Business Council of Australia has
suggested for putting more significant investments in the field of education and training as it is
required to help stem the tide of increasing unemployment Sullivan & Maniff (2016). This is
particularly for young people and the ones who are experiencing disadvantages. The challenges
are being faced by the Australian economy due to the increasing global labour markets. The
increase in the labour markets leads to alter the kinds of job people have in the country and also
alters the qualifications and skills that workers of Australia need to have. One of the discussion
paper that is released by Business council of Australia named as Building Australia's
comparative advantage suggested about the human capital development. The paper describes that
in order to gain the benefits of competitive, productive and prosperous Australia, businesses
needs to focus on developing human resources to their best and full potential Stone & Deadrick
(2015) pp. 139-145.
Australia plans to heavily invest in maximising the human capital and investing in the
training and education of people. But still there are many other factors that leads to affect the
labour markets. The forces of change include increased use of technology and globalisation as
well. Increased use of technology and also increase in the emerging economy and this leads to
impact on every sector of the Australian economy Marcus (2018) pp. 555.
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The Business Council of Australia is interested in the Vocational Education and Training.
This is considered as the crucial and important piece of national armour that is needed for
protecting the social cohesion and economic competitiveness of Australia (The changing face of
employment, 2019). The VET is a core part of the education and training system that helps in
facilitating transition to the people across their adulthood.
The changes in the labour markets leads to change the HR Practices as well. The
workforce in the future time will be very different from the ones in today's environment. For
example, the changes can already be seen as the operations and activities of traditional
manufacturing are already closed which were a part of car industry. The HR also needs to ensure
that jobseekers are provided with the jobs they actually wanted and also providing them with a
sight to that job role Tikkinen-Piri, Rohunen & Markkula (2018) pp.134-153. The HR needs to
focus on ensuring that workforce and employees are fully equipped with the required and right
capabilities, skills and knowledge. And all these needs to be in better collaboration with
business, education sectors and also with government.
2.3 Navigating mandatory personal data breach notification
The news article is based on the notifications about personal data breach. These
notifications are very complex in nature and it may vary or differ between jurisdiction and within
jurisdiction. It is generally based on the kind of information which business organisation gathers
or have the legal access for. And there are various key step procedure for data access which may
be taken across the board. The mandatory personal data breach notification law as part of the
amendments to the Privacy Act 1988 was introduced in February 2018 in the Australia Gallie &
et.al. (2017) pp. 36-53. This notification law underlines that business organisations needs to
notify about the eligible data breach cases with the both Australian Information Commissioner
and impacted individual.
In general way, personal data breach can be defined as the unauthorised disclosure of, or
unauthorised access to personal data or information about the individuals. And it may also
include where this information got available or lost for some period Underhill & et.al., (2018)
pp.675-689. The introduction of this mandatory notification law reflects about the increasing
global trend and gives the individual to have more awareness and control about how organisation
can access their personal data behave.
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Business organisation and Human resource department aims at effectively framing the
business policies and procedures so that it ensures about the safety and security of the personal
information of the workforce and employees. There is an increase in the number of cases about
the personal data breaches and it also grabs the attention of media Collings, Wood & Szamosi,
(2018) pp. 1-23. The business organisation involved in such information breach cases have to
suffer regulatory fines and public backlash as well. Some data breaches cases are preventable
and may be caused because of posting data or faxing the data or sending data in emails is sent to
an incorrect recipient. It may happen when failure to redact the data. It may even happen when
someone fails to use bcc (blind copy) while sending the emails to bulk mailing list.
The business organisation gets impacted when the personal data breach case happens.
Thus, in order to get protected they need to ensure that proper personal data breach plan is being
already prepared that acts a risk assessment Zarsky (2019). Company can know and ensure about
the most likely causes of the personal data breach, etc. The business organisation may get
immensely impacted due to the data breach cases thus it need to focus on effectively following
the procedures and measurement mentioned under the breach notifications law.
3.0 CONCLUSION
The present report is based on the various news articles that are focused on different
issues related to human resource management. The news article describes about the trends and
factors that are impacting the Australian economy and its businesses. These contemporary trends
leads to affect and impact the human resource practices and functions. The first article discussed
in the report is based on the fair work commission that rules on the casual workers wage rate in
the horticultural sector. The second article is based on the various factors that leads to bring
changes on the labour markets. And the last article describes about the personal data breach
notifications laws which is being mandatory to be followed by the businesses in the Australia.
The report describes that how these news articles and issues mentioned in it leads to bring
influences and impacts on the Human resource of business. Further some recommendations are
also provided for the future considerations and improvements.
4.0 RECOMMENDATIONS
 The business organisations and Human resource department needs to focus on various
success factors while employing and retaining the indigenous job-seeker.
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 The HR will also need to reframe the working hours practices and policies in accordance
with the ruling commission.
 The Human resource department needs to focus on bringing effective and required
changes in the HR planning, recruitment and selection techniques and HR practices in
order to face the skills' deficit and skill mismatches in the situation of rising
unemployment.
 The pre-employment education and training effectively matches with the real
organisational roles and responsibilities.
 The HR practices of business organisation needs to be formed in a way that it focuses on
providing long-term mentoring, coaching and guiding to workforce and employees in the
job.
 The HR needs to ensure on building effective organisational culture and safe-workplace
for employees.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journal
Campbell, I., Macdonald, F., & Charlesworth, S. (2019). On-demand Work in Australia. In Zero
Hours and On-call Work in Anglo-Saxon Countries (pp. 67-90). Springer, Singapore.
Carter, D. J., & Hartridge, S. (2018). Mandatory data breach notification requirements for
medical practice. The Medical Journal of Australia. 209(5). 204-205.
Collings, D. G., Wood, G. T., & Szamosi, L. T. (2018). Human resource management: A critical
approach. In Human Resource Management (pp. 1-23). Routledge.
Gallie, D. & et.al., (2017). The hidden face of job insecurity. Work, employment and
society. 31(1). 36-53.
Marcus, D. J. (2018). The Data Breach Dilemma: Proactive Solutions for Protecting Consumers'
Personal Information. Duke LJ. 68. 555.
McCrystal, S. (2018). Termination of Enterprise Agreements under the'Fair Work Act
2009'(Cth) and Final Offer Arbitration. Australian Journal of Labour Law. 31(2). 131-
156.
Randall, K. P., & Kroll, S. A. (2016). Getting Serious about Law Firm Cybersecurity. NEW
JERSEY LAWYER. 55.
Reilly, A. & et.al., (2018). International Students and the Fair Work Ombudsman.
Stone, D. L., & Deadrick, D. L. (2015). Challenges and opportunities affecting the future of
human resource management. Human Resource Management Review. 25(2). 139-145.
Stone, R. J., & Stone, R. J. (2013). Managing human resources. Wiley.
Sullivan, R. J., & Maniff, J. L. (2016). Data Breach Notification Laws. Economic Review
(01612387). 101(1).
Tikkinen-Piri, C., Rohunen, A., & Markkula, J. (2018). EU General Data Protection Regulation:
Changes and implications for personal data collecting companies. Computer Law &
Security Review. 34(1). 134-153.
Underhill, E. & et.al., (2018). Migration intermediaries and codes of conduct: Temporary
migrant workers in Australian horticulture. Journal of Business Ethics. 153(3). 675-689.
Zarsky, T. (2019). Data Breach Harms-Bringing in the Courts, or Leaving Them out. Jotwell: J.
Things We Like. 1.
Online
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Fair Work Commission ruling on casual rates in horticulture. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2019-04-05/fair-work-commission-ruling-on-casual-
rates-in-horticulture/10974670>
Navigating mandatory personal data breach notification obligations around the world. 2018.
[Online]. Available through:
<https://www.claytonutz.com/knowledge/2018/august/navigating-mandatory-personal-
data-breach-notification-obligations-around-the-world-what-do-i-need-to-do>
The changing face of employment. 2019. [Online]. Available through:
<http://insight.vcoss.org.au/the-changing-face-of-employment/>
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