HRM502 Report: Australian HRM Trends, Challenges, and Future

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of Human Resource Management (HRM) in Australia, focusing on the current trends, challenges, and the evolving role of HR managers. It begins with an introduction to HRM's significance in organizational growth, followed by an overview of HRM practices in Australia, highlighting the shift towards contemporary approaches. The report identifies the key roles and functions of HR managers, including performance management, compensation and benefits, training and development, employee relations, and recruitment. It then delves into the current challenges faced by HRM in Australia, such as recruitment difficulties, balancing management and employee interests, talent shortages, change management, managing diversity, competition, and maintaining a cooperative culture. Furthermore, the report explores current trends, including globalization, workforce diversity, technological advancements, continuous improvement programs, contingent workforces, and employee involvement. The report concludes by analyzing the impact of these factors on the roles and perceptions of HRM in the workplace, emphasizing the need for HR managers to adapt to these changes to drive organizational success.

Running Head: HRM
Human Resource Management
Report
System04104
6/22/2019

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Table of Contents
1. Introduction.........................................................................................................................2
2. HRM in Australia................................................................................................................2
3. Key Roles and Functions of HR Manager..........................................................................3
4. Current Challenges for HRM in Australia..........................................................................4
5. Current Trends for HRM in Australia.................................................................................5
6. How these factors affect the roles and perceptions of HRM in the Workplace..................7
7. Conclusion..........................................................................................................................8
Reference....................................................................................................................................9

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1. Introduction
Human resource management is crucial and plays a vital role in the growth and
development of any organisation. Humans are the most precious and key resources in any
organisation and this resource should be manage in such a way that enhance the
organisational capabilities in order to achieve the organisational goals and objectives (Kehoe
& Wright, 2013). However, the organisation also faces many challenges, difficulties, and
opportunities related to managing people in the organisation. Human resource is most
relevant and adaptive resource of any organisation and it also ensures the organisational
success and survival. This report helps to understand the role of HRM in Australia and
current challenges and trends in HRM. This report also helps to understand the roles and
responsibilities of HR manager in the organisation. This report also explains that how HR
strategies help the HR manager to gain competitive advantage and motivate people towards
the organisational goals. This report also helps to understand that how HR managers meet all
these challenges and about the current trends in HR in modern business era.
2. HRM in Australia
From last 20 years, Australia manages their people in more competitive, global, and
deregulated environment. Most of the organisations use the contemporary human resource
management approach to deal with people, use those strategies, which are beneficial for the
corporate competitiveness and give a competitive edge over the competitors. Every
organisation in Australia wants to improve their performance by adopting the modern HRM
strategies and practices. It has been seen that most of the large multinational organisations in
Australia uses the integrated and corporate strategies to manager their human resource in
compare to small organisation (Lee, Pak, Kim, & Li, 2019). The most of the HR works in the
organisation are performed by the HR specialist rather than other common people. It is also
observed that both private and public sectors uses different type of practices of HRM and
uses different approach of HRM to manage the performance of people in the organisation.
The HRM practice performed by the Specialist is generally influenced by the nature of work,
organisational structure, and contractual relationships among people in the organisation.
However, the HR manager is accountable to manage and accomplish both internal and
external change in the organisation, which affects the organisational performance and ability
to perform (Schuler, Jackson & Tarique, 2011).

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3. Key Roles and Functions of HR Manager
HR manager is any organisation play significant role in organisational success. HR
manager is not only responsible for manage people, also responsible for motivate and
encourage people towards the organisational objectives. The key roles and functions of a HR
manager are as follow:
1. Manage the performance of people: HR manager is responsible for manage the
performance of organisational people by encouraging and motivating them towards
the organisational goals and objectives. HR manager is also accountable for
performing the strategic and functional responsibilities. HR manager also reports to
the director or a C-level HR executive of the organisation about the performance of
employees and also reports about the various HR issues in the organisation (Alfes,
Shantz, Truss & Soane, 2013).
2. Compensation and Benefits: A HR manager responsible for guidance and direction
on compensation and benefits plan and also manages data related to it. Apart from
this, the manager also responsible from designing the compensation benefits for the
employees and provide them other monetary and non-monetary benefits. The manager
is also responsible for providing medical leave for the employees and responsible to
compliance such type of acts in the organisation. HR manager is also responsible for
monitoring and evaluating performance of employees for the purpose of employee’s
appraisal and promotion in the organisation (Gutierrez-Gutierrez, Barrales-Molina &
Kaynak, 2018).
3. Training and Development: HR manager is responsible to conduct professional
development and training programs for employees in order to improve their
performance. HR manager is also responsible to identify the need of periodic or
regular training to employees and determine the time period when training is
necessary. In Australia, HR manager is also play a vital part in executing the
strategies related to employee development programs. HR manager plays a key role in
planning based training and professional development program to enhance the skills
and knowledge of employees (Daley, 2012).
4. Maintain Effective Relations: The HR manager is responsible for managing a good
relationship among the employees. HR manager also helps in establishing a strong
relationship between employees and management. An effective relationship strategy
helps the organisation to maintain overall well-being of employees in the

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organisation. A good relationship also helps in providing a good work-environment to
the employees, which is free from any discrimination and harassment in the
organisation. A good human resource manager always try to investigate any worst
situation of problem occurs in the organisation and resolve the complaints of
employees (López-Nicolás & Meroño-Cerdán, 2011).
5. Recruitment and selection of People: The HR manager always focuses on to
identify the needs of organisation’s workforce demand and meet the workforce
demands with recruitment and selection of people. An HR manager looks over the
need of organisation to hire new people in the organisation and also focuses on
recruiting and retaining talented employees in the organisation. An HR manager
identifies the needs and shortage of employee in the organisation and develops
strategy for employee’s retention and hiring new employees to fulfil the posts in the
organisation. The HR manager also responsible to hire competitive and highly
talented people in the organisation the meets the value of compensation and benefits
provided by the organisation (Luthans & Doh, 2012).
4. Current Challenges for HRM in Australia
There are many challenges for a HR manager in Australia. These challenges can be
covered in following points:
1. Recruitment and selection: The major challenge for a HR manager in Australia is to
pick the people from the mass number of people who are looking for the same job. It
is really a challenge for a HR manager to pick the right people for the right job. The
manager also required to make regular changes in the selection procedures, which is
suitable for hiring people for the organisation (Kramar, 2014).
2. Balance between Management and Employees: The HR manager is also
responsible to maintain a balance between the interest of management and employees.
The management expects loyalty, better performance, job commitment, and
cooperation from the employees where employees want better salary, safety, and
security at the workplace, career growth, and promotion from the management. It is
really tough job for a HR manager to maintain a balance between the interest of
management and employees (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014).
3. Shortage of Talent: It is really a challenge for the HR manager to identify the right
time for execution of training programs and other development programs to enhance

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the skills of employees. The HR manager always faces problem in creating
collaboration between the employee’s performance and compensations benefits of
employees (Daley, 2012).
4. Change Management: Human resource manager is responsible for persuade people
about the new changes in the organisation. It has been seen that people always resist
new changes and it is really tough job for HR manager to encourage and motivate
people to adopt the new changes in the organisation (Olson, Slater, Hult & Olson,
2018).
5. Managing Diversity: managing diversity in the organisation is a huge challenge for
the people. It has been seen that in large multinational organisations there are many
people working together from different culture and nations. Every people have
different norms, culture, attitude, and behaviour and it is really tough for the HR to
manage different type of people in the organisation and mould them towards the
common goals (Campbell, Coff, & Kryscynski, 2012).
6. Competition: The HR manger also faces challenges to recruit people because of
heavy competition in the market. The other companies can easily access the people
for the job and it is really tough for a HR manager to find out people within the
selection and recruitment budget.
7. Establishing healthy and Cooperative Culture: One of the major challenges for HR
manager is to maintain a healthy and cooperative culture in the organisation along
with maintaining the diversity of the organisation. The external environment and
technology is rapidly changing and it is tough for the HR manager to maintain a
balance between the external environment changes and organisational culture
(Kakuma, Minas, Van Ginneken, Dal Poz, Desiraju, Morris & Scheffler, 2011).
5. Current Trends for HRM in Australia
The current trends in the human resources management are as follow:
1. Globalization and its implications: The business in modern days cross the national
boundaries and it covers all around the world through World Wide Web. This requires
large numbers of people in the organisation. The HR manager has to ensure that
employees have proper skills, techniques, and knowledge to handle the global
challenges and capable in to handle the global assignment. Therefore, it is a tough
work for HR to retain competent people in the organisation to meet the organisational

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goals and objectives. The manager also ensures that all the employees are capable in
identifying the difference among the people and adapt all possible changes that are
required (DeCenzo, Robbins & Verhulst, 2016).
2. Workforce Diversity: Due to globalisation, workforce diversity is the major
challenge for the organisation. The HR manager is responsible to manage the
diversity in the organisation. People have their own culture, values, norms, believe,
and trust. Therefore, making coordination among the employees is really a tough job
for a HR department. Organisational culture also plays and important role in the
organisation that determines the success or failure of the organisation by guiding
people in right directions (Bloom & Van Reenen, 2011).
3. Technology: The modern era is the era of technological advancement and it almost
the change the face of human resource management in all over the world. Large
numbers of organisations are using HR information system in the organisation and it
brings effectiveness in HR functions. In such a scenario, the technological
advancement provides flexibility in human resource work. For example, paper based
work files are now replaced by the HRIMS, which contains huge data in a small
computer and provide access to people from any location from any device such as
mobile phone or laptops (von Bonsdorff, Zhou, Wang, Vanhala, von Bonsdorff, &
Rantanen, 2018).
4. Continuous improvement programs: It is necessary for the long run success of the
organisation and it also enables the organisation to focuses on quality and builds a
solid foundation to serve the customers in better ways. Most of the organisation now
conducted training and development program in customer oriented ways and involves
workers that how they can satisfy the customer with best services. In such a scenario,
every company wants to improve employee’s capabilities and everything that helps
the company to deliver best services (Daley, 2012).
5. Contingent workforce: Large numbers of employees in the organisation are
working as contingent workers in the organisation. These workers are hired for the
shorter time periods in the organisation. These people have ability to perform specific
task and have specific skills to perform a job. When an organisation decides to deploy
several part of its workforce from contingent workers, it creates challenge for the
human resource department. The HR department has to ensure that the contingent
workforce meet the objective of the organisation or not or their work will be

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beneficial for the organisation or not. These types of workers are temporarily
recruited by the organisation for specific jobs, and it is really tough for the HR
department to manage all these people and treated them in same way with regular
organisational workers (Horwitz & Mellahi, 2018).
6. Employees Involvement: In this competitive and modern business era, there are
number of employee involvement concepts and approaches, which are required to be
successful for the organisation. HRM plays a vital role in the employees’ involvement
as it ensures that people give their best to the organisation. The involvement needs
proper training and development of employees and here the role of HR department is
so crucial. The HR department always responsible to empowers the employees by
providing them proper training and job authorities (Wright & McMahan, 2011).
6. How these factors affect the roles and perceptions of HRM in the
Workplace
The HRM department in any organisation is responsible for two different works:
managing people in the organisation and overseeing different departmental function in the
organisation. The current challenges and trends in the HR enhance the power of HR manager
to properly execute the plan in right ways in the organisation and motivate the people towards
the organisational goals (Ployhart & Moliterno, 2011). Although, the tough competition in
the workforce market and competitive compensation policies of competitors force the HR
department of every organisation to adopt modern changes in the human resource era and
implement it in the organisation. Today’s organisations are mostly focus on employees health
and safety, provide them better compensation, and ensure them that organisation will provide
a good work environment to them. These factors are only possible because of changes in
approach in the human resource management. However, the roles of HR manager is
somewhat taken by the HR information system which contributes more than a human HR
manager. The use of technology almost makes the HR work easy and provide convenience to
the organisation to make quick and fast decisions (Drucker, 2012). The use of technology
enables the organisations to easily access the information and provide it to any authorised
person at any remote locations. Even the huge of amount of data can easily be accessed,
interpret, and analysed by the organisation on fingertips. However, because of cutthroat
competition, large number of organisation uses the same techniques in their organisation and
it also increase the competition in any industry and force the organisation to look forward for

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further innovative change in HRM, which helps the company to gain competitive advantage
over others (Guest, 2011).
It goes without say that if organisation has not it clear HR strategies and policies it
will adversely affect the growth and progress of the organisation. The organisation needs to
implement strong strategic policies and adopt the current and emerging trends in the human
resource department, which helps the organisation to manage the human resource effectively
and efficiently. However, the organisation must understand the current trends in HR and the
HR profession have to dig deeper to maintain the organisation progress and growth in future
(Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart & Wright, 2017).
7. Conclusion
In conclusion, it can be said that the role of HR manager is nearly parallel to
organisational needs and goals. HRM in the current globalised era is crucial as it focuses on
the overall development and growth of both employees and organisation. An organisation can
get the success when its human resource department will be adaptable, customer-cantered,
quick to adapt current human resource changes, and resilient. For the success and sustainable
growth of an organisation, the HR manager should understand the needs of modern business
time and they must learn how to manage effectively through planning, leading, organising,
and controlling the human resource. The HR professionals should also aware about the
current HR trends and emerging trends, which helps the people in organisation to get provide
better training.

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