HRM201: Anticipating and Managing Evolving HR Challenges Essay

This essay addresses the challenges facing Human Resource Management (HRM) in a rapidly transforming business landscape. It identifies key issues such as hiring difficulties, managing trade unions, addressing employee emotional well-being, keeping up with changing legal systems, and providing adequate employee training. The essay proposes solutions including establishing clear hiring protocols, using mediators in dealing with trade unions, fostering interpersonal interaction among employees, offering counseling services, staying abreast of legal changes, and providing periodic training. It emphasizes the importance of proactively addressing these challenges to maintain organizational reputation, promote employee productivity, and avoid legal issues. Desklib offers a variety of resources, including past papers and solved assignments, to assist students in understanding and addressing these complex HRM issues.

1Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Title Challenges facing Human Resource Management
Name
Institution
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Challenges facing Human Resource Management
As the business world is drastically absorbing changes, there are several
challenges that are continually emerging. These challenges are making human
resource management to be more and more tasking and challenging. While some of
the problems can easily be overcome, others are hard to go by, and require specialized
approach in order to ensure that the organization retains its reputation while
promoting the productivity of employees. Some of the problems revolve around
training of employees, hiring of employees, remuneration, handling trade union and
other parties that represent the welfare of employees as well as balancing between
attending to the employees and executing managerial functions.
The number one problem faced by human resource managers is hiring. Getting
the right candidate for a job is almost impossible, especially in this age and time. This
is because there are very many parameters that are required to be used in order to
come up with a list of candidates, as well as the fact that with the increased appetite
for education, there are very many qualified people that narrowing down to the best
becomes increasingly hard. Other factors that need to be considered while hiring
include gender balance, inclusion of minority groups and non-discrimination (Daley,
2012; Zheng et al., 2011).
According to Zheng et al., 2011, the problems related to hiring can be address by
ensuring that there is a clearly stipulated protocol for hiring. In addition, the business
should ensure that the hiring panel consists of experienced people who would easily
be able to tell who is best for what position. Employers can also subject candidates to
a probation period within which the employer may be able to further analyze the
appropriateness of the candidate in order to be more than sure that the person selected
for a specific job is there best that could possibly be found in the interview.

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Dealing with trade unions and other representatives of workers is also proving to
be a modern pain in the flesh for human resource managers. Trade unions are external
contacts selected by employees to intervene and help to fight for the welfare of the
employees. Sometimes, and in fact most of the times, these trade unions have no
understanding of the internal operations and procedures of the business. As a result,
their are relentless in their demands for change, and may often engage rough means of
communication in order to pass a message to the employers (Stone & Deadrick,
2015). Trade unions are involved in demanding for increased payment, enhanced
working conditions and better treatment by the employer among other demands. In
the process, there is bound to be several misunderstandings between the employer and
the trade unions (Menz, 2012). This traps the human resource managers between two
as they do not want to offend the trade unions which have a say among the
employees, while as the same time they do not wish to give in to the demands as this
would make the employees seem to have more control over the business as compared
to the employers.matching the demands of the trade unions with those of the
management is a task that can prove difficult (Maister, 2012).
According to Lee et al., 2015, in order to overcome this challenges, the employer
could choose to deal with trade unions through a representative as well. Acting
through mediator helps to calm the situation as the mediators re all at the same level
of understanding. Reducing direct confrontation may reduce chances of
misunderstanding between the employer and the trade unions which could spill into
bad blood between the employer and the employees.
In addition, the complexity of the working population has become so hard that
human resource managers not only need to ensure that their employees are paid in
time and in type, but they also need to ensure that the emotional welfare of their

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employees are well attended to. This is unlike the previous centuries where emotions
were not part of the list of considerations for employers. The business world is
coming to terms with the fact that productivity is directly related to emotional well-
being. Being able to satisfy different people emotionally considering their difference
in attitudes and personalities is a hard task.
Keeping the employees emotionally satisfied is one of the key human resource
management tasks that cannot be overlooked. In order to ensure that this emotions are
well addressed, the human resource managers should encourage interpersonal
interaction among the employees in order to help as many employees as possible to
express themselves and create helpful relations. In addition, offering counselling
services to employees undergoing emotional problems and ensuring employees work
under the best conditions should be key (Maister, 2012). Harassment and
discrimination should be dealt with in the most effective manner which would sound a
warning to other employees, while at the same time ensuring the the manner in which
the issues is dealt with does not harm the emotions of those who are to be
reprimanded.
There is also a problem related to keeping up with the changing legal systems that
touch on the operations of human resource departments. As political and business
leaders get to understand more the contribution of workers to the economy, several
changes are introduced. These changes include minimum wage, non-discrimination
policies and specialized welfare for different minority groups. These periodic and
often uneventful changes require the human resource managers to be alert every time
in order to ensure that they are no behind as this may land them into legal troubles
(Klikauer, 2008).

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In order to avoid law suits caused by failure to comply with updated employment
and human resource laws, it is very important that businesses ensure that they are
always abreast with the government legislation, whether local, national or
international. This can be accomplished by carrying out regular research into the
changes that could have been made in the past that affect human resource
management, and also seeking legal assistance from layers and advocates in different
legal matters in order to ensure that the decisions made and steps taken do not
contravene the legal provisions. Resources that could be of greatest help in this
include the U.S. Department of Labor’s Employment Law Guide.
Another great problem that human resource mangers are facing is lack of
adequate and proper training of employees. Sometimes, the training is offered but it is
not as effective as it should be. This is reflected in the fact that employees are unable
to execute their activities in the best way possible. In addition, later in their career
when these employees are required to execute duties that are core to their careers they
tend not to be able to execute them with expertise and ease. This affects the operations
of the business and greatly affects the productivity of the individual employees.
In order to mitigate this problem, human resource departments should establish
collaborations with other departments to arrange for periodic training of employees in
order to prepare them for future roles. More specifically, the human resource
departments should pay attention to training the employees for leadership positions
(Hendry, 2008). This will ensure that the business does not lack leader in future.
Training of young employees is especially important as it helps to ensure that when
the old employees are relieved of their duties, the business is still able to remain
operational and make profits. In addition, training enhances a feeling of self-worth
and appreciation for one’s job (Lawler, 2008). Therefore, in order to ensure that

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employees are always motivated and know what they are expected to do, employers
through the human resource departments should ensure that employees are well
trained at all times and that they are equipped with skills that are pertinent to their
current and future roles (Wright et al., 2014).
As can be seen, there are very many challenges that are evolving in the human
resource departments. However, most of these challenges have solutions, thus they
only need to be addressed with caution and prowess. Failure to address human
resource challenges can escalate into major problems that can cause a collapse of
companies. Looking at all the aspects of the working environment as well as the
personal requirement of the employees helps businesses to ensure that they reduce the
challenges that they could be facing by a great deal. The businesses can ensure they
reduce their challenges starting by hiring the best, training the hired employees and
maintaining excellent working conditions and relations for the employees.

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References
Daley, D.M., 2012. Strategic human resources management. Public Personnel
Management, pp.120-125.
Hendry, C., 2012. Human resource management. Routledge.
Klikauer, T., 2008. Human Resource Management–Ethics and
Employment. Transfer: European Review of Labour and Research, 14(3), pp.506-
508.
Lawler, J., 2008. Strategic human resource management. Handbook of Organization
Development, 353.
Lee, S.M., Tae Kim, S. and Choi, D., 2012. Green supply chain management and
organizational performance. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 112(8),
pp.1148-1180.
Maister, D.H., 2012. Managing the professional service firm. Simon and Schuster.
Menz, M., 2012. Functional top management team members: A review, synthesis, and
research agenda. Journal of Management, 38(1), pp.45-80.
Stone, D.L. and Deadrick, D.L., 2015. Challenges and opportunities affecting the
future of human resource management. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2),
pp.139-145.
Wright, P.M., Coff, R. and Moliterno, T.P., 2014. Strategic human capital: Crossing
the great divide. Journal of Management, 40(2), pp.353-370.
Zheng, W., Yang, B. and McLean, G.N., 2010. Linking organizational culture,
structure, strategy, and organizational effectiveness: Mediating role of knowledge
management. Journal of Business research, 63(7), pp.763-771.