Analysis of People Management: Skills, Challenges, and HR Practices

This report provides an overview of people management, highlighting the skills, knowledge, and behaviors required for effective leadership. It addresses contemporary challenges faced by line managers, such as uncertainties in the business environment, lack of team efforts, declining employee performance, and communication inefficiencies, especially in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report also discusses essential HR practices, including providing safety and security to employees, fair compensation and remuneration, training and development opportunities, and strategies for enhancing employee engagement. Ultimately, the report emphasizes the importance of adapting management strategies to address evolving workplace dynamics and foster a supportive and productive work environment.

Introduction to
People's Management

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
With the continuous changes prevailing in this dynamic world the managers are facing
many challenges, these challenges affects their functions and overall activities of business. The
changes in the world are much more swift and constant since last three years and the challenges
arising with theses changes are also growing. The people managers needs to experiment with
their strategies to face and tackle nuance issues such as redundancies, furlough and employee
engagement amid the global outbreak of pandemic. The skills and requirements of Human
resource and people management are put to an examination due to these changes and the report
explains about the same.

Table of Contents
INTRDOUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................1
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................2

INTRODUCTION
People management, also known as Human Resource Management (HRM) is a function
of business managers or mangers to manage people and propel them in order to get the work
done. It is important to manage people because they are bloodlines for the business and all the
activities of business requires people to perform their tasks. The report will identify the
knowledge, skills and behaviour required by an individual to be a effective people manager.
Moreover, the report will discuss about the HR processes that are required to enhance and
improve performance of people at workplace. At the end the report will cover understanding of
contemporary issues faced by line managers in order to mange people.
MAIN BODY
People management refers to the practice of management to motivate, training and
development, engagement and enhance the ability of people working in an organisation to
promote their growth. People management is a basic function of every organisation, irrespective
of its size and type of work because it helps them to keep their employees engaged towards the
achievement of organisational goals. Efficient and effective management styles and strategies
could help the management to take better decisions in any critical situation (Balak, Broekman
and Mathiesen, 2020). Various skills and techniques of management are used by senior managers
to mange their employees through motivation, engagement, appraisals, leading, etc.
Issues Faced by Line Managers in for Effectively and Efficiently Manage
People
People management itself is a complicated task and the arrival of the global pandemic
situation has worsened the case (Breilh, 2021). The challenges faced by the People management
are as follows: Uncertainties in Business Environment: The managers across the globe has to face
challenges that impacts the working of the organisation. There are lethal impacts on the
management of people due to these constant changes prevailing across the global
economies. The uncertainty such as the COVID-19 pandemic affects the mental well
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being of the employees. To deal with such situations managers should consider re-
framing their strategies to tackle such different uncertainties. Lack of Team Efforts: Many times the employees may get deviated or get off-track
while they are performing their tasks in groups while looking towards their success only.
The managers faces problems to align the efforts of individual with their teams to be the
part in their overall success (Chaudhary, 2020). The management should focus on uniting
the efforts of members to achieve their goals and entrench the values in employees to
work as team. Declination of the Employee's Performance: The employees sometimes may not work
according to the desired expectations and may decline their performance during such
situations like COVID pandemic. The declination of performance of one individual may
affect the other employees to and their performance and efficiency may also decline. The
people managers should understand their needs and focus on rising their performance
through motivation. Inefficiency in Communication: Due to the outbreak of pandemic the mangers has to
face problems related to communication with their employees. To overcome such
problems the managers should constantly reach their employees to communicate their
needs, problems and challenges to maintain their relation. Understaffed Departments: Due to the outbreak of Pandemic the companies has faced
the shortage of employees due to withdrawal and turnover of many employees during the
time of pandemic. There is a continuous requirement of workforce in all the departments
of the organisation therefore the people mangers must focus on selecting the best people
to fulfil those requirements. Challenges of Time Management: The people managers are the time makers and they
should get the work done on time (Labanauskaitė and et. al, 2020). During the pandemic
and till now the management faces the problems of getting the work done on time due to
continuously changing policies of government for the pandemic. Performance Pressures: The managers are expected to perform better than the previous
time and this creates a pressure on them to perform better than the previous time. To
maintain the work standards and manage the employees to get the work done to achieve
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reliable results becomes a challenge for the people managers. The managers have to
continuously polish their skills in order to keep up with the demanded performance.\
 Strengthening Organisational Culture: When the organisation do not have a favourable
work environment during and post COVID the management faces problems (Löfgren and
Willim, 2020). The employees working in the organisation are feeling the challenges due
to pandemic and the management has to focus on them to maintain a safe working
environment.
Skills, Knowledge and Behaviours to be an Effective People's Manager
People managers requires various set of skills, knowledge and attitude to be a good
manger who could enhance the performance of the employees and improve their working. These
skills, knowledge and behaviour are required to interact with the employees and achieve
organisational tasks. The basic skills, knowledge and behaviour that are required by the people
managers are underlined as follows: Conflict Resolution or Problem Solving: This skill refers to the identification of
problems related to a certain problem in order to mitigate those interpersonal challenges.
The people managers should be well known of various problem solving and conflict
resolution skills and techniques to tackle challenges faced by them. The managers should
identify the reasons for a problem, like miscommunication and then should mediate
between the parties to solve their problems. Patience: It can be said as the ability of individual to stay calm even at the times of
tensed situations. Patience requires calmness, kindness, empathy etc. of the managers at
the time of inducing the employees, training them, problems solving etc. When the
employees have faith on their employers, they feel more comfortable to work with them
and share their issues and problems openly. This would help the employers to be effective
with their employees and get the work done effectively and efficiently. Decision making: It refers to the ability of managers to make changes according to the
changing requirements of the business. This requires the managers to be very much
knowledgeable in order to be effective and efficient to tackle the changes. Without proper
knowledge and skills a people manager could not adapt to the situations and may fail in
effective decision making. To make proper decisions the mangers should demonstrate
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flexibility in their styles and help others to adapt to the changing situation. For instance,
the managers needed to make changes in their practices at the time of pandemic like
remote operations, work from home, etc. Communicate: It can be explained as the ability of people to interact with verbal and non
verbal ways with each other (Menzies and Wilson, 2020). The effective communicate
could enable the people managers to work together, solve problems, adapt changes, bring
in ideas etc. Effective communication can be done by interacting with the employees on
continuous basis and emphasising their experiences by solving their problems. Improve Trust and Faith: It is an ability of individual to achieve someone's belief in
their work, ability, assistance or advice at the time of need. The people managers needs to
build trust by demonstrating their technical skills to help the employees to overcome their
problems and provide their support for any work. With the help of enough faith and trust
an manager could gain the support of the employees and they work in collaboration with
the management to achieve organisational goals.
 Active Listening: It is the skill that is required by a good manager because it helps them
to listen to the things carefully and act accordingly (Mu’azu And et. al., 2020). This
ability helps the managers to conduct communication without distraction and offer verbal
and non verbal engagements to the working of the employees. The active listening skill of
managers helps them to interact freely and openly with the employees without biases and
improve their interaction.
Human Resource Practices that Helps in Manage People
The human resource management or people's management requires certain practices and
set of management techniques are universally suitable to manage people and their work. The
various management schools mainly tells and elaborates about two practices of people
management which are the best fit and best practice. The best fit principle focuses on aligning
the business strategy with the efforts of the employees, whereas the best fit practice tends to use
universal management practices to enhance organisational performance.
The Best Practices and Best Fit used by Human Resource Management are as follows: Provide Safety and Security to the Employees: This practice of management focus on
providing the best suitable environment that is completely safe and secure for the
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employees to improve their performance. The life is very much dynamic but the work
environment should provide security, safety and stabilisation to the employees (Pratt,
2020). The employees work better when they know that their job is secure and mainly
after the time of pandemic the employees seek for security of their job. Fair Compensation and Remuneration: This best practice of Human Resource is related
compensating the employees on the basis of their performance. If the company becomes
successful in compensating the employees on the basis of their performance it could
enhance their efficiency and motivate others to work better for higher pays (Warner,
2020). If the employees get direct monitory incentives for their better works and
performances they will make efforts to work more better and optimistic. Training and Development: Training and development helps an organisation to make
their employees equipped with latest knowledge and skills to face any challenges without
losing. Training and development are keys for growth of the employees, although this
may not directly encourage the employees but it could improve their performance and
confidence in the long run. Training and development provides a strong competitive
workforce for the organisation who are determined to help towards the achievement of
organisational goals.
 Employee Engagement: It refers to the ways by which the managers could increase
productivity of the employees by helping them to develop new skills (Williams, 2020).
This helps the employees to rise their ability to learn and perform better by themselves at
the workplace to achieve organisational goals. The employees could be engaged by:
◦ Training and development
◦ Addressing their feedbacks, queries and questions
◦ Providing monetary incentives
◦ Help the employees to adjust to the changing scenarios in pandemic
◦ Provide development and growth opportunities
◦ support them with their lengthy projects or works
CONCLUSION
In the following report there had been a discussion about the role, responsibilities, needs
and challenges of people managers in an organisation. The people managers had been facing
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many issues, especially during and post pandemic times such as lack of coordination,
communication challenges, time management etc. Moreover, the report had been identifying
about the skills, knowledge and behavioural tendencies that are required by the managers. At the
end the report had been covering the best practices of managing human resource.
RECOMMENDATION
The need of managing people is very essence for every organisation in terms of managing
their staff members and employees to improve overall operating activities. To tackle various
challenges and issues the people managers have acquired knowledge, behaviour, talents and
skills that are necessary to overcome their problems. These challenges hinders the growth of
employees as well as the activities in a business, such as during the pandemic situation the
problems of staffing, time management etc. aroused. In order to tackle these problems the
management needs to change their practices of management and acquire skills and knowledge
such as communications, listening abilities, problem solving etc. There are various HR practices
that can be implemented for enhancing people management such as fair remuneration, growth
and development opportunities, etc.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Balak, N., Broekman, M. L. and Mathiesen, T., 2020. Ethics in contemporary health care
management and medical education. Journal of evaluation in clinical practice, 26(3).
pp.699-706.
Breilh, J., 2021. Critical Epidemiology and the People's Health. Oxford University Press, USA.
Chaudhary, R., 2020. Green human resource management and employee green behavior: An
empirical analysis. Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental
Management, 27(2). pp.630-641.
Labanauskaitė, D. and et. al, 2020. Use of E-marketing tools as communication management in
the tourism industry. Tourism Management Perspectives, 34. p.100652.
Löfgren, O. and Willim, R., 2020. Introduction: The mandrake mode. In Magic, culture and the
new economy (pp. 1-18). Routledge.
Menzies, D. and Wilson, C., 2020. Indigenous heritage narratives for cultural justice. Historic
environment, 32(1). pp.54-69.
Mu’azu, N.D. And et. al., 2020. Public acceptability of treated wastewater reuse in Saudi Arabia:
implications for water management policy. Science of the Total Environment, 721.
p.137659.
Pratt, K. L., 2020. " They Never Ask the People": Native Views About the Nunivak
Wilderness (pp. 333-356). Routledge.
Warner, M. ed., 2020. Human resource management in China revisited. Routledge.
Williams, V.R., 2020. Indigenous Peoples: An Encyclopedia of Culture, History, and Threats to
Survival [4 volumes]. ABC-CLIO.
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