Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
Question one:
Discuss about the “hard” and soft approaches of human resources management using the model of
HRM and critically assess HRM hard and soft approaches and their benefits
What is “hard” and “soft” HRM?
Hard” HRM embraces all those elements in employment relations laying emphasis on employee’s
compliance, quantitative output, managers, task and the development of the organization. “Soft”
HRM will tend to favors flexibility, negotiation, performance, quality, recognition of environments
and rights in employment relations. It is more strategic and long term (Analoui, 1999). Another
way of understanding soft and hard HRM is by looking at the debate between HRM and HR.
In the case of this essay the ‘Harvard’, Michigan, and Guest comparative model and the choice
models will be used. Whatever model is used, HRM professionals are expected to be technical,
cognitive, flexible and communicative so as to achieve a learning organization which is efficient
and innovative
The Harvard Model:
The Harvard model works as a strategic map to guide all managers in their relations with
employees and concentrates on the human or soft aspect of HRM. It strives at employee
commitment not control. It also works on the premise that employees needed to be congruent,
competent and cost effective. Human resource flows into the organization are used for recruitment,
selection; through the organization, placement, promotion, out of the organization as termination
pay. The reward system was organized to attract and motivate so as to keep employees. More so,
employee influence was tailored on controlled authority and decision making. Jobs were also
defined and not based on tasks as with classical approaches. The advantages of such a system lay
on the premise that high employee commitment led to better job performance. Also as selection
criteria were based on competence, it also embraced the element of suitability and flexibility.
Using the best employees fit for certain jobs led to effectiveness. Also, a reward system aimed to
attract and motivate held performance appraisal not evaluation as its tool. Pettigrew and Hendry
(1990) also applaud the analytic aspect of the Harvard model as an advantage. However this
system could be criticized by resource based perspective of labor and the argument that soft HRM
like the Harvard model may conflict with business focus of the organization (Armstrong 1987,
Legge, 1995) and also distort cost minimization and profit maximization.
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
The Michigan model
The Michigan model focuses on hard HRM. It holds that people should be managed like any other
resources and so obtained cheaply, used sparingly, developed and exploited fully. It also
emphasized the interrelatedness of HRM activities. According to this model, selection, appraisal,
development and rewards were geared towards organizational performance. The notion of the
environment was ignored for it ignored situational factors, stakeholder interests and the notion of
strategic choice. It advocated a mergence of internal human resource policies with external
business strategy. The advantage of the model laid on its attachment to market performance and
organizational growth. It also led to cost minimization for employees were regarded as any other
resources to be obtained cheaply. However the disadvantage is the possibility of market failures
due to ignorance of environments. More so, HRM planning to ensure the current and future
employment requirements of the organization was minimal as focus was on business not on human
resources. Besides, with right- based approaches increasingly being used such a model will
disintegrate in face of group diversity and intra-group conflict (Chuang et al, 2004) leading to
organizational performance failure. Below is an illustration of the Michigan model.
Guest comparative model
Guest comparative model works on the premise that a set of integrated HRM practices (Purcell,
1999) will result to superior individual and organizational performance. It advocates a significant
difference of HRM from PM. It holds that HRM strategies like differentiation, innovation, the
focus on Quality and cost reduction will lead to practices like better training, appraisal, selection,
rewards, job designs, involvement, and security leading to more quality outcomes; commitment
and flexibility. It will then affect performance in that productivity will increase; innovation will be
achieved as well as limited absences, labor turnover, and conflict or customer complaints. The
financial outcomes of this are profits and return on investments. The advantages of Guest
Comparative model are that it tallies with, that long term innovation is an incidence of close
employee interaction, coordination as groups and merging skill development with strategic goal of
the organization. More so, quality enhancement they argue is a product of relatively fixed and
explicit job descriptions, high level employee participation, egalitarian treatment and a modest
focus on quantity as in classical approaches. Also cost reduction could only be achieved without a
resource view of labor but in accordance with the career paths of labor that lead to specialization,
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
expertise and efficiency. However, the Guest model fails to highlight the level of alignment of
HRM policies to organizational goal referred to as vertical integration.
The ‘Choice’ model
The choice model is an integrated or holistic model for HRM. It holds those drivers for
formulating HRM policies and frameworks are 3 sources namely; the organization, personal and
external. The organizational source includes mission statement and strategy, policies and
procedures, management culture and task technology of organization. The personal source
constitutes individual frames of reference, perception, awareness, and ideology. The external
sources are environmental, hence socioeconomic, political, and cultural and include a wide range
of stakeholders, associations, unions and other organizations. These sources constitute the input to
HRM formulation leading to a process of formulation of HRM policies and frameworks at the
Senior/Executive level. These policies are then transported to functional and line management
level and are subject to direct and indirect influences during the implementation which end at an
output level that affects the individual, organization and society. It affects them by bringing,
improved performance and effectiveness and quality to work and life. The benefits of the choice
model include the following: a) It is holistic and integrated model that involves understanding of
personal, organizational and environmental factors in the formulation of HRM policies. His
position differs with the narrow recommendations of Storey (1992) that HRM bundles should be
treated in isolation. b) The fact that it involves careful planning and forecasting at the input stage
and takes into consideration issues like organizational culture, individual perception and
stakeholder analysis makes it proactive not reactive as with PM. In a sense it is unitarist (Hendry
and Pettigrew, 1990) for it assumes that employees are active actors in designing and fulfilment of
organizational goal. Striving towards improving performance is usually linked to an adaptive
workforce, bottom top, and flexible organic structure which the ‘Choice model’ advocates. d)
Since it considers the inner and outer context of HRM it can be good model in analyzing
intervention environments. The outer considerations in formulation of HRM policies in the
‘Choice model’, lends credibility of using HRM as international function (Ferner, 2003). f) Finally
it is effective HRM for it has “the ability of an organization to meet the demands and expectations
of its various stakeholder, albeit some more than others.”
Question Two:
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
Watson Public Ltd Company is well known for its welfare activities and employee oriented
schemes in manufacturing industry from more than ten decade. The company employs more than
800 workers and 150 administrative staff and 80 management level employees. The Top level
management views all the employees at same level. This can be clearly understood by seeing the
uniform of the company which is Same for all starting from MD to floor level workers. The
company have 2 different cafeterias at different places one near the plant for workers and other
near the Administration building. Though the place is different the amenities, infrastructure and the
food provided are of same quality. In short the company stands by the rule employee Equality. The
company has one registered trade union and the relationship between the union and the
management is very cordial. The company has not lost a single man day due to strike. The
company is not a pay master in that industry. The compensation policy of that company, when
compared to other similar companies, is very less still the employees don’t have many grievances
due to the other benefits provided by the company. But the company is facing countable number of
problems in supplying the materials in recent past days. Problems like quality issues, mismatch in
packing materials (placing material an in box of material B) incorrect labeling of material, not
dispatching the material on time etc.
The management views the case as there are loop holes in the system of various departments and
hand over the responsibility to HR department to solve the issue. When the HR manager goes
through the issues he realized that the issues are not relating to system but it relates to the
employees. When investigated he come to know that the reason behind the casual approach by
employees in work is:
The company hired new employees for higher level post without considering the
potential internal candidates.
The newly hired employees are placed with higher packages than that of existing
employees in the same cadre.
Questions and Answer:-
1. Narrate the case with suitable Title for the case. Justify your title.
Solution:
Employee Equality is not the need for every hour. In the above said case Watson Ltd had
provided all facilities to employees at each grade in equal manner. But still the employees
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
started creating certain issues like materials are meeting the quality supply schedule is not
met etc. and the HR manager said that the policy of hiring new employees for higher post
without considering old potential employees is the major problem.
“Employee recognition VS Employee equality”. As the HR manager states that employees
are not been recognized for the potential rather company has gone for new recruitment.
Because of which the company faces problems.
2. The points rose by the HR manger as reason for the latest issues in the organization is
justifiable or not. Support your answer with Human resource related concepts.
Solution:
Yes the points raised by HR manager is justifiable because “Human beings are social Animals
as popularly” said by many Human resources Scholars. So human minds demands for social
recognition, self respect, consideration etc for their work and performance.
In the above said case even the company provides and stands by the concept employee
equality when it fails to recognize the potential talents of existing employee they felt
dissatisfaction towards the organization and they showed in the way of quality issues and slow
down production.
Related HR concept.
o Slow down Production:
The concept of slow down production is a type of strike done by employee. The Industrial
Relations sates that when the employee wants to show their dissatisfaction to the management
but don’t want to go for strike they follow slow down strike. The impact of which will be
understood after a particular time period
• Employee Recognition:
Human beings can be easily motivated by Rewards and recognition than that of money. In this
case also the employee are not satisfied even after all facilities just because of the reason that
they are not recognized.
• Hawthrone Experiment:
In the four type of test conducted by Elton mayo the remarkable hike in production is recognized
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
in the stage when they consulted the employees for the management decisions regarding them.
The same thing was missing in Watson Ltd. Before the new hires if the management consulted
the employees both management and employees would have avoided this issue
• Hygiene Factor:
Theory of hygiene factor states that there are certain factors related to employees the presence of
which will not create major impact but the absence of such things will lead to a de motivation to
the employees. Employee Recognition is one such factor when the management fails to do so it
will Detroit the employees to a great extent.
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
3. Help the organization to come out from this critical issue. If you are in the role of
HR manager what will be your immediate step to solve this case.
Solution:
If I was in the post of the HR manager I will try to discuss the issue and ask for the reason from
the management for new recruiting rather than considering available potential talents. I will
personally analyses the reasons provided by management and if acceptable i will discuss the
same with the employees. Everything is possible when discussion is done. So I will discuss and
convince the employee that this wont happen again in the organization. I will also initiate the
collective bargaining process for reasonable salary hike for the existing employees
Question 3:
Roger has been employed at Capital Manufacturing for 28 years, and has steadily risen through the
ranks to his current position as a senior line supervisor. Although Roger started working at the
company for minimum wage, raises through the years ensure he has a very comfortable salary
now. The company is going through some financial difficulties, and the board of directors decides
that it would be good ideas to let some of the most senior employees go, as their salaries are a large
drain on the payroll. For this purpose, Capital Manufacturing institutes a mandatory retirement age
of 65, which will leave 67-year old Roger out in the cold. Rhonda’s new employer, during her
orientation, explained that all of the employees meet in the large break room before the start of the
workday, for group prayer. The next day, when Rhonda tried to thank her supervisor for the
opportunity, and said she would prefer not to participate, she was told that the pre-workday group
prayer is required of all employees. A law firm has a single open position for a lawyer specializing
in financial cases, to which they intend to promote an existing employee. One of the candidates is a
white man with a bachelor’s degree in accounting, who has advised the firm on such cases for four
years. The other candidate is an African-American employee who has a master’s degree in
accounting, and a law degree. The firm promotes the white male candidate, altering the position to
allow a junior attorney to work together with him.
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
Questions oncase analysis 2:
1. Identify the discrimination types these firms making and give your recommendation to
overcome such discriminatory problems.
Solution:
Discrimination in employment and occupation" refers to practices that have the effect of placing
certain individuals in a position of subordination or disadvantage in the labour market or the
workplace because of their race, color, religion, sex, political opinion, national extraction, social
origin or any other attribute which bears no relation to the job to be performed.
Discriminatory practices can be direct or indirect. Direct discrimination arises when an explicit
distinction, preference or exclusion is made on one or more grounds. For example, a job
advertisement for “men only” would constitute direct discrimination.
Indirect discrimination refers to situations, measures or practices that are apparently neutral but
which in fact have a negative impact on persons from a certain group. The latter type of
discrimination, because of its more hidden nature, is the most difficult to tackle.
Equality of opportunity and treatment allows all individuals to fully develop their talents and skills
according to their aspirations and preferences, and to enjoy equal access to employment as well as
equal working conditions. To achieve full freedom from discrimination in employment and
occupation, the mere removal of discriminatory practices does not suffice. It is also necessary to
promote equality of opportunity and treatment in the workplace at all stages of the employment
relationship, including recruitment, retention, promotion and termination practices, remuneration,
access to vocational training and skills development.
Age discrimination: is also a prohibited basis of discrimination. Older workers are often liable
to encounter difficulties in employment and occupation because of prejudices about their
capacities and willingness to learn; a tendency to discount their experiences; and market
pressures to hire younger workers who are often cheaper to employ .
Younger workers under the age of 65 may also face discrimination. Biased treatment against
younger workers can take many forms, including overrepresentation in casual jobs with lower
benefits, training opportunities and career prospects; payment of lower entry wages even in low
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Human Resource management Assignment [2022]
skilled jobs where such a wage differential is difficult to justify on grounds of lower productivity;
and longer probation periods and much greater reliance on flexible forms of contract
National extraction discrimination: includes distinctions made on the basis of a person’s
place of birth, ancestry or foreign origin; for instance, national or linguistic minorities,
nationals who have acquired their citizenship by naturalization, and/or descendants of foreign
immigrants.
2. Associate these cases with your/surrounding/ organization discrimination practices.
In our company i.e. my working area there is so many types of discrimination: sex
discrimination, religious discrimination and political discrimination is always happened.
Especially religious and political discrimination the most types of discrimination that
frequently happened in my working company.