CONTEMPORARY ISSUES IN HRM

By Manish Bhalla

Grievance Handling
According to Dale S. Beach Grievance is any dissatisfaction or feeling of injustice in connection with ones employment situation that is brought to the notice of management.

According to J.M.Jucius A grievance is any discontent or dissatisfaction whether expressed or not, whether valid or not, arising out of anything connected with the company which an employee thinks, believes or even feels to be unfair, unjust or inequitable. The Model Grievance Procedure has provided the following definition of grievance:
Complaints affecting one or more individual workers in respect of their wage payments, overtime, leave, transfer, promotions, seniority, work assignment and discharge would constitute grievance. Where the points at dispute are of general applicability or considerable magnitude, they will fall outside the scope of this procedure.

Features of Grievance
Grievance reflects dissatisfaction or discontent experienced by an employer. It is a feeling of injustice to ones job by the employer or the management. It may be unvoiced/ implied or expressed by an employee. It may be written or verbal. It may be real or imaginary, valid and legitimated. Grievance arises out of something related to employees employment contract. Grievance, if not redressed in time, gives rise to discontent, frustration, poor morale, and ultimately to low productivity.

Causes or Sources of Grievance

Promotions Amenities Continuity of service Nature of job Payment Recovery of dues

Compensation Disciplinary action

Fines Increments Leave Medical benefits

Safety appliances Superannuation

Transfer Victimization Conditions of work

Grievance Handling Procedure

Timely Action Accepting the Grievance Identifying the Problem Collecting the Facts Analysing the cause of the Grievance Taking Decisions

Implementing the Decision

Model Grievance Procedure

The National Commission on Labour has suggested a model grievance procedure which would ensure the speedy settlement of grievance. The model comprises of the five steps a outlined below:
Convey grievance to the officer designated by management to deal with grievance. If not satisfied or receive no answer within 48 hours then present grievance to departmental head nominated for the purpose. If still not satisfied then can approach the Grievance committee for the settlement of his or her grievance. The Grievance Committee has to give its recommendations in seven days and report the same to the management. The management must communicate the decision to the grievant within three days.

If still not satisfied can make appeal to the management for revision of the decision taken.
If not satisfied with managements decision, the grievance is referred to a voluntary arbitration within a week after decision taken by the management. The decision of the arbitrator is final and binding on the parties.

Industrial Disputes
In common parlance, dispute means difference or disagreement or strife over some issues between the parties. Since settlement of industrial disputes proceeds as per the legal provisions hence it seems pertinent to study the concept of industrial disputes from a legalistic angle. According to Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, the term industrial dispute means any dispute or difference between employers and employers or between workmen and workmen, which is connected with the employment or non-employment of the terms of employment and conditions of employment of any person. In practice, industrial disputes mainly relate to the difference between the workmen and the employers. While discipline and grievance focus on individuals, dispute focus on collectivity of individuals.

The following principles judge the nature of an industrial dispute:

1. The dispute must affect a large number of workmen who have a community of interest and the rights of these workmen must be affected as a class. 2. The dispute must be taken up either by the industry union or by a substantial number of workmen. 3. The grievance turns from individual complaint into a general complaint. 4. There must be some nexus between the union and the dispute. 5. According to the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, a workman has a right to raise an industrial dispute with regard to termination, discharge, dismissal, or retrenchment of his or her service, even though no other workman or any trade union of workman or any trade union of workmen raises it or is a party to the dispute.

Forms of Industrial Disputes:

1. Strikes (Suspension or cessation of work by a group of persons employed in any industry, acting in combination or a concerted refusal.)

2. Lock-outs (The temporary shutting down or closing of a place of business by the employer.)
3. Gherao (It means to surround. It is a physical blockade of managers by encirclement aimed at preventing the egress and ingress from and to a particular office or place.) 4. Picketing and Boycott (Picketing is a method to request workers to withdraw cooperation to the employer. Boycott aims at disrupting the normal fuctioning of the organisation through appeal to co-workers for voluntary withdrawl of co-operation with the employer.)

Causes of Industrial Disputes

Economic Causes
Wages Bonus Allowances Benefits Incentives and Working Conditions

Management Practices
Threat of use of coercion Unwillingness to recognize a particular trade union Unwillingness to talk over the dispute with employees Forcing workers to join or refrain from joining trade union To discharge or dismiss workers by way of discrimination or victimization The benefits offered by management to workers are far from satisfactory

Trade Union Practices

Multiplicity of unions (Industry wise or area wise) Inter-union rivalry Non consensus among trade unions on settlements arrived with management

Legal and Political Factors (Multiple central and state laws & Political parties divide unions on party lines.)

Collective Bargaining
It is a process of negotiating between management and workers represented by their representatives for determining mutually agreed terms and conditions of work which protect the interest of both workers and the management. According to Dale Yoder Collective bargaining is essentially a process in which employees act as a group in seeking to shape conditions and relationships in their employment.
Thus collective bargaining can simply be defined as an agreement collectively arrived at by the representatives of the employees and the employers. Basic objectives of collective bargaining
To foster and maintain cordial and harmonius relations between the employer/management and the employees. To protect the interests of both the employer and the employees. To keep the outside, i.e., the government interventions at bay. To promote industrial democracy

Importance of Collective Bargaining

1. It develops better understanding between the employer and the employees. 2. It promotes industrial democracy. 3. It benefits both-employer and employees. 4. It is adjustable to the changing conditions. 5. It facilitates the speedy implementation of decision arrived at collective negotiation.

Bargaining Strategies
Distributive (It is most common form of bargaining and takes place when labour and management are in disagreement over the issues in the proposed contract, such as wages, bonus, benefits, work rules, and so on. It involves haggling over the distribution of surplus. In it, the gains of one party are achieved at the expense of the other therefore sometimes it is referred to as win-lose bargaining.) Integrative (The purpose of integrative bargaining is to create a cooperative negotiating relationship that benefits both parties. In such bargaining, both labour and management win or gain or atleast neither party loses. The issues of bargaining involve job evaluation process, better training programmes, better working conditions, etc. This is considered the nest bargaining strategy although is not nearly as common.) Attitudinal (Such a bargaining involves shaping and reshaping of attitudes to positive and cooperative e.g. hostile to friendly, non-cooperative to cooperative and untrust to trust. The attitudinal structuring helps achieve good-faith bargaining.) Intraorganisational (In practice, there are different groups in an organisation by department-wise and level-wise. At times different groups may perceive the outcomes of collective bargaining process differently. Thus, bargaining involves manoeuvring to achieve consensus with the workers and management.)

Talent Management

People are, undoubtedly the best resources of an organization.

Sourcing the best people from the industry has become the top most priority of the organizations today. In such a competitive scenario, talent management has become the key strategy to identify and filling the skill gap in a company by recruiting the high-worth individuals from the industry. It is a never-ending process that starts from targeting people. The process regulates the entry and exit of talented people in an organization.

To sustain and stay ahead in business, talent management can not be ignored.
In order to understand the concept better, let us discuss the stages included in talent management process:

Understanding the Requirement: It is the preparatory stage and plays a crucial role in success of the whole process. The main objective is to determine the requirement of talent. The main activities of this stage are developing job description and job specifications. Sourcing the Talent: This is the second stage of talent management process that involves targeting the best talent of the industry. Searching for people according to the requirement is the main activity. Attracting the Talent: it is important to attract the talented people to work with you as the whole process revolves around this only. After all the main aim of talent management process is to hire the best people from the industry. Recruiting the Talent: The actual process of hiring starts from here. This is the stage when people are invited to join the organization. Selecting the Talent: This involves meeting with different people having same or different qualifications and skill sets as mentioned in job description. Candidates who qualify this round are invited to join the organization.

Training and Development: After recruiting the best people, they are trained and developed to get the desired output. Retention: Certainly, it is the sole purpose of talent management process. Hiring them does not serve the purpose completely. Retention depends on various factors such as pay package, job specification, challenges involved in a job, designation, personal development of an employee, recognition, culture and the fit between job and talent. Promotion: No one can work in an organization at the same designation with same job responsibilities. Job enrichment plays an important role. Competency Mapping: Assessing employees skills, development, ability and competency is the next step. If required, also focus on behaviour, attitude, knowledge and future possibilities of improvement. It gives you a brief idea if the person is fir for promoting further. Performance Appraisal: Measuring the actual performance of an employee is necessary to identify his or her true potential. It is to check whether the person can be loaded with extra responsibilities or not.

Career Planning: If the individual can handle the work pressure and extra responsibilities well, the management needs to plan his or her career so that he or she feels rewarded. It is good to recognize their efforts to retain them for a longer period of time. Succession Planning: Succession planning is all about who will replace whom in near future. The employee who has given his best to the organization and has been serving it for a very long time definitely deserves to hold the top position. Management needs to plan about when and how succession will take place. Exit: The process ends when an individual gets retired or is no more a part of the organization.

Knowledge Management
Knowledge Management is about connecting people to people and people to information to create competitive advantage.
It is a systematic process of finding, selecting, organizing, distilling, and presenting information in a way that improves an employees comprehension in a specific area of interest. It helps an organization to gain insight and understanding from its own experiences. Knowledge management is first and foremost a management discipline that treats intellectual capital as a managed asset. The primary tools applied in the practice of knowledge management are organizational dynamics, process engineering, and technology. These work together to streamline and enhance the flow of an organizations data, information and knowledge and to deliver them to individuals and groups engaged in accomplishing specific tasks. The framework of the knowledge management initiative of any organization should cater to knowledge needs at all levels--- strategic, technical, and operational.

Knowledge Management and Approaches Mechanistic Approach It is characterized by the application of technology and resources to do better. Cultural/Behavioural This approach focuses on innovation and creativity (the learning organization) rather than on leveraging existing explicit resources. Systematic This approach is rational coupled with new ways of thinking.

Assumption

Accessibility to information is the key. Reuse of documents, intranet including networking technologies, groupware, etc. will make it work.
Unless experience is combined in the above model, it becomes yet another paper model.

Behaviour culture and environment need to be changed and not just technology. The role of process is emphasized.

A systematic way of reviewing the processes, cultural patterns, and practices is needed.

Assessment

Interplay of culture and It has organizational change sustained may not be measured, results. cumulative, or replicable.

shown positive

Human Resource Information System

Being key to employee productivity, competitive strength, and corporate excellence, information is being recognized as fourth organizational resource. In todays era of information technology, information is power. It is the life-blood of an organisation.

The effectiveness of human resource management, largely depends upon the quality of information held by it.
For this, an information system is required to communicate effectively with the environment. The same gives genesis to the human resource information system (HRIS).

Purpose of HRIS

1. To store data and information for each individual employee for ready reference.
2. To provide a basis for decision making in day-to-day personnel issues, (e.g. grant of leave) as also for planning, budgeting, implementing, and monitoring a host of human resources function. 3. To supply data/returns to government and other public.

Advantages of HRIS 1. Reduction in the cost of stored data in human resource. 2. Higher speed of retrieval and processing of data. 3. Reduction in duplication of efforts leading to reduction in cost. 4. Availability of accurate and timely data about human resources. 5. Better analysis leading to more effective decision making. 6. Improved quality of reports. 7. Better ability to respond to environmental changes. 8. More transparency in the system.

Computerised HRIS

1. Recruitment Information 2. Personnel Administration Information 3. Manpower Planning Information 4. Training Information 5. Appraisal Information 6. Payroll Information 7. Leave Information 8. Retirals Information 9. Tax Information
Limitations of HRIS 1. It can be expensive in terms of money and manpower requirements. 2. Its effective application needs large-scale computer literacy among the employees responsible for maintaining HRIS. 3. Computers cannot replace human being because human interventions will be always there to improve the existing situation. 4. Absence of continuous up-dating of HRIS makes the information stale which is considered as good as no information.