HRM in the 21st Century: Challenges of Future

 

Human beings are the most important resource of an organization. These are the people who plan all the activities and then they carry on all the activities. And managing human beings is the toughest duty of the manager, as no two persons are alike. Every individual has separate values, aspirations, motivations, assumptions, goals, etc. And now after globalization and technological developments, managers have to keep up with the latest changes (Schmidt, 2019). The HR managers should be given proper authority and he should have the capability to deal with the ever-changing business environment. The HR manager has to decide about a staffing agency or personally hire qualified applicants to fill in the company requirements. They have measured the employee’s performance against the set standards and they have to decide on the employee benefits and compensation package (Facundo, 2021).

HRM is a multidisciplinary organizational function that draws theories and ideas from various fields such as management, psychology, sociology, and economics. An effective HRM uses the employees in such a way that their productivity is maximized. The HR managers are required to find out right people for the right job and get the job done from them. Other than this human resource management is also responsible for the motivation, development, and training of the employees and retaining efficient employees for a longer period of time (Hamid, 2021). HR management has to make sure that both the personnel and the company are complying with regulations. Human resources can be managed by using either a hard or soft approach. The hard approach involves developing strategies for managing and controlling human beings. Under the soft approach, the manager focuses on the improvement of communication between employer and employee, motivating the personnel, and developing their leadership skills. It is important on the part of the HR manager to ensure that their human capital is well-trained and developed. Human capital refers to the intellectual abilities, understanding, motivation, commitment, and relationship of the employee to the goals which are set by the company for them. The management of employees varies from organization to organization and it depends upon the ability and capability of the HR manager (Tonder, 2019).

The management has to be well versed with the latest technological changes along with environmental changes if it wants to achieve the competitive advantages of business in the 21st century. These changes can be the changes in the business world, globalization, change in the taste and habits of the customers, new techniques of production, etc. The HR manager is faced with the challenge of developing the workforce by keeping in mind the international marketplace and global environment who can work for tomorrow (Strickland, 2022).

Organizations need change as they expand their business. Thus, with the change in the organization, their human resources should also change. They have become the primary source of competitive advantage. Human resources no longer have a supportive role in the functioning and decision-making of the organization; rather they have taken the strategic and most important role. In the 21st century, the firm that has a competitive edge over other companies will be able to survive in the market, thus the need for internal competitive advantage within the organization has arisen. This competitive advantage can be generated from the firm’s human resources (Hideaki, 2021). In order to meet the changes required by globalization some authors suggested that the previous functions of the HRM like selection, recruitment, training and development, compensation management, etc. should be modified and linked with the current needs of the change management. But others were of the opinion that the HR department should take the lead in developing strategic and competitive advantage on its own. The changes thus required to meet the challenges of the 21st century need to be documented. This way, it will become easier for the management to edit the vision, mission, and objectives of the organization accordingly. Since the role of the HR manager has changed to a more strategic one, it has become important to delegate routine and casual activities to the line manager and let the HR manager concentrate on making strategic decisions (Hamid, 2021).

HR planning has become a crucial activity for HR managers. The HR function of 21st century India has transformed from behind the scenes to become the critical differentiator in business. Its role has taken a new meaning in the 21st century, especially after globalization. Managing manpower is a tedious job and needs specialized training and skills. Inflation rose to its peak during the last few years and there were many layoffs, a lot of people lost their jobs overnight putting a lot of pressure on management to reconsider its policies and strategies (Tonder, 2019).

Attracting & selecting the best candidate has become very tough to find suitable talent as this a process where every candidate will differ from others in one or the other sense. Even the managers will take decisions as per their perceptions thus the possibility of bias can’t be ruled out. Every manager’s decision is influenced by his values, beliefs, and political and social views (Hideaki, 2021). So 21st century poses the challenge of selecting and attracting the best candidates by keeping the competition in mind. The managers need to know that high-quality, skilled talent can be worth its weight in gold, and all the organizations are after them to join them but nobody’s able to find them. While gold in the 19th century was found in abundance but today's high-quality, skilled talent is not (Strickland, 2022).

An organization is full of diverse people; which is good in a way as different minds will lead to innovation and new ideas but managing the culture with so many diverse minds and putting across the cultural values is a tough task. Since organizational culture is an important factor in attracting new talent therefore HR manager has to put in a lot of hard work and effort to develop a successful organizational structure. Managing these people with diverse cultures like different religious, cultural, and moral backgrounds is a challenging task for HR Managers in the 21st Century (Hamid, 2021). Due to acquisitions and mergers taking place, it becomes important for the HR Manager to develop the work culture because the whole organization is to be restructured after mergers. Organizations now are adopting a more flat and simple structure. Globalization will impact HR managers by requiring new skills such as language capabilities because the manager will have to speak to other nationals while recruiting them (Facundo, 2021).

With the coming of globalization, there have come many technological developments and changes. Innovation is the key to survival in the business. And the workforce is an important factor in the organization that has to be trained and developed along with the changes in the business environment. Training should not be restricted to improving skills and knowledge alone; rather it should concentrate on the overall career development of the employee, which is a major challenge for the HR manager (Facundo, 2021).

The HR manager will have to adopt a more active than reactive approach. He needs to focus on using business strategies in human resources policies and practices for satisfying consumers' and employee’s needs. The need of the hour is to develop a workforce that reflects the diversity of consumers and clients. Thus, the role of HR managers is expected to change radically in the next decade. HR managers should be equipped with specific competencies to support these roles. Thus, as mentioned above also, the managers will have to spend nearly all of their time managing cross-functional work teams. The managers will have to develop an international workforce, they will have to keep written records of other cultures and keep management informed of the cost of not paying attention to all these major issues (Schmidt, 2019).

Due the globalization, another problem that a manager faces is of managing the change in the organization and how to make people acquainted with the changes. The managers have to work hard to adapt to the changing business environment because the HRM in 21st century will become more dynamic after moving from a traditional to a strategic approach. With changing work culture and structure, it has become more important to have ethics and values in place which will also in the long run decides the sustainability of the organization in the global marketplace (Strickland, 2022).

Conclusion

The capacity to face the challenges of globalization and industrialization posed by the 21st century depends on the human resources of an organization. The firms have other resources as well but human resources play the most important role. Globalization has changed the face of non-profit, government, and private organizations. The organizations have become more tech-savvy which in turn has led to public convenience. The role of HR departments has changed and they have become strategic partners of an organization. Since human resources are seen as the most valuable assets of the organization, strategic HRM has also gained importance. The human resources of the 21st century are seen as strategic partners of the organization so they are required to coordinate all the functions and support the strategies by attracting and retaining the essential qualified employees. The 21st century HR is responsible for developing sound organizational structure with strong interpersonal skills for employees, and also to train employees and introduce them to the concept of globalization.

 

 

 

 

References

Facundo, 2021. Training and Productivity: Evidence for US Manufacturing Industries. International Journal of Business Management, 5(2), pp. 18-35.

Hamid, 2021. A Study of Effectiveness of Training and Development Programmers. International Journal of Management, 6(1), pp. 17-38.

Hideaki, M., 2021. Does Corporate Culture Matter? An Empirical Study on Japanese Firms. International Journal of Business Management, 1(1), pp. 56-68.

Schmidt, 2019. Employee demographics and job training satisfaction: the relationship between dimensions of diversity and satisfaction with job training. Human Resource Development International,, 12(3), pp. 7-12.

Strickland, 2022. Managing Change Strategically: The Technical, Political, and Cultural Keys; Organizational Dynamics. International Journal of Business Management, 8(1), pp. 47-58.

Tonder, V., 2019. Exploring the origins of burnout among secondary educators. Journal of Industrial Psychology, 16(8), pp. 89-96.