Human Resource
Development
This chapter has examined some of the
latest tools and techniques for managing the firm's human assets. After the
chapter described the staffing process, where human resource development
efforts first begin, it noted that these efforts are designed to change things.
The change process has three phases: unfreezing the old ways, introducing new
behaviors, and refreezing the new equilibrium.
The remainder of the chapter was devoted
to the study of some of the human resource development programs currently being
used in modern organizations. Job enrichment is one that has been getting a
great deal of attention. It is currently employed in a number of firms,
including TI, AT&T, GM's Cadillac division, and overseas in Volvo plants.
In essence, job enrichment places primary emphasis on Herzberg's motivators:
advancement growth, and responsibility. Yet despite wide acceptance, the
technique has a number of vociferous critics who claim that it does not always
work Three of the primary reasons cited are that some workers do not find
satisfaction in the work place; some people prefer boring, unpleasant jobs with
good social interaction to enriched jobs that reduce the opportunity or such
interaction; and some workers react to the technique with feelings of
inadequacy and fears of failure.
One of the primary ways of redesigning
jobs is by building core job dimensions into them. It has been found that these
dimensions are frequently correlated with such outcomes as high work
motivation, high quality performance, high satisfaction, low turnover, and low
absenteeism.
Another technique that has also gained a
great deal of popularity because of its potential for helping the manager carry
out decision-making. communication, and control functions is management by
objectives. In essence, MBO entails a meeting of superior and subordinate for
deciding: (a) what the subordinate will do, (b) length of time needed, and (c)
how performance will be evaluated. In addition to its participative decision
making feature, subordinates like the technique because it tells them what is
expected of them, thereby reducing ambiguity and anxiety.
Sensitivity training is designed to make
managers more aware off their own actions and their effect on others, in
addition to obtaining better insight into what makes subordinates tick. Another
approach, which is less emotive but just as valuable to managers who need help
communicating with their people, is transactional analysis. A number of
companies, including American Airlines, have used this technique to help their
managers communicate more effectively with their subordinates.
The last technique examined was human
resources accounting. This technique suggests that the company evaluate its
personnel and that this evaluation be reflected in the firm's financial statements.
Well-trained, well-motivated people are an asset. Another approach is to
evaluate personnel on a periodic basis by measuring causal, intervening, and
end-result variables. This technique gives management a reading on the kind of
performance it can expect from its people in the near future.
