THE ETHICAL CONTEXT OF HRM

Sustainability as a driver to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)

Figure 1 -  Forbs.

In global business world, the organizations are thrive to get sustainable development through achieving continuous progress. For it to be a meaningful goal, from the value based norms the sustainability is interpreted as a "Social Responsibility".It highlights the importance of business-society relationship for to days' companies (Ehnert, Harry and Zink, 2013). According to SHRM (2018), accomplishment of sustainability can be seen in the future, as it ensures future generations' needs are not compromised by entrusting work for to days' progress. 

According to Ehnert, Harry and Zink (2013), business perspective, sustainability helps organizations to - reduce costs and risks of losing social legitimacy. It helps to create and increase value.Sustainability is one of the strategic drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). Community involvement, Corporate Governance and Fair Trade are the other drivers to CSR. By initiating CSR activities, the intellectual capital can be secured, as CSR provide immense opportunities to improve HRs' strategic business contribution,leverage and influence.

Figure 2 - Green Project Management - Sustainability benefits.

The role of HRM in developing strategy and advansing sustainability?

According to SHRM (2018), sustainable human resource management can be defined as using the tools of HR to create a workforce that has the trust, values, skills and motivation to achieve a profitable triple bottom line i.e. economic, environmental and social in terms of overall achievement.The triple bottom line impact on enhances the stakeholder engagement. In this, the HR function can serve as a partner in determining what is needed or what is possible in formulating corporate values and sustainability strategy through ensuring, employees are implement the game plan consistently all over the organization. 

According to Strauss (2017), as per the annual report of Reputation Institute - 2017-Boston, "Lego" tops the report by getting 74.4 points"Microsoft" is at the second by getting 74.1 points and "Google" at third by scoring 73.9.It says, social responsibility enhances reputation on company governance by positive influence on society and treatment of employees (Strauss, 2017).These are in a way, the well known, best consumer seeker companies in  the world, and on the other hand,top most companies in the CSR award report.

References:

1. Ehnert, I., Harry, W. and Zink, K. (2013). Sustainability and Human Resource Management: Developing Sustainable Business Organizations. London: Springer Science & Business Media, pp.11-23.
2. SHRM (2018). SHRM Foundation Executive Briefing. HR’s Role in Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. [online] Virginia.USA: SHRM Foundation, pp.6-6. Available at: http://HR’s Role in Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
3.  Strauss, K. (2017). The 10 Companies With The Best CSR Reputations In 2017. Forbs. [online] Available at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2017/09/13/the-10-companies-with-the-best-csr-reputations-in-2017/#60c0c3df546b [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].

EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

Figure 1 - Floship

Employee engagement (EE) can define as the commitment towards organizations’ work which created among employees, through, motivation to achieve high level of performances (Armstrong, 2012). EE can't be defined same as the employee satisfaction.

According to Armstrong (2012), job engagement and organizational engagement are the two elements of employee engagement. 

Job engagement - Feeling positive about the job can be referred to job engagement. It can be enhanced by job design, learning and development programs and improving quality of leadership provided by line managers.

Organizational engagement - Focuses the attachment to or identification with the organization as a whole.It's a positive impression held by employees, towards the organization and its values.

Why EE is important?  

“EE is widely accepted as an important factor in achieving performance in the workplace. However, if employers focus purely on engagement, without considering employee wellbeing, they risk any engagement created being unsustainable.” (CIPD, 2012).

According to Whittington et al. (2017), evidence suggests that EE has a positive and significant effect on organisations, and that managers are pivotal to engagement and well-being. Those invention increases the components such as, commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, motivation and job satisfaction.

Figure 2- Whittington et al. (2017).

According to Armstrong (2017), EE beneficial to the organization in a way by,reducing employee/ turnover,enhancing productivity by giving high responsibilities to non-manager/executives , application of techniques to improve attendance - Ex; appreciation letters and improve higher relationship with good customers and ensure customer satisfaction.The following figure 

Figure 3 - Pinterest

Factors that affect employee engagement:

According to a research done by SHRM (2017), "38%of U.S. employees reported that they were very satisfied with their current job, whereas a greater proportion (51%) stated they were satisfied but to a lesser degree, indicating that the majority of U.S. employees are to some extent satisfied with their present job role".

The fundamental factors of EE are,

Figure 4 - CIPD (2017).

The above factors can also be specified as rational drivers and emotional drivers. According to CIPD (2017) "Failure to integrate both of these components is a missed opportunity, which represents a mark of apathy and hinders the employee-employer relationship".

References:

1. Armstrong, M. (2012). Armstrong's Handbook of Management and Leadership - Developing Effective People Skills for Better Leadership and Management. London: Kogan Page, pp.147-159.
2. Armstrong, M. (2017). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 12th ed. London: Kogan Page, pp.136-152.
3. CIPD (2012). Managing for sustainable employee engagement. [online] 151 The Broadway London. UK: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. Available at: https://www.cipd.asia/knowledge/reports/engagement-management-guide [Accessed 5 Jul. 2012].
4. Whittington, L., Meskelis, S., Asare, E. and Beldona, S. (2017). Enhancing Employee Engagement. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp.98-107.

WORK AND THE WAY

Job Design

Figure 1 - Jobboom

According to Armstrong (2012), Work Design (WD) deals with the ways, in which it is carried out in the work system of an organization, by teams and individuals. Hence, the three distinct processes of   “Work, Organization and Job design” establish the work and the way it should be done. Armstrong (2012), defines the WD is helpful in transforming the organizations in to "a great place to work', by creating work systems in an environment where efficiency and effectiveness is increases. A great working place is always ensures employees' health, safety and well-being.

The “Job Design (JD)” is an arm of WD, and according to Armstrong (2012), it specifies basis of jobs/tasks in order to satisfy work requirements and meet the personal needs of the job holder. As a consequence of job design been more specific in addressing personal needs of employee, assumptions are high in increasing the levels of employee engagement.

In Human Resource Management (HRM) history, the classical management practices have come out at the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The early notion of job design was tightly related to the organizational costs. Today, the 21st century's aim of the job design is to improve job satisfaction and quality of the work. It's also aim to reduce employee problems. 

Evaluation of job:

According to Norris and Porter (2012), the five techniques specified below, help improving employee motivation by influencing critical psychological states of the employees. A good study about them may guide HRM to create higher value through JD.

Figure 2 -  Job Characteristic Model -Norris and Porter (2012)

Approaches to Job Design:

Job design has a huge scope under various approaches. According to  Quick and Nelson (2010), they are, perceptual motor approach, biological approach, mechanistic approach and motivational approach. Both the perceptual motor approach and the biological approach have their roots in human factors engineering. Their major focus is on the integration of human and machine systems which emphasis is on equipment design and the proper match to operators. The other two approaches are clearly highlight the potential trade-offs that must frequently be made by organizations with regard to job design. Taylor’s scientific management and the motivational approach by job enrichment are best exemplify the mechanistic approach.

Figure 3 - Approaches to Job Design - Quick and Nelson (2010).

Job rotation - Moving employees from one department to another to experience different works is known as rotation. This is mostly done within the organization. It add variety and reduce boredom by allowing them to perform a variety of tasks. When an activity is no longer challenging, the employee would be to another job at the same level that has similar skill requirements. 

Job Engineering - Focuses on the tasks to be performed, methods to be used, workflows among employees, layout of the workers, performance standards, and interdependence among people and machines. Experts often examine these job design factors by means of time-and-motion studies, determining the time required to do each task and the movements needed to perform it efficiently.

Job enlargement - Expansion of the number of different tasks performed by an employee in a single job is job enlargement and it attempts to add somewhat similar tasks to the existing job so that it has more variety and be more interesting.

Job enrichment - Has become a popular concept. It simply means adding a few more motivators to a job to make it more rewarding. To be specific, a job is enriched when the nature of the job is exciting, challenging and creative, or gives the job holder more decision-making, planning and controlling power.

Contemporary issues in design of work:

According to Quick and Nelson (2010), rather than worker-well being and job design, a comprehensive attention has to pay on telecommuting, alternative work patterns, techno stress, task revision and skill development which are the issues of economic competition. These issues are having a high impact on overall performance requirement of the organization and employee requirements,  as the competition is overlapping  the better balance between work and employees personal/family requirements.The globalization and technology has reshaped the work, work force and work place (CIPD, 2013). Accordingly, the objectives become more strategic affecting HRM to find greater changes in job/work design.

CarMax is the United States' largest used-car retailer and a Fortune 500 company. The first CarMax location opened in September 1993. As of March 2017, the company had 173 locations. Recently, in challenging economic times, they implement job reshuffling (Quick and Nelson, 2010). Same as CarMax some great companies adopt different approaches while creating flexible work environment for employees through altering the design of job.

The Starbucks provide a wide range of opportunities for their employee development aiming job engagement. Accordingly “Every eligible U.S. Starbucks partner (employee) working part or full-time receives 100 percent tuition coverage for all four years of a bachelor’s degree, delivered through Arizona State University’s top-ranked online degree program.” They see the customers as neighbors to the employees (Starbucks, 2018) .

References:

1. Armstrong, M. (2017). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 12th ed. London: Kogan Page, pp.136-152.
2. CIPD (2013). Megatrends. The trends shaping work and working lives. [online] London: Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development, p.2. Available at: https://www.cipd.co.uk/Images/megatrends_2013-trends-shaping-work_tcm18-11401.pdf [Accessed 7 Jul. 2018].
3. Norris, S. and Porter, T. (2012). The Encyclopedia of Human Resource Management. Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, p.Article 53.
4. Quick, J. and Nelson, D. (2010). Principles of organizational behavior. Mason, Ohio: South-Western, pp.496-501.
5. Starbucks (2018). Career Center. [online] Starbucks Coffee Company. Available at: https://www.starbucks.com/careers [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].

21st CENTURY - PERFORMANCE

Managing Employee Performance

Figure 1 - Business First Family

Figure 2 - Sales Force

Performance management (PM) is a key driver in enhancing organizational success. Employees are required to understand their expected contribution to business objectives and be motivated and equipped with the skills, resources and support to achieve this. In resent past, good performance management processes revealed in ongoing conversations on progress towards objectives. Though the measuring tools are differ, people managers at all levels should reinforce organizational purpose and link objectives at department and individual levels by help supporting both employees and the organization, through a unique PM system (CIPD, 2018). 

Employee Performance Management (EPM/PM) process starts by identifying the strategic goals an organization needs to accomplish to remain competitive and profitable. After that, managers will look how the employees can help support organizational objectives by successfully completing assigned work (Mathis and Jackson, 2010). The total of the work done/completed in all jobs should advance the strategic plan. By adopting a wide array of quantitative approach, managers can successfully integrate individual efforts in a way that provides practical measures of organizational effectiveness. EPM also do provide a blended outlook for the individual career development (Mathis and Jackson, 2010 & figure 2.).

The history of PM began around 70 years ago as a source of income justification and was used to determine an employee's wage based on performance. Later it created big arguments in justifying pay against development of skills and knowledge. As a strategic driver and integrated approach to the management and development of employees, PM became a functional activity in Human Resource Management (HRM) which has to be completed by line managers throughout the every year.It's a cyclical process. According to Mathis and Jackson (2012)'s figure 3. there are tasks to be attempted generally in the four quarters of the year. 

Figure 3 -  Mathis and Jackson (2010)

According to Shields et al.(2016), recent perspective of PM is Managing Competencies (MC).It is the most complex and controversial application of EPM which is more focused on employees with a resource-based view by discussing EPM as a tool for both organizational and employee development through the development of employee's fundamental skill sets. According to Lee (2018), there are at least three actions needed to power 21st century performance management.

Feedback (why) - is a necessary and positive element because it provides both assessment and accountability. All employees need to know where they are. Yet they also need to know where they are going.

Feedforward (what) - is guidance, direction, description and, most importantly, forecast. It establishes goals and provides the necessary support and encouragement for reaching the next level of performance.

Frequent coaching (how) - while improvement is started by why (feedback) and (feedforward) what, the "how" comes from the proven technique of frequent coaching.It's the broaden approach of feedforward in terms of continues guidance.

Cargill Incorporated is an American privately held global corporation based in Minnetonka, Minnesota, and incorporated in Wilmington, Delaware. Since 2012, they provide e-learning, employee resourcing groups, training academies and leadership training opportunities, and a culture that values and supports employee growth with a constructive feedback. All these efforts were highly admitted by the employees which meant, Cargill succeeded through the approach (Cargill, 2018). 

Adobe (a multinational software company) has changed their PM approach in 2012 as “Check-in” by replacing normal ongoing dialog between managers and employees. According to Burkus (2017), Adobe had check-in centers around three elements of discussion. They are, expectations, feedback, and growth and development. They ensured that managers and subordinates know they’ve had a meaningful conversation when each of these areas have been discussed.The change has given a 10% increase in the number of employees who say they receive ongoing feedback that helps their performance. Their voluntary turnover rate has dropped by 30% and they have been able to save more than 100,000 manager hours each year (Morris, 2018).

References:

1. Burkus, D. (2017). Harvard Business Review. How Adobe Structures Feedback Conversations. [online] Harvard Business Review. Available at: https://hbr.org/2017/07/how-adobe-structures-feedback-conversations?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
2. Cargill (2018). Personal Development | Cargill. [online] Cargill.com. Available at: https://www.cargill.com/careers/personal-development [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
3. CIPD (2018). Performance Management. [podcast] Access information and guidance on implementing effective performance management. Available at: https://www.cipd.asia/knowledge/people-management-fundamentals/ performance-management [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
4. Lee, C. (2018). Organizational & Employee Development. Viewpoint: Feedback, ‘Feedforward’ and Frequency for 21st Century Performance Management. [online] SHRM. Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/organizational-and-employee-development/pages/viewpoint-feedback-feedforward-and-frequency-for-21st-century-performance-management.aspx [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
5. Martin, G. and Siebert, S. (2016). Managing people and organizations in changing contexts. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, pp.41-191.
6. Mathis, R. and Jackson, J. (2010). Human Resource Management. 13th ed. Mason, OH: South-Western Cengage Learning, pp.318-361.
7. Morris, D. (2018). Adobe Check-in. [online] Adobe.com. Available at: https://www.adobe.com/check-in.html [Accessed 5 Jul. 2018].
8. Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Samuel, C. and Samardzic, A. (2016). Managing employee performance and reward. 2nd ed. NY.USA: Cambridge University Press, pp.123-138.

HRM - CHALLENGES - GLOBAL CONTEXT

Market Responding 

Figure 1 - Opinion

The Human Resource Management (HRM) theory has developed over the decades due to contemporary issues arises in interaction with people globally and internationally. According to Snell, Morris and Bohlander (2014), both internal and external challenges has resulted the executives to find greater strategies to achieve objectives through Human Resource Management (HRM).In the global arena the businesses have to sustain the organizational performance through the global labor market competition and develop the strategies for future. (Snell, Morris and Bohlander, 2014). Theories like Total Quality Management (TQM), Six Sigma, Business Process Reengineering (BPR) and Lean Management have introduced to develop the required competencies of human in responding to the market.

Strategic HRM policies must be developed to the highest level to fulfill the employee – customer gap. It is vital to ensure effective leadership and communication process; revised administrative systems are there in reengineering the HRM (Beardwell and Thompson, 2017).Addressing changing people needs has become a global challenge. It can’t be overcome only by delivering new products, since human (employee) interaction plays a huge role in delivering goods and services to the customers. 

Ulrich (2009), suggest “Real HR transformation begins by responding to the general business conditions and specifically serving key stakeholders”. The proper addressing for the labour markets’ supply and demand variables helps organizations overcoming the weaknesses and threats in responding to market and it ensures the stakeholders expectations. The two variables gap, should be clipped by using existing talent, well developed knowledge, staffing requirements and managing change.

Labour market supply	Labour market demand
Changing societal attitudes to work and education Economic condition Changing demography Government policy Employment regulation Level and target of investment in education and training Industrial policy Wider social policy	Changes to the external environment Changes in the business environment Changing communication and production technologies Changes in the political context Economic restructuring Changing skills requirement Regional, national and international economic condition

Figure 2 - SlideShare

Belron, is a vehicle glass repair and replacement group operating worldwide across 34 countries and employing over 25,000 people. Autoglass, Safelite, Carglass SAS, Carglass B.V., Belron Canada Inc., Carglass N.V., Allgäuer Autoglas Gmbh are the subsidiaries of Belron. In 2017, Belron looked after around 16.5 million consumers on six continents with a focus on service quality generating a very high level of customer satisfaction. In their success story during the bad weather changes had in 2014, the CEO Gary Lubner said “We are used to dealing with the challenges of the. On some days we simply could not get out to do the work due to the severity of the weather. We undertook our largest ever recruitment programme hiring more than 1,000 additional technicians to cope with the demand. We also redeployed technicians from our European businesses to support our US colleagues with around 60 technicians being seconded to various cities. While we saw a small drop in service during the early months of the year this was rapidly addressed” (Belron, 2014).

The Nestlé is a market leading company which regularly does research in qualitative and quantitative forms to gain a clear idea of consumer opinion and trends. They have moved towards animal welfare as a social responsibility especially due to high concern of consumers’ over animal safety. “Staff is continuously trained in animal behavior, humane handling and animal welfare” (Nestlé Responsible Sourcing Standard, 2018).

Conclusion:

Challenges are a path-way to find efficient and effective solutions (i.e. required performance) over current practices (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Adopting foremost strategies based on universal best practices to lead, superior organizational performance is the answer to overcome the competitive market challenges .

References:

1. Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan, pp.309-440.
2. Beardwell, J. and Thompson, A. (2017). Human Resource Management a Contemporary Approach. 8th ed. London: Pearson Education Limited, pp.01 -209.
3. Belron. Responding to Market Challenges. (2014). D’Ieteren Activity Report 2014. [online] Brussels: Belron, pp.4-10. Available at: https://www.dieteren.com/sites/default/files/belron2014_0.pdf [Accessed 4 Jul. 2018].
4. Nestlé Responsible Sourcing Standard. (2018). Vevey, Switzerland: Nestec Ltd., p.23.
5. Snell. S., Morris. S., Bohlander. G. (2014) – Managing Human Resources – 17th Edition – Cengage Learning,2015.
6. Ulrich, D. (2009). HR transformation: Building Human Resources From The Outside In. :Chicago, McGraw-Hill.

HRM - CHALLENGES - GLOBAL CONTEXT

Human Capital development

Figure 1 - Armstrong and Taylor, (2014).

Human is the most divested resource which has to be strategically developed in order to have a skillful and fine tuned work force to achieve organizational goals and competitive advantage and those strategies may also required lot of theoretical knowledge up dated in time to time (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014).Human Resource Management (HRM) today faces issues aroused organizations’ internal and external environment.Human Capital (HC) development has challenging to organizations' both internally and externally as it is necessary to accomplish anything.

HC is the measure of economic value that people provide through their skills, knowledge, and abilities. According to Ulrich, (2009) “Securing intellectual capital means, up grading the leadership bench.” Preparing employees for the future while enriching them for today and to come up with innovative ideas, to acquire new competencies, to develop skills/ behavior/attitudes, a relevant environment has to be created.

According to a survey done by SHRM in 2015 today’s most important human capital challenges involve retention, engagement and providing strong benefits and compensation. At most organizations, both HR and non-HR C-suite executives view HR as having a strategic role and are currently planning to make changes to their HR function to make it even more strategic and measurement-driven in the years to come .Human capital is increased through, division of labour and specialization, basic education, vocational training, creativity building, proper infrastructure developments and competitiveness. 

Figure 2 - Anderspink - Human Capital development stages

HC determines by, skills and qualifications, educational levels, work experience, social skills – communication, intelligence, judgment, emotional intelligence, personality, habits and personality traits, creativity, fame and brand image of an individual. Depend on the working environment the HC measurement becomes vary. In manufacturing companies, it can be measured by the productivity where HC strongly related to physical strengths and quality of units produced per day. In knowledge economies (service sector) it is hard to measure the level of capital so the broad measures like skills and abilities with greater varieties are used as traits. 

It’s visible that companies do spend more than 70 percent of their costs over the maintenance of employees. But yet, how these expenses would be a capital investment? It can only be shown in benefits aspect, such as increase employee satisfaction, improve retention rates , develop employee engagement, develop customer engagement, improve return on investment, improved organizational communication, better recruitment and create a greater company culture are the significant benefits given by HC today (Ulrich 2009).

According to the Human Capital Report – 2017 (under 04 indexes) released by World Economic Forum, the small European countries like Norway, Finland and Switzerland are heading the report. Being Singapore is at 11th, Malaysia is at 33rd and Thailand at 40th among 130 countries is significant. As a South Asian Country, Singapore’s remarkable development reveals, they have produced the HC that is needed to take advantage of digital innovation by upholding IT education and basic education, both together. 

Conclusion:
In current contexts the HR managers should have the excellent professional skills in developing the people resource. HRM policies should be credible, strategic, and comfortable in global application, and in a necessary environment in which employees can learn and develop better.

References:

1. Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 13th ed. London: Kogan, pp.309-440.
2. Anon,(2018).[online] Available at: http://reports.weforum.org /global-human-capital-report-2017/human-capital-report-2017/ [Accessed 1 Jul. 2018].
3. Business and Human Capital Challenges Today and in the Future. (2015). [online] SHRM, pp.5-111. Available at:https://www.shrm.org/about-shrm/press-room/press-releases/ documents /shrm% 202015% 20 business%20human%20capital%20challenges.pdf [Accessed 1 Jul. 2018].
4. Snell S., Morris S. and Bohlander G., (2015), Managing Human Resources, 17th ed., Canada,Cengage Learning, pp.4-100.
5. Ulrich, D. (2009). HR transformation: Building Human Resources From The Outside In. :Chicago, McGraw-Hill

HRM - CHALLENGES - GLOBAL CONTEXT

Cost reduction , Hiring  and Retaining talent

Figure - SoftCore

According to Stephen Miller (2018), “Forward-thinking employers are treating their rewards strategies as integral to their staffing and performance management efforts—and viewing their rewards as an investment in workers' productivity and engagement—especially as organizations face greater competition for talent”.

Finding a balance between operational costs and performance is another serious challenge that organizations are facing today. Majority of the expenses are underline over the “people”, to provide,• Health-care benefits, • Training and development ,• Hiring and retention. These expenses were found to be costs to employers and it could also be identified as the benefits to the employees. 

According to a very recent research done by Stephen Miller (2018), for SHRM, employee health care benefit costs are the significant figure as 72% (i.e. two-third) of the organizations have increased their costs over full time employees. In current complex and competitive working environment, the health care issues among employees are high. Companies even have to think about benefits to the families (spouse/ domestic partner and children) as majority of the employees left many hours out the home due to heavy workloads/lean staff, extended working hours, etc. Companies also do spend on other health benefits. Ex., wellness benefits, parental leave, retirement savings and advice, and health screening.

Employees are often like to see they are beneficial to the organization. Frequent training and development strategies empower employees in different aspects over organizational operations. It opens the doors in critical thinking which is much beneficial from the organizations’ perspective. Training gives opportunity to have discussions which reveals employees’ true ideas about shifting to other departments, and engaging in new job roles. That would be helpful for the management to re-organize the workers with suitable rewards and recognition in different work stations. The Stephen Miller (2018), says that if an organization could do the correct training and development at the correct time, the such costs could be an enhancing employee value without increasing their pay.

Retention and hiring of talent is still challenging. The permanent employees assume that their outstanding performances are not being properly rewarded while with higher employer expectations. This problem arises specially due to adoption more of temporary workers to defeat high employee turnover. The controversy between non permanent and traditional flexible staff has different issues. Less engaged staff generally shows lower organizational loyalty, poor customer service, less attention to quality, little commitment to the company and high turnover. These are known to be threats than it’s being issues. Hence costs management has become critical, as it directly impact the mind set of employees. It could also affect employees be de-motivated (Regis, 2008).

As a cost reduction technique most of the companies hire non permanent, temporary workers. The other way round, non permanent temporary staffs are paid lower wages and sometimes they are not eligible to enjoy other rewards. As a result Human Resource managers have to pay higher incentives, initiate empowering schemes, continuous training and development programs, to retain them. According to Stephen Miller (2018), 41% of the costs have been allocated for recruitment and attraction of new talent. 28% of the costs spent on retention/turnover management. 

The world leading IBM Company has initialized “Work Force Management Initiative (WMI) to optimize the workforce and integrate the supply chain for human resource and talent management (Boudreau, 2010). The investment on the project was more than US$ 100Mn. IBM’s WMI acknowledges that workforce optimization required linkages of key disciplines in, Resource management, Talent and mobility, Learning, Supplier or vendor management.

Costs in Human Resource Management (HRM) are hard to limit or reduce. Initiate productivity increasing techniques, managing the size of work force/ managing excess/ downsizing, managing pay and benefits and outsourcing is some of the solutions of overcoming high costs in HRM today.

References:

1. Boudreau, J. (2010). IBM's Global Talent Management Strategy. Alexandria, VA 22314, USA: SHRM Academic Initiatives, pp.13-14.
2. Regis, R. (2008). Strategic Human Resource Management and Development. New Delhi: Excel Books, p.34.
3. Scullion, H. and Collings, D. (2011). Global Talent Management - Global HRM. New York: Routledge, pp.24-25.
4. Stephen Miller (2018). How Total Rewards Can Drive Performance Management Success. Keeping a motivated workforce requires meaningful rewards and career opportunities. [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/hr-topics/benefits/Pages/total-rewards-can-drive-performance-management.aspx [Accessed 4 Jul. 2018].
5. Stephen Miller (2018). Employers Beef Up Benefits to Keep Talent. SHRM benefits survey tracks growth of popular perks. [online] Available at: https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/benefits/pages/employers-beef-up-benefits-2018.aspx [Accessed 4 Jul. 2018].