CHALLENGES OF HRM IN MODERN MANAGEMENT

The following are the challenges faced by Organizations in HRM due to changes in the business environment.

Globalization: Growing internationalization of business has its impact on HRM in terms of problems of unfamiliar laws, languages, practices, competitions, attitudes, management styles, work ethics etc. HR managers have a challenge to deal with more functions, more heterogeneous functions and more involvement in employee’s personal life.

Corporate Reorganizations: Reorganization relates to mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, take over, internal restructuring of Organizations. In these situations, it is difficult to imagine circumstances that pose a greater challenge for HRM than reorganizations itself. It is a challenge to manage employees’ anxiety, uncertainties, insecurities and fears during these dynamic trends.

New Organizational Forms: The basic challenge to HRM comes from the changing character of competitions. The competition is not between individual firms but between constellations of a firm. Major companies are operating through a complex web of strategic alliances, forgings with local suppliers, etc. These relationships give birth to completely new forms of Organizational structure, which highly depend upon a regular exchange of people and information. The challenge for HRM is to cope with the implications of these newly networked relations, in place of more comfortable hierarchical relationships that existed within the Organizations for ages in the past.

Changing Demographics of Workforce: Changes in workforce are largely reflected by dual career couples, large chunk of young blood between age and old superannuating employees, working mothers, more educated and aware workers etc. These dynamic work forces have their own implications for HR managers and from HRM point of view is a true challenge to handle.

Changed Employee Expectations: With the changes in workforce demographics, employee expectations and attitudes have also transformed. Traditional allurements like job security, house, and remunerations are not much attractive today; rather employees are demanding empowerment and equality with management. Hence, it is a challenge for HRM to redesign the profile of workers, and discover new methods of hiring, training, remunerating and motivating employees.

Weaker Society Interests: Another challenge for HRM is to protect the interest of weaker sections of society. The dramatic increase of women workers, minorities and other backward communities in the workforce has resulted in the need for Organizations to re-examine their policies, practices and values. In the name of global competition, productivity and quality the interests of the society around should not be sacrificed. It is a challenge of today’s HR managers to see that these weaker sections are neither denied their rightful jobs nor are discriminated against while in service.

Contribution to the Success of Organizations: The biggest challenge to an HR manager is to make all employees contribute to the success of the Organization in an ethical and socially responsible way because the well being of the society’s to a large extent depends on its Organizations