HR
challenges In the 21st century, many companies have evolved the role of the Human Resource, corresponding to the
change in competitive market and the realization that HRM plays an important role in the success of a company.
Companies that do not put too much stress on attracting and retaining valuable employees may find themselves out of touch with employee relations, as their competitors may be utilizing their HR strategies in this competitive environment to the fullest.
Competition has increased both locally and globally, companies must become more flexible, tough, responsive, and customer-oriented to succeed. And with this new change in the market place, the HR has to transform to become a tactical partner, an employee advocate, and a change adviser within the company. For a company to succeed, HR must drive a business thorough understanding of the company’s overall picture and be able to implement key decisions and policies.
In general, the focus of today’s HR’s challenge is on tactical personnel preservation and employee talent growth. Today’s environment requires HR professionals to be succession planners, advisors, and tutors to help stimulate company’s members and their employee loyalty. The HR personal will also have to promote and implement values, ethics, beliefs, and spirituality within their companies, especially when there is diversity in the workplace.
a) Hiring the right people
Our company in Bahrain is facing many diverse
challenges in operation, but one of the biggest challenges is employee retention. Due to the current LMRA (labor market regulatory authority), it is difficult to hire expats (as the cost of beaurecracy, hiring and visa processing has gone up) and we are not able to hire experienced Bahrainis. For example, it is becoming more and more difficult to attract and retain Bahraini employees, who look for better opportunity on daily basis. So we plan to develop new policies to put the right people in the right jobs. The company has also adopted international HR policies in maintaining employee loyalties by ensuring adequate policies and programs are in place
b) Government regulations
One of the main challenges faced in Bahrain for any company is the changing regulatory environments. With the introduction of LMRA, has provided difficulties for the HR dept to hire whom they feel are suitable for the company. The HR needs to make certain that all appropriate government regulations are adhered to. These include Bahrainization, Minimum wages law, Human Rights, Employment Standards, Health and Safety, and Compensation.
c) Hr administration
In all our branches, we hire administrative HR staff once they reach a certain size, but the company usually lacks someone who is dedicated to focusing on the employee retention challenges. One of the strategy that we can apply is that if we don’t have senior HR staff available, they we can associate with external HR consultants to help solve some of these challenges. HR Consultants will cost less to the company than hiring full time HR, and can be used on an as-needed basis.
d) Managing Technological Challenges
Our company is getting more and more technologically oriented, and many employees need to be updated and trained for the latest technologies being introduced, preparing the employees to accept technological changes is a major challenge. Many old employees have been used to working the old way and bringing them up to date has brought some problems. It is a huge challenge to bring in IT and other technology acceptance all levels in company.
e) Developing Leadership
It is quite attention-grabbing to note that there is less significance given to developing headship at the company level. Though leadership is discussed on basis of traits and certain qualities, at an organizational level it is more based on knowledge. It is one of the challenges of the HR to develop individuals who have performance potential on basis of past record and knowledge based proficiency in to business leaders by imparting them with the necessary "soft skills".
It is important to train workers satisfactorily for the success of the company. If the employees are not efficient, then the company will loose out in his business and eventually fail. To retain workers, employees should be given salary package that would satisfy their financial, intellectual and the career needs
Alan Ciklin emphasized that “the retention checklist should include ensuring your employees have the skills and tools to manage their job effectively” (A. Ciklin. personal communication. October 17, 2008). We should never exaggerate workers expectations and continuously survey people who leave to determine cause and flaws in our team. While keeping each individual’s worth in mind, companies should keep in mind potential resignations and their consequences.
Conclusion
One of the main challenges to a company is recruiting, selecting and training qualified worker to undertake the company policy and services to its customers / clients.
There are many challenges faced by the HR dept and it’s a tough task to keep both the employee and the company happy. Retention is one of the main challenges faced by the HR as competition and globalization has made it possible for competitors to hire anybody anytime from anywhere. Providing employees a good salary is not enough these days, as they also need to be pampered with other benefits such as bonus, flexible working hours, shorter working hours, annual vacation, etc.