Reflective Paper The Importance of Human Resource Management

Recruitment and selection of employees play an important role in the organization’s strategy. The following example shows the process of recruitment and selection of employees in one of the insurance companies. First of all, the human resource manager, Mr. Brown submits recruiting documents. He submits a request to hire and prepares position description. Then, Mr. Brown prepares a newspaper ad where all the necessary information concerning the job is given (education, experience, technical skills, communication skills and so on).
Selection process is the most important part of Mr. Brown’s job. He is ready to conduct job interview with the candidates.
Jane Hopkins is the first candidate to take the position of the consultant in the insurance company. She is asked to complete some word processing exercise ”“ to prepare, print and edit some documents. Mr. Brown evaluates the quality of work and documents the results which will be used in determining the most appropriate candidate. Sometimes a search committee makes a final decision. During the process of interviewing, Mr. Brown learns some information from the past experience of Jane Hopkins. As Jane has already worked for an insurance company, her experience and her skills will help her to prove the fact that she is a competent employees who will be able to perform her duties in a proper way. Mr. Brown is interested in her confidence and good communication skills. (Guidelines to Recruitment and Selection, 2010, para.3)
Human Resource Development
Human resource development is one of the components of human resource management which is responsible for the employees’ training and development. It is known that human resource development provides training of the new employee and gives him or her the opportunity to get new information concerning the organization and its major goals, to learn some new skills which will be necessary for the successful implementation of the major tasks. (Sims, 2002, p.165)
Gilley J. and Eggland S. define human resource development as “organized learning activities” in the organization which have the major task ”“ “to improve performance” as well as personal growth of the employees. (2003, p.3)
As human resource development includes the areas of employees’ training and career development, and organization’s development, it is very important to include this aspect into the major organization’s goals.
For example, the automobile corporation represented human resource development by means of special human resource development program which gave opportunity to all the employees of the corporation to get new technical skills and to use new technologies which facilitated the work to a great extent. The new equipment which was installed in the manufacturing workshop allowed to save a lot of time and money. Moreover, it allowed to increase productivity.
Compensation and Benefits
Compensation and benefits area is one of the areas of human resource management which consists of the following components: guaranteed pay to the employee which denotes the employee’s basic salary; variable pay to the employee which denotes bonuses which depend on the results of the employee’s work; benefits which include medical insurance, disability insurance, the opportunity to use the car of the company, paid time-off and others. (Sims, 2002, p.245)
For example, Tom Green works for a building company. He is a manager in the human resource department. He enjoys the following benefits: annual leave, family medical leave, health and life insurance, ten paid holidays and credit union and fitness facility. Tom also has access to a number of training and development programs. It is also known that compensation and benefits salaries of the manager in human resource department of the building company is about $44,000 a year. Of course, Tom is satisfied with his job.
Safety and Health
Safety and health is one of the most significant aspects in the human resource management as it provides the opportunity to feel safe at work. Safety and health can improve productivity because the employees will not be anxious about their life and their health. They will think only about their duties and the major goals of their organization. (Sims, 2002, p.307)
The terms safety and health are closely connected with each other. The term health denotes the physical, emotional and mental state of the employee. The term safety denotes that the employee should be protected by the employer. In other words, the employer should take care of the working environment in order to avoid any risks of accidents which can be caused by the machinery, fire or different diseases.
Human resource manager is responsible for the employee’s health and safety. He coordinates different safety programs, informs the employees of the organization’s health and safety policy and even conducts some health and safety training in the organization. (Sims, 2002, p. 309)
One of the examples of successful implementation of health and safety program is the following one. Rosa Poncy is a human resource manager in some manufacturing company which produces shoes. She is a responsible manager who pays special attention to the health and safety in the workplace. She coaches the employees who work in the workshops to be safety conscious. She investigates incidents, communicates about the safety policies of the organization. Rosa tries to maintain safe working conditions of the employees. She provides technical training each month.