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University Name

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Human Resource Management
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Essay Resit Questions - UMPCNM-20-2
Your Name
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2009



Critically examine the claim that flexible working practices are of greater
benefit to employers than employees. You should support your answer by
drawing upon at least two forms of flexible working.

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The flexible working practices are basically all the innovative ways employers and
employees can agree upon structuring work to accommodate business and individual working
needs and conditions. And these practices are very useful for flexible firm in shedding light

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for the changes in the nature of work and work organisation, these practices may be less
useful in explaining the issues that are facing by the employers regarding how best to manage
and utilize employees to achieve organisational objectives and goals. And that is why they

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have been against flexible hours. But if we see rationally, we‟ll find that the flexible working
practices are very beneficial to the employers more than employees. There are certain forms
of flexible working. The most famous among them are the part-time working, job share and
flexitime. If we consider the benefits of the job sharing and the flexitime to the employers, we
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will find that when there is the freedom to work in any way they choose outside a set core of
hours determined by the employer and also has an opportunity to share work among peers,
potentially it looks dangerous to the employers, but in fact it is covering much more benefits
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to the employers. When employees have such option there is greater staff morale and job
satisfaction. In the organization where employers offer flexitime working and job-sharing to
the employees it report improvements in recruitment, absenteeism and productivity. These
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practices have ability to attract a higher level of skills because the business is able to attract
and retain a skilled and more diverse workforce. When a good employee or expert will listen
that some organization is so much flexible that it offers too much flexibility, they will surely
rush towards that organization, in this way the employer has most potential, satisfied and
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highly talented employees in their firms. At the same level by these employers has to bear
less Recruitment. Similarly it reduces stress, fatigue and unfocussed employees. When there
is the matter of job-sharing, no employee will work with lazy and unfocussed employees and
it would be easy for an employer to catch a lazy person and get him out of the work. As
discussed above it increases employee satisfaction and when satisfaction is there you will
have more production which will contribute more to your profits. When you have such
options like flexitime and job-sharing, you have not to face French leaves; employees will
visit doctors or have medical examination without postponing their work and within the



office timings. In this way you have some others benefits too, like Measurement of
employee‟s attendance, you only pay or time in attendance (delayed arrival caused by traffic
congestion, delayed trains etc. are entirely employees responsibilities). These types of
practices creates an incentive to complete tasks instead of being carried forward to the next
day as extra hours worked count towards the final target Greater competitiveness under the

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practice of overtime and part time. So by sharing work and having flexitime employees have
no excuses to delay work. By all of the above mentioned benefits to the employees it gives
strength to the customer satisfaction and loyalty when they have quality product and services

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on time.

Critically assess the ways in which organisations can gain from workforce
diversity.
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Workforce diversity means employing people within an organization without discrimination
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on the basis of gender, age and ethnic or racial background. Due to greater benefits and the
globalization current trend in business workforce diversity in the workplace is a better
accepted and applied concept now more than ever. There are many potential ways in which
an organization can gain from the workforce diversity. In the today atmosphere every
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successful corporation learn to manage to their full advantage through adopting new structure
and work practices that are different from those traditional and old fashioned conservative
organizations. They try to manage acquire a competitive advantage in the global market
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place. And that is all brought in by the workforce diversity now days. The whole purpose of
managing diversity is to bring out the best of employees Talent, Abilities, Skills and
Knowledge for the benefits of individual employees and at the same time for the progress and
the creating value of the corporations. When workforce diversity is properly managed in it, it
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lead employee towards the satisfaction, loyalty, productivity, efficiency and many more.
Similarly the organization‟s success and competitiveness depends upon its ability to
commence diversity and realize its potential benefits. When organizations actively learn and
implements their handling of workplace diversity issues, develop and implement diversity
plans, multiple benefits.

The diverse organizations have better solution to the problems. They have the increasing
adaptability as they can offer greater variety of solutions to problems in service, sourcing, and



allocation of resources. When you have employees from diverse backgrounds, they bring
individual talents and experiences in suggesting ideas that are innovative, flexible to adapting
in the market situation now days and it work according to the customer demands as it has
greater extent for the adaptability. And when an organization has diverse employees from
different background, it can offer variety of services to the customer. It will be presenting a

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diverse collection of skills and experiences (e.g. languages, cultural understanding) that will
be helpful for the organization to provide service to customers on a global basis. When you
have different type of mind from different cultures with you, you have an opportunity to have

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variety of viewpoints in the problem solving or innovation process. It will also be helpful for
the organization to meet business strategy needs and the needs of customers more effectively.
Organizations that encourage diversity in the workplace inspire all of their employees to

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perform to their highest ability. So such diverse and flexible strategies in the organization
will be helpful to execute higher productivity, profit, and return on investment. Organizations
that encourage diversity in the workplace inspire all of their employees to perform to their
highest ability. So such diverse and flexible strategies in the organization will be helpful to
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execute higher productivity, profit, and return on investment. There also countless benefits to
the organization like diverse workforce leads to develop the organizational unique culture, it
help to improves client relations, different minds from different cultures leads to the
creativity, increase employees morals, greater retention and the last but not the least it help
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the organization to move into emerging markets
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Explain why the attainment of a ‘work-life balance’ is important for
employees and critically examine the extent to which current legislation
supports this.

Work-life balance is a concept that has its broader meanings giving proper priority to career
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and ambition by comparing it with family, pleasure and leisure. As the separation between
work and home life has diminished, this concept has become more important relative to the
old days. Today trend is very hasty in most of the organizations. Currently most of the
organization keeps their employees working for late hours, over times and work at homes.
This is totally distracting the balance between the work and the family life. When you do not
have balance between these two pillars of life, you have to face many difficulties. It may lead
you to the stress and many problems due to this stress. It is very much clear that problems
caused by stress have become a major concern to both employers and employees. We can



find that symptoms of stress are manifested both physiologically and psychologically orders
of human body. So when you get ill, it will also disturb your house life and efficiency at
work place. So when you have standard of working seventy four hours per week, it will lead
you to the very little time for your kids, families, parents and for spiritual needs. And when
you don‟t have these benefits it will lead you to the dissatisfaction with life and lose your

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hope. And this trend will make you psycho. It may also perpetuate the habits of binge
eating, smoking, and alcohol consumption. So these are the basic reason that increases the
attainment of the work-life-balance for the employees as it very much helpful. And when you

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have time spent with family, friends, and community as well as pursuing activities that one
enjoys it helps you grow personally and spiritually and make you a healthy and prosper
person without ill-mannered habits.

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Now a days you can have many laws for the benefits of workers, like Family and Medical
Leave Act, Small Necessities Leave Act and Maternity Leaves etc. But they have not too
much existence in most of the organizations. The legal terms are for just developed and top
level managers but at the lower level it is a tough target. Legislation just supports it in the
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written laws; we see little practical implication to this. The biggest obstacle behind the failure
of this practice is this; the employers do not to accept more flexible working arrangements in
order to attain more productivity.
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Compare and contrast the Resource Based View (RBV) and Best Practice
(Universal) models of human resource management and identify the
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contribution of each to sustainable competitive advantage.

Resource bases view is the corporate strategy that that is basically emerged from the concept
of economic rent, it views the company as the basis of the capabilities that it has. The
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fundamental principle of the RBV is that it make basis for the competitive advantage of a
firm lies from the available resource that this firm posses. While on the other hand best
practice are the Methods and techniques that have been showing results superior than those
achieved with other means, and they are being used as the benchmark. In this way a company
just adopts a strategy that has been continuously being used effectively rather seeing their
available resources. That is why the RBV is looked as more realistic than second one. The
purpose of the both methods is used to improve company performance and attain a
sustainable competitive advantage. Best practices sets the rules of thumbs that make easy



process but in the RBV you have to first insight look over the resources available etc. It takes
time and effort and needs a high level of expertise. At the same time best practices fails when
we go beyond these straightforward practices. It is because when you move away from
uniformity it leads you to betray from the defined practices, while it is not like this in RBV
model of HRM.

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As the question arises about the contribution of both to the sustainable competitive
advantage, yes both models have much mutual interest. When you attain the best available

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resources through RBV and you refers it to the best practice model. And depending upon the
model you determine the required best alternative for the purpose of any function of human
resource management. It keeps it up in sustaining competitive advantage, because it leads to

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the very low chances of failure. When you know about the available resource and have a best
practice according to those resources then your employees, customers‟ believe remain tight
on you and you are not going to lose your competitive advantage. And whenever there is lack
of resources, the RBV refers to available best practice for the resources in hand, and again
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you are not going to lose your place.
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Compare and contrast two different types of human resource planning
techniques and critically evaluate their contribution to organisational
success.
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HR planning is the process in which help to understand the contribution and scope of success
for the organization. HR Planning is a process that goes through different techniques and
types. It does the job analysis, environmental scanning, internal and external verifiers of the
organizations like SWOT analysis for the organizational success and the decision and plans
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for the organizational success. When you being job analysis it is the way seek the different
requirements of the jobs you are having regarding your business environment while when
you are doing an environmental sacking, it means you are looking for the whole business
industry. In the job analysis you mostly have an internal analysis relating to the jobs to do,
while in the environmental scanning you do the analysis regarding the external factor in
which the corporation need to operate its operations. So as a comparison in the both ways you
determine specific needs and the requirements for the certain organization to contribute and
make a scope for the success of the business. Purpose of them is the same but area of the



operation is different. In the one type you have a internal verifiers scanning while the other
supports the external verifiers. Both of these techniques support two different types of HR
planning. In one planning type you seek whether the organization need to ne proactive or
reactive about strategies and planning while in the other type organization make decision
regarding breath of the planning. Critically both lead to the organizational success. It helps

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the organization to have good people at the best jobs. Similarly it reduces cost and increases
employees moral that lead to the organizational success. When you perform efficient HR
planning, it appreciates the four component parts of HR planning – namely, analysing the

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environment; forecasting future HR needs; analysing the current situation and projecting
forward; and reconciliation, decisions and plans and when these components are without any
flaw how an organization can be unsuccessful. These components get efficient level when

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they are properly supported by the decision process. And a good decision leads one to the
success. And these two types have a major contribution in the success of any organization.
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Critically assess the argument that the concept of ‘well being’ goes beyond
traditional concepts of health, safety and welfare and examine the
implications of this for the way organisations manage their human
resources.
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Maslow hierarchy of needs suggests that there are five stages for the well being of the
personal requirements. According to that hierarchy need chart you have at the lower level as
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the physiological need like food, sex, cloths all you need for a living. After that you need
security and then you need relationships. Afterwards you look forward to the self esteem and
self actualization. In the age of stone when man was a beast all he requires for his living was
the food. Then he requires the security by having power and arms. They were not more
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interested in the relationships etc. When we get a little bit development then regions of
different races developed, people come into the need of their relationships with the other
communities to trade, security or to satisfy the below needs very well. But as the time passé
and we entered in the 21st century. Its needs level has boosted up. Now most of the
employees want to attain a self actualization and self esteem because they can have enough
support from the governments and the NGO if they have nothing to do. And law has made
security very well in developed economies. So now people have been looking forward to the
level of self esteem where they can humans have a need to be respected, to have self-esteem,



self-respect. Also requires the belonging need, esteem presents the normal human desire to be
accepted and valued by others.

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So now this trend has changed the concept of “well being”from the traditional concepts of
health, safety and welfare. Recently it was found that in Norway the suicide rate is too high.
When psychologist determined the reason they concluded that the people are very prosper,
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they have money, security and belongings. But they left with nothing to do. So they try to
suicide when they feel that you are just useless. Now a days the different organizations have
implemented different platforms to recognize and help employees to achieve their well being
extra needs. They provide proper feedback and evaluation system by which they evaluate the
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performance of the employees and give them an opportunity of progress. They arrange
different training session and competitions to prove employees their self and have a better
opportunity to attain the self esteem.



References

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 Emmott, M. And Hutchinson, S. (1998) „Employment Flexibility: Threat or Promise?‟
in P. Sparrow and M. Marchington (eds)(1998): HRM: The New Agenda, London:
Pitman.

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 Fynes, B., Morrissey, T., Roche, W.K., Whelan, B.J., and Williams, J.(1996a),
Flexible Working Lives: The Changing Nature of Working Time Arrangements in
Ireland, Dublin: Oak Tree.


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Priem, R.L., Butler, J.E. (2001b), Tautology in the Resource-Based View and
Implications of Externally Determined Resource Value: Further Comments. Academy
of Management Review.
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 Fottler, M.D., Phillips, R.L., Blair, J.D., Duran, C.A. 1990. "Achieving competitive
advantage through strategic human resources management". Hospital and Health
Services Administration.
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 Maslow, Abraham (1954). Motivation and Personality. New York: Harper

 Srinivas R. Kandula, (2004), Human Resource Management in Practice: With 300
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Models, Techniques and Tools, Phi publishers.
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