This document provides an overview of emerging trends in human resource management and their significance. It discusses new approaches such as international HRM, HR outsourcing, HR information systems, and using Six Sigma in HR. Key functions of international HRM like recruitment, development and training, performance evaluation, and remuneration are also summarized. The roles of HR in organizations and competencies needed for 21st century HR professionals are highlighted.

1. NOV- 27-28, 2009
BY
RAJ KUMAR KUNWAR,VIPIN KUMAR ,AMAN KUKREJA
JAMIA HAMDARD, NEW DELHI
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2. A NEW VISION FOR HUMAN RESOURCES
(AUTHOR-Kunwar Raj Kumar, Kumar Vipin and Kukreja Aman)
MBA (Pharmaceutical Management)
1st Year, Faculty of Management Studies
Jamia Hamdard University New Delhi
Abstract
Human resource management is a process of bringing people and organizations together so that
the goals of each other are met and this editorial aims at providing information about emerging
trends in Human Resource Management -its impact and significance. The main theme is to
understand the organizational effectiveness from recent developments in human resource.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT AN OVERVIEW
If we see in practical situation the above definition its just one side of a coin which has limited
HRM involvement but HRM today is a different story, it have changed the way we work, and
also it helps an organization to survive in recessionary period. Managing and attracting the
human resource in today’s time is very difficult task. The role of HR manager has changed a lot
(Dancing differently on changing tunes of life) from being protector and screener to the role of
Savior who acts as planner and change agent affecting bottom of the pyramid where it is blue
collar workers & at the Top & Middle level executives. The trends in human resource industry
are dynamic in nature which contributes towards to achievement of organization goals. Over the
years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs have increased while low skilled jobs are
decreasing. This calls for Skill mapping through proper HRM initiative.
Change is inevitable as said and that’s what Indian organizations are witnessing in management
cultures, systems and working style. Alignment with global companies has forced Indian
organization accept and incorporate change in every day life which makes role of HRM all more
important.
New trends of HR
(A) International Human Resource Management (IHRM)
1. Ethnocentric approach
2. Polycentric approach
3. Geocentric approach.
(B) Human Resource Outsourcing: It consists of three types:
1. Application Service Provider
2. Business Process Outsourcing
3. Total HR Outsourcing
(C)Human Resource Information System (HRIS) has three types
1. Strategic HRIS
2. Transformational HRIS
3. Tactical HRIS
(D) Use of SIX SIGMA in HR
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3. THE ROLE OF HR IN ORGANIZATIONS
• Boosting Productivity
• Preparing the Organization for Change
• Building Employee Commitment and Morale
• Involvement in Determining and Implementing the Strategic Direction of the
Organization
HR IN THE 21ST CENTURY
• Becoming the employer of choice
• Winning the war for talent
• Contributing to the organization as a strategic business partner
• Cultivating leadership through e-learning and development
• Recognizing the workforce as a profit center
• Thinking globally while complying locally
• Incorporating flexibility and adaptability into the organization
• Embracing technology as the underlying facilitator
• The policies of many companies have become people centric
• Attracting and retaining of human resource has become difficult as loyalty
factor is losing its shine,
• Human Resource Outsourcing is the new name in the industry to replace the
redundant traditional HR department.
• With the increase of global job mobility, recruiting competent people is also
Increasingly becoming difficult, especially in India.
COMPETENCIES FOR 21ST CENTURY HR PROFESSIONALS
• Developing Effective Reward and Recognition Systems
• Creating and Becoming Transformational Leaders
• Engaging the Workforce in Continuous Change and Innovation
• Collaborating in Resolving of Strategic Problems
• Partnering with Community Groups and Business Organizations
• Encouraging Real Employee Involvement
• Coaching and Counseling Individuals and High Performance Teams
• Empowering and Facilitating Learning, Change, and Decision-making
• Creating the "Learning" Organization
• Designing Organizations, Processes, and Performance Systems
• Keeping Up-to-Date on Technological Advances in HR Applications
• Maintaining a Global Business Perspective
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4. HR Managers today are focusing attention on the following
a) Policies- HR policies based on trust, openness, equity and consensus.
b) Motivation- Create conditions in which people are willing to work with zeal, initiative
and enthusiasm; make people feel like winners.
c) Relations- Fair treatment of people and prompt redress of grievances would pave
the way for healthy work-place relations.
d) Change agent- Prepare workers to accept technological changes by clarifying
doubts.
e) Quality Consciousness- Commitment to quality in all aspects of personnel
administration will ensure success.
HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN A CENTURY OF GLOBALIZATION
(IHRM)
APPROACHES TO MANAGING AND STAFFING
SUBSIDIARIES
1.
2. Ethnocentric. The home country practice prevails with this approach. Headquarters from the
home country makes key decisions, employees from the home country hold important jobs,
and the subsidiaries follow the home country resource management practice.
3. Polycentric. Each subsidiary manages on a local basis. A local employee heads a subsidiary
because headquarters’ managers are not considered to have adequate local knowledge.
Subsidiaries usually develop human resource management practices locally.
4. Geocentric or global. The company that applies the global integrated business strategy
manages and staffs employees on a global basis. For example, Electrolux (the vacuum
cleaner company) has for many years attempted to recruit and develop a group of
international managers from diverse countries. These people constitute a mobile base of
managers who are used in a variety of facilities as the need arises.
In the ethnocentric approach, the cultural values and business practices of the home country are
predominant. Headquarters develops a managing and staffing approach and consistently applies
it throughout the world. Companies following the ethnocentric approach assume the home
country approach is best and that employees from other parts of the world can and should follow
it.
MAJOR FUNCTIONS OF INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
 RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION
Recruitment and selection are the processes through which an organization takes in new
members. Recruitment involves attracting a pool of qualified applicants for the positions
available. Selection requires choosing from this pool the candidate whose qualifications most
closely match the job requirements.
In companies that function in a global environment we have to distinguish different types of
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5. employees. Traditionally, they are classified as one of the three types:
1. Parent country national. The employee’s nationality is the same as the
organizations.
2. Host country national. The employee’s nationality is the same as the location of the
subsidiary.
3. Third country national. The employee’s nationality is neither that of the organization
nor that of the location of the subsidiary.
 DEVELOPMENT AND TRAINING
The overall aim of the development function is to provide that adequately trained
personnel in a company are capable to fulfill their goals, as well as to contribute
to better performance and growth with their work Creation and transfer of international human
resource development programs may be carried out in two ways:
1.Centralized
2.Decentralized
With a centralized approach, training originates at the headquarters and corporate trainers travel
to subsidiaries, often adapting to local situations. This fits the ethnocentric model. A geocentric
approach is also centralized, but the training develops through input from both headquarters and
subsidiaries staff. Trainers could be sent from various positions.
In a decentralized approach, training is on a local basis, following a polycentric model. When
training is decentralized, the cultural backgrounds of the trainers and trainees are usually similar.
Local people develop training materials and techniques for use in their own area.
 PERFORMANCE EVALUATION
In companies, the performance evaluation is most frequently carried out for administration or
development intentions
 REMUNERATION AND BENEFITS
Remuneration of employees has a key role in acquiring new employees and is important for
employees as well as for the employers. Pay is the basic resource of living of the employees,
while benefits cover better health care, the possibility of spending holidays in the company’s
holiday facilities at a favorable price and also other advantages
MANAGEMENT OF EXPATRIATES
One of the most challenging tasks for any company operating internationally is to manage its
expatriates. The statistics showing their efficiency on that matter are not encouraging. For
example, the failure of U.S. expatriates (the percentage who return prematurely, without
completing their assignment) is to be in the 20 – 40% range. In Japan, the failure rate is less than
5% for their expatriates. One of the reasons for the difference is that Japanese expatriates receive
far more orientation and language instruction than U.S. expatriates do.
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6. 1. The reasons for expatriate failure
In international companies, it is important to understand the reasons behind expatriates’ high
failure rates so that preventive measures can be taken. Six factors account for most failures,
although their relative importance varies by firm.These are: career blockage, culture shock, lack
of cross-cultural training, an overemphasis on technical qualifications, a tendency to use
international assignments as a way to get rid of problem employees, and family problems.
2. Cross-cultural adjustment
Expatriates and their families need time to become familiar with their new environment and to
become comfortable living there
3. Expatriate reentry
After the expatriate completes his assignment and returns home, he must adjust in the same way
as when going abroad.. The disorientation experienced by a returning expatriate is known as
reverse culture shock.
4. Selection of expatriates
To choose the best employee for the job, management should:
 Emphasize cultural sensivity as a selection criterion
 Establish a selection board of expatriates
 Required previous international experience
 Explore the possibility of hiring foreign-born employees who can serve as
“expatriates” at a future date
 Screen candidates’ spouses and families
5. Expatriate training
expatriates are more successful when their organizations train them to prepare for their life and
work abroad. Lack of training is a major cause of expatriate failure.
6.Expatriate evaluation and remuneration
The performance evaluation of expatriate managers is particularly difficult. The job a person
does abroad can include much more than what he does at home. A manager often steps into the
role of counselor, trainer, troubleshooter, or diplomat, in addition to his assigned job
responsibilities. With the need for adapting to a new culture, a different way of doing business,
and often a new language, many factors influence expatriate performance.
An organization’s general policy influences expatriate remuneration. Three common approaches
are: a home-based policy, a host-based policy and a region-based policy.With a home-based
policy, emloyees’ remuneration follows the scale of their home countries. The host-based policy
sets salaries at the level of the host country, with benefits usually tied to the home country.
Finally, region determines the third approach. Remuneration for employees working outside their
home countries reflects whether their relocation is within their home region or in another region.
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7. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT OUTSOURCING
The use of outside bussiness to perform necessary business activities and process in lieu of
internal capabilities. Outsourcing basic human resource services can be the key to achieving a
more influential and strategic role for the HR function.
Advantages of outsourcing
Reducing costs: Key determinator in many outsourcing decisions, but should not to be
considered in isolation from other costs/ benefits;
Increasing effectiveness of HR delivery: Experienced outsourcing providers can often deal
with HR processes more effectively. For example, recruitment may be undertaken more quickly,
reducing employee turnover costs and speeding up the pace of growth;
Providing greater expertise: External providers may offer greater levels of specialist
knowledge or experience than affordably available in-house;
Moving HR up the value chain: Outsourcing human resource administration can lead to a shift
in HR focus towards policy and decision making;
To aid organizational growth: Fast-growing organizations can lack the HR capacity to deliver
business objectives, making HR outsourcing an attractive solution.
HUMAN RESOURCE INFORMATION SYSTEMS
With the changing world and constant new technology that is available, managers need to be
aware of the technology that will increase effectiveness in their company. Human resource
information systems (HRIS) have increasingly transformed since it was first introduced at
General Electric in the 1950s. HRIS has gone from a basic process to convert manual
information keeping systems into computerized systems, to the HRIS systems that are used
today. Human resource professionals began to see the possibility of new applications for the
computer. The idea was to integrate many of the different human resource functions. The result
was the third generation of the computerized HRIS, a feature-rich, broad-based, self-contained
HRIS. The third generation took systems far beyond being mere data repositories and created
tools with which human resource professionals could do much more.
Applications of HRIS
The efficiency of HRIS, the systems are able to produce more effective and faster outcomes than
can be done on paper. Some of the many applications of HRIS are Clerical applications,
applicant search expenditures, risk management, training management, training experiences,
financial planning, turnover analysis, succession planning, flexible-benefits administration,
compliance with government regulations, attendance reporting and analysis, human resource
planning, accident reporting and prevention and strategic planning. With the many different
applications of HRIS, it is difficult to understand how the programs benefit companies without
looking at companies that have already benefited from such programs.
Human Resources Information Systems (HRIS) is an integration of HRM and Information
Systems (IS). HRIS or Human resource Information system helps HR managers perform HR
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8. functions in a more effective and systematic way using technology. It is the system used to
acquire, store, manipulate, analyze, retrieve, and distribute pertinent information regarding an
organization's human resources. The HRIS system is usually a part of the organization's larger
management information system (MIS)
HRIS can be applied in the following areas of HRM
• HR planning
• Succession planning
• Work force planning
• Work force dynamics analysis
• Staffing
• Applicant recruitment and tracking
• Employee data base development
• Performance management
• Learning and development
• Compensation and benefits
• Pay roll
• Job evaluation
• Salary survey
• International compensation
• Benefits management
• Develop innovative Org. Structure
• Develop IT
Barriers to the success of an HRIS:
• Lack of management commitment
• Satisfaction with the status quo
• No or poorly done needs analysis
• Failure to include key people
• Failure to keep project team intact
• Politics / hidden agendas
• Failure to involve / consult significant groups
• Lack of communication
• Bad timing (time of year and duration
SIX SIGMA IN HRM
Six Sigma is a logical and methodical approach to achieving continuous improvements in areas
critical to the success of any manufacturing or service-oriented business.
This process improvement methodology was developed in the 1980s in Motorola's high-volume
manufacturing environment. This has contributed to the creation of the general opinion that Six
Sigma is only applicable to high-volume, manufacturing processes. Actually, Six Sigma is
applicable to both manufacturing and service industries, and to both high- and low-volume
production environments.
The Six Sigma HR team was established, involving HR process owners, facilitator (Six Sigma
Black Belt) and mentor (HR Director). Internal customers were identified as critical stakeholders
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9. and their participation was secured through their direct/indirect representation or through
feedback communication.
The analysis started with the development of HR process maps, which effectively revealed
shortcomings in the processes with immediate remedies and benefits. Communication,
resourcing, rewarding and development were selected as the first process.
Use of SIX SIGMA
Improve
Development and implementation of improvement solutions followed identification of vital input
parameters that affect selected process measures of performance (MOPs). Monitoring of
improvement actions is realized through implemented HR database. Vital process inputs and
process results were monitored and correlation verified. The focus has gradually shifted from
monitoring MOPs to measuring and controlling inputs that control MOPs and reporting MPOs
Trends. .
Control
The key control objective is to sustain and get a continuous improvement process embedded into
HR processes. A quarterly HR review report is developed and issued and presented by HR. It
contained process analysis results (control charts, histograms, trends and other monitoring
charts), conclusions, observations and improvement actions to be completed by the next review
and a Six Sigma score chart.
FINDINGS OF PAPER
The Emerging trends could play a crucial role in
• Selection of employees requires careful evaluation of the personal characteristics of the
candidate and his/her spouse.
• Training and development extends beyond information and orientation training to include
sensitivity training and field experiences that will enable the manager to understand
cultural differences better. Managers need to be protected from career development risks,
re-entry problems and culture shock.
• To balance the pros and cons of home country and host country evaluations, performance
evaluations should combine the two sources of appraisal information.
• Compensation systems should support the overall strategic intent of the organization but
should be customized for local conditions.
• Six- sigma uses rigorous analytical tools with leadership from the top and develops a
method for sustainable improvement.
• Human resource outsourcing is a new accession that makes a traditional HR department
redundant in an organization.
• Organizations are also required to work out a retention strategy for the existing skilled
manpower by enabling culture organization
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10. RECCOMENDATION
• IHRM could be used to improve workforce skills and abilities in order to exploit
environmental opportunities and neutralize threats.
• Indulge in continuous quality improvement through TQM and HR contributions like
training, development, counseling, etc with the use of SIX-SIGMA .
• Outsourcing results into cost effective Human Resource activities and utilization of
people with distinctive capabilities to create unsurpassed competence in an area.
• HRIS is used to decentralize operations and rely on self-managed teams to deliver goods
in difficult times e.g. Motorola is famous for short product development cycles. It has
quickly commercialized ideas from its research labs.
• Lay off and retrenchment of workers in a smooth way explaining facts to unions, workers
and other affected groups.
• The most important skills for 21st century HR managers are conceptual and
interpersonal, rather than technical.
CONCLUSION
Human resource management (HRM) will be a key area of focus in 21ST century as companies
and government organizations put in place strategies to cope with the economic crisis and
recovery. The so called "war for talent" is on the backburner as the focus shifts to hiring freezes,
benefits and compensation cost management, and workforce reductions in the hardest-hit
segments. HRM technology solutions can help savvy human resources (HR) professionals
strategically manage through the crisis and prepare as the climate shifts to the upside. Trends that
we will follow in 21st include managing and developing talent, embracing HRM analytics, Web
2.0 adoption, and HR technology strategy.
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