Essay About Value Of Employees And Challenge Of Hr

The Role of Human Resources
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The Role Of Human Resources
in Companies Considering Downsizing
Laura Shamburger
BUSA226
The role of Human Resources (HR) has been evolving for some time. Shifting from
“personnel” to “human resources”, for example, was part of the movement to
acknowledge the value of employees as an institutional asset. The shift in label was
accompanied by the challenge of HR to become a strategic partner with the leaders of
business contributing to significant business decisions, advising on critical transitions and
developing the value of employees. In other words, HR now has an important seat at the
table. This has never been more evident than now, in a climate of mergers and
acquisitions, corporate bankruptcies, outsourcing and downsizing.
David Ulrich, in his book, HumanResource Champions: The Next agenda for Adding
Value and Delivering Results (1997), provides a clear approach in terms of outcomes
for which HR should be responsible including strategy execution, administrative
efficiency, employee contribution, and capacity for change. He also describes four
corresponding roles for HR to play within a business: as a strategic partner working to
align HR and business strategies, as an administrative expert working to improve
organizational processes and delivering basic HR services (hiring, terminating,
benefits management), as an employee champion (listening and responding to
employee needs) and as a change agent managing change processes to increase the
effectiveness of the organization. We can now add to these the role HR has been
undertaking to mitigate the effects of downsizing and finding ways for corporations to
avoid this action, while still being able to improve the economic conditions of that
company. May. www.siop.org
This paper will deal with companies whose HR departments have become true
partners in crafting business policy to this end. It will also explain some of the programs
HR has developed to meet the needs of those employees still employed in a company
whose only choice was to downsize.
Once a phenomenon associated mainly with an individual company in distress or large
economic downturns, downsizing is becoming a fixture in the global business
landscape. Job shedding is driven by a number of factors such as rapidly evolving
technologies and business cycles, and pressure to improve stock performance as well
as an increasing number of mergers and acquisitions. However, studies have shown
most companies fail to realize the anticipated gains from downsizing and incur
substantial costs of choosing this path to improve the “bottom line”. Employers are
just now beginning to realize that reductions in the workforce are not always a sound
strategy for the long term.
Companies are recognizing the benefits of utilizing their Human Resource
departments to structure and implement “responsible restructuring” programs to
include business practices that will avoid the need for layoffs and embrace training
programs that will redeploy “redundant employees” to different jobs within the
company, as well as develop other innovations. They recognize that when
downsizing is the only option, Human Resources is critical to reducing potential
problems by developing fair severance packages, transition services for those being
downsized and above all making sure communications between management and
labor is open, honest and timely. In order for the company to recover from an event
such as reduction in the labor force, Human Resources must take great care to give
adequate attention to those employees who are still with company. Nadkarni,
IndianNGOs.com
The recognition of “survivor syndrome” is a critical function of Human Resources
and they are key to developing