Failure Of Human Resource Concept

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

E:\UTM.jpg

"MANAGING HUMAN ERROR IN ORGANISATION"

Name: ANIS MAISARAH BINTI AHMAD FUZIR

Matrix number: A12 BE0050

Lecturer: PM WAHID KAMARULZAMAN

Course: SBEC 1612(Principles of management)

Class: 1SBEC

1.0 Introduction

We have been acknowledged that human resource responsible for the attraction, selection, training, assessment, and rewarding of employees, overseeing organization’s leadership and culture so that it complied to employment and labour laws

2.0 Failure of Human Resource Concept in an

Organisation

"Why do HR concepts fail in practice?". S.R. Kandula(2006, pp.271) states that "practitioner very often said that theory is different from practice implying that concepts have little practice value". Therefore, we can say that theory and practice is perceived as a different thing because of the less practical value that lies in a theory. Hence, this matter has brought a deep concern for academicians, consultants and practioners as to why some HR models are success concepts yet are failure in practice. Some of the examples of very logical and rational theories but finally turn out to be very poor in terms of its practices are OD interventions, change management strategies, assessment center, suggestion schemes, team building efforts, business process re-engineering, organizational commitment programs, leadership development models, knowledge management, organizational learning, interpersonal communication, empowerment, and process development initiatives etc.( S.R. Kandula 2006). There is no doubt about the awesomeness of those well-developed theories and models yet, the reality cannot be hidden.

S.R. Kandula(2006,pp.271) states again, "The failure have contributed to generation of more HR concepts and even some theories have been repackaged and circulated in organizations. The scope and depth of few concept have been widened with robust research of scholars. However, the failure rate in practice remained more or less same. Management and HR have moved from one concept to another with the hope of bringing great change in their organizations". Further research by (S.R.Kandula,2006), the deficiencies in the first assumptions is the reason of grand failures and the term failure has two meanings, the first one refers to inability of the concept to bring significant impact to organisation’s increment. The second one is the limitation in applying the concepts themselves. However, there could be too many reasons of this failure too.

Therefore, let us look on several factors which have been the culprits of the issue on "why do these awesome HR concepts fail in practice?." Most people view HR concept and HR managers in organizations as a manipulator rather than a unit as a function with genuine concern for people. In order to tell the people to stop the perception as well as to market the new HR concepts, their author and promoters have developed strategy which is to combine HR concept with customer service, just-in-time delivery, quick reaction to market changes, benchmarking etc. (S.R.Kandula,2006).

The function of HR is to help the organization to achieve their business objectives easily, besides, responsible for caring people’s interest. If the HR department of a certain organization displays excessive HR concepts only for business merit and act as a tool kit of entrepreneurs, there is no doubt that damages would come and harm the organisation. Hence, the employees would see this as a concept of managerial control and production control rather than as a concept of well-being. As a result, these employees would never or rarely view the manager as implementing the new HR concepts in organizations. S.R.Kandula (2006, pp.273) states that, "In the history of organizations, there has rarely been an HR concept that succeeded with employee commitment."

Next issue is when the HR development model only ideal as concept but not in practice due the unallowable conditions (S.R.Kandula, 2006). While in theory, new concepts ought to work in practice, you will find them disorienting (S.R.Kandula, 2006). When it comes to implementation, the new concepts will challenge us to the hilt." In general, deciding whether to continue the implementation of certain concept or theory is depending on the positive indications, the endurance of the organization, general health of employees as well as the implementation effect of these on the condition of other function. This view has been supported in the work of S.R.Kandula (2006). Hence, all of those conditions above make practice harder than it seems to be. Organisation which fail to sustain one of them might face problem with the practising part even they own awesome theories and concepts.

S.R.Kandula (2006, pp.273) states that " all organizations search for HR concepts which are ideal in themselves regardless of their suitability". Many managers belief that the implementation of ideal concept would enable a positive progress and goodwill (assumed value of the attractive force that generates sale revenue in a business, and adds value to its assets) among employees. This is because, those organization might be operated in highly stable and might also have manipulated the market, therefore they have confirming to the norms, has standardization and routinization etc. It can be concluded that the goodwill adoption is independent of organizational history, culture, external and internal environment and business model which somehow, in the future, they will suffer of confusion, chaos and loss of control. Finally, selected ideal concept would not bring any benefit to the organization yet failure in implementing HR concept. This view has been supported in the work of S.R.Kandula(2006).

The fourth issue to be discussed is the poisonously positive HR concept; practicing positive attitude or behavior in an organization for a better result is viewed as an additional reward or commendation( the employee should be praised). Generally, most new HR concepts advocate and are based upon positivism (S.R.Kandula,2006). According to the this theories, the only virtues such as reward, empathy, collaboration, continuous learning, inconsistent behavior, spontaneity etc. shall be practiced in organization for better results(S.R.Kandula,2006). This overemphasis of positivity will at last bring the organization away from reality. This is because, when an employee is bribed with only rewards, he or she will become complacent and unaware of the pressure for performance. Recent research (S.R.Kandula,2006) shows that "The defect rate in software development is an example of the consequences of poisonously positive HR concept." This situation explains how spontaneity creates more coordination problems and quality defects than constructive results. People will be more uncertain under the concept of continuous learning mechanisms.

Another reason of why do HR concept fail in practice is the high expectations or irrational goals set by the Board of Directors. Setting high goals is definetly helpful in order to drag the organization or company as the market leader. The goals should however be logical and achievable. According to S.R.Kandula,2006).), with a great business and marketing motto, some of HR concepts have promised more than what can be delivered, issueing statements like human capital is the only resource that cannot be cloned (a real competitive advantage). This statement has raisen the expectation of employees and employers to view the HR as the solution to all problems. Whenever the organization fails to reach out the goals, people perceive HR as a failure. S.R.Kandula(2006) states that "most HR professionals also adopt a callous attitude in ensuring and highlighting the limitation, cautions and raiders in fulfillment of these concepts with the fear of losing support or budget for their activities." Therefore, when the expectations or goals are reality insensitive, there would not be any accomplishment in certain organization.

Finally, let us look through the error when the HR only recognise top performers. Most managers thought that by hiring all top performers in an organization, the company would perform best. They never realize that at the end of a year only one person would hold the number one spot. Brown.S(1985) states that, "You cannot hire all top performers and you cannot build any department within a company with only top producers. No matter how great your financial resources, recruiting abilities, or connections, your efforts will fail. Why? Because that many top performers just don’t exist, even if they did, only one person can get the top spot, while others get the little also ran." Despite of this situation, many managers are too busy making themselves as the first person to achieve this impossible task. The task is said to be impossible as well as wasting time because dragging top performance into the organization would discourage the middle performers who act as the backbone of any successful organization. Research by Brown.S(1985) shows that all profitable company build their business on good, reliable middle producers and with a few superstars. Hence, it can be concluded that mistake of hiring all top performers which at first thought to be an intelligent way is certainly a disaster.

3.0 A Case Study: How HR Caused Toyota to Crash

We have been surprised by the news on mechanical failures in Toyota automobiles that led the auto maker famous for quality to recall nearly nine million cars worldwide. Poor handling of the issue in the public eye has damaged the automaker’s brand reputation and caused sales to decline to their lowest point in more than a decade. Sullivan. J(2010) states that "Toyota’s current predicament is a result of poorly designed practices and weak execution on the part of the human resource department!"

Taking the Titanic story as an example, Titanic sank due to the terrible collision between the hull and the iceberg. This happened because of the poor decision making, which was to travel too fast in that particular situation. While the hull design flaw contributed to the catastrophe, human error was the root of the cause. In any situation where failure happens, investigator must determine if the factor of failure could have been beyond the employee’s control. If that so, senior management should take actions by job training, enrichment programme, etc. Human errors that lead to corporate catastrophes could be the result of faulty HR processes, most notably those related to acquiring, developing, motivating, and managing labor. This theory is supported by the studies conducted by Sullivan. J(2010).