EMERGING TRENDS IN HRM
A noticeable evolution has been seen in the concept of HRM during the last 10 decades. It has also observed a considerable amount of change in its functionality and form in the last 20 years.
There are several external and internal environmental factors responsible for this transformation. HRM was largely considered a maintenance function with negligible bottom line impact.
But now, most of the global organisations rely on HRM in achieving a sustained competitive advantage.
The HRM environment is experiencing a lot of changes lately which are fairly complex in nature. Major challenges are being posed by such changes. These may be regarded as the recent trends or the emerging issues in the field of HRM. Some of them are as follows:
1) Outsourcing:
The term outsourcing is made up of three words, outside, sourcing and using. Outsourcing is concerned with how resources are procured from external suppliers which are generated inside the sourcing organisation.
The human resource process is assigned to an external human resource provider who is a specialist in providing this service. This service provider is responsible for the management and administration of the outsourced services assigned to him by the client.
More and more companies are now using outsourcing for various human resource activities. Some of the HR services that are being outsourced by companies are employee hiring, statutory record maintenance, and training and development.
2) Work-Life Balance:
Maintaining a balance between work and life has been made possible with the growth in technology.
Employees are now able to strike a balance between their work life and personal life as per their preferences with the help of online learning programs, virtual conferences, webinars and the ability to work from distant places.
However, in order to not make the employees feel loaded with work, the HR managers should need to assign work roles according to the capabilities of the employees so that they give their best performance at work.
3) Quality Cycle:
HR managers have been adopting the concept of quality circle lately. A group of workers voluntarily coming together with the objective of identifying, investigating and resolving the problems related with work is known as quality circle.
The workers then put forth their solutions and recommendations in front of the management with the intention of motivating the employees, enriching their work performance and overall enhancing the organisational performance.
4) TQM:
Nowadays, the concept of Total Quality Management (TQM) is being adopted by organisations worldwide.
TQM involves workers in continuously improving the quality through technology and product innovation. This is done so that the ever changing needs of the customers are met. For example, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) launched the standards series by the name of ISO 9000.
This attempt was made to facilitate the adoption of the TQM concept by the industrial organisations so that their productivity and quality could be enhanced which would in turn help in serving their customers in an efficient way.
Therefore, continuously improving the performance of employees in order to meet the customers' requirements consistently is called TQM.
5) Six Sigma: