A Reflection on HR Effectiveness
Growth and the Need for Job Analysis
When large companies get larger, it sometimes raises unexpected issues. When that growth takes place by acquisition and merger, the consequences can be historic, or historically funny. Lets say you work for Company X, a Fortune 500 company with sales of $450 million a year and 20,000 employees. In the space of less than a year, through a series of interesting events, your company acquires Company Y ($110 million in sales, 8,000 employees), Company Z ($150 million in sales, 4,000 employees) and Company B ($450 million in sales, 17,000 employees). So now you have a company with $1.16 billion in sales and 49,000 employees. It operates world-wide, in all kinds of product and service markets. All HR functions are run separately, but that is going to change. A new Corporate Vice President of Human Resources has been hired (formerly a consultant to Company B). He has convinced the Board of Directors that the Company should start to create standard corporate approaches to the various HR functions. Like most Boards, the Board here is concerned with spending money, so they decide to move the whole company to one salary structure. Currently, there are 17 distinct compensation systems among the four divisions, supported by what seems to be a million different job analysis programs. Think about how you are going to get that down to one job analysis process to set up one salary structure encompassing all 49,000 employees located everywhere from Miami to Timbuktu.
Most organizations need a professional HR department that seeks the best for both the employees and management. This is a particularly thorny issue for organizations — in part, because most organizations follow a hierarchical structure. Acting as an “intermediary” requires that the HR department have the ability to act outside the scope of where it may fit in the hierarchy. Based on what we have covered so far in this course and information you have from experience and other coursework, I would like to explore this topic in more depth. What does an organization need to do to ensure an effective HR department? What can the HR department do to ensure its effectiveness? And what role do employees play in helping to achieve this goal? Be sure to support your responses with appropriate material from the text as well as outside readings and through web site research.
Second Post
When is Preference Okay?
One of the more interesting aspects of the legal environment as regards to hiring employees is the circumstance where Equal Employment Opportunity and Affirmative Action do not apply – the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification. Here is the definition: Employment practices that would constitute discrimination as to certain individuals of a particular religion, gender, national origin, or age range (but not race or color) when the otherwise illegal discrimination is a bona fide qualification that is reasonably necessary for the normal performance of the duties of that particular occupation. For example, a designer of womens clothes by necessity is permitted to hire only female models to show off new designs. Such practices are not illegal under federal law. In addition, religious organizations and schools are allowed to hire only members of that religion even if religion is not a bona fide occupational qualification for that position (such as the requirement that all teachers in a parochial school be Catholic, even though they teach subjects that do not require Catholic background).
For this activity, I would like you to share your viewpoint on the fairness of the Bona Fide Occupational Qualification. Take a stance and discuss either why you think it is fair or why you do not think it is fair. Give examples in your response and draw on your readings, textbook, and websites to justify your stance. You will then read through the posts of your peers and choose two to respond. Discuss whether you agree with their position or whether you disagree. Continue your dialogue until you either agree with one another or agree to disagree with one another.
