Making RI's human resources ready for globalization
Making RI's human resources ready for globalization
By Budi Hanoto
JAKARTA (JP): The Jakarta Post on Sept. 14, 1998 carried an
article entitled "Competition causes angst among employees".
The article explained how companies the world over are
responding to the challenge of globalization by finding smarter
ways to exploit employees.
According to the article, there is a correlation between job
stress or employee stress and tight global competitiveness in the
workplace.
In practice, companies tend to exploit their employees to
fulfill organizational goals in response to the rapid changes of
the globalization era.
It is recognized that this phenomena -- pushing employees to
achieve organizational objectives to increase global
competitiveness -- finally makes many employees unhappy, less
productive and sick.
The article quoted Rob Moodie, the chief executive of
VicHealth, who is responsible for the wellbeing of workers in the
state of Victoria, Australia. He said that according to a survey
in Australia, nine out of 10 workers were stressed, and 85
percent admitted that stress was a problem in the workplace. The
results of the survey were very surprising.
Why is this happening amidst the wave of globalization and
enduring change? Why are many employees stressed, less productive
and unmotivated? Why do they have more conflict in their lives,
and low rates of performance?
All of these questions are strongly connected to how companies
implement strategic human resources management and to what extent
the role of human resources in companies responds to the changing
environment in the workplace.
It is understood that it is not easy to implement the entire
Strategic Human Resources Model, which has a number of key
dimensions.
This model requires human resources management (HRM) to be
integrated with "corporate strategic issues". This integration
has implications for the "involvement" of different parties in
shaping the framework in which HRM policies are developed
(Kramar, 1994).
Generic human resources itself traditionally encompasses
activities such as organizational design and development
structures, recruitment and selection, compensation and benefits,
training and development, assessment and promotion, occupational
health and safety, and communication.
However, much has changed in the last two decades of
globalization. The larger companies in many segment industries
have already established a presence in the global market. They
have implemented their strategies to gain a market share by
building networks, creating information technology, investing in
research and launching an aggressive marketing strategy in order
to increase their sales volume and win business in a competitive
market.
This indicates that in terms of products and companies
(including employees) involved, the rivalry in the global
segmentation of such industries is intense, as the number of
competitors is relatively equal in size and capability. With
competitors in such segments of industry (for example, banking,
automotive, insurance, etc), companies tend to strengthen rivalry
within the industry.
The intensity of competition within an industry may then
create unexpected employee behavior, such as stress and
unhappiness which may result in poor performance. Companies are
inevitably faced with a lack of productive, loyal, committed, and
dedicated employees. This situation occurs due to the following
issues:
* Differences in the interests of companies and employees.
There is a contradiction in the interests of company's and
employees. A company usually has long-term goals such as profit
and growth, cost reduction and improving market share, meanwhile
individual employees tend to have short-term goals to meet their
needs such as wages, working conditions, fair treatment and
facility, and promotion. This problem requires solutions such as
offering non-monetary rewards to employees and creating clear job
descriptions and career paths. The imbalance in these interests
leads to stress and a decrease in the performance of the
employee.
* Expectation, contradiction, and problematic corporate roles of
personnel
There are many other reasons that companies may not have
productive, loyal, committed, and dedicated employees. The
following four reasons are considered triggering factors to this
phenomena. The managers' expectations may be too high, the
staff's concept of professionalism may contradict the manager's
own vision, problematic corporate roles of personnel may exist,
and managers may hold assumptions which undermine efforts to
motivate employees.
* Equal Employment Opportunity
This is also concerned with staff appreciation. Implementing
competency, rotations, and a balance of tasks, therefore, become
important issues to ensure equal employment opportunity. This
point reflects that in building the needs of employees, in
conjunction with working conditions and opportunities for them,
companies have to divide tasks according to the needs, different
skills and attitudes of the employees. This placement division,
of course, is based on the strategy of organization. Therefore,
in some divisions, employees become cost effective and other
divisions have adaptive employees. More importantly, the concept
of competency must be properly executed.
Stress, lack of productivity, and poor performance can be
triggered by the low priority given to individual psychology,
leadership, power and social interaction, collaboration, and
interpersonal relationships between employees and managers.
Individual (employee) behavior might be formed by the employee's
attitude to their job and attitude to the company. If this
attitude can be improved, it should result in employee retention
and increase productivity. The question is then, how to develop
positive employee behavior by changing the attitude of employees?
Lack of appropriate rewards also lead to stress and a lack of
dedicated and loyal employees. Rewards can be divided into two
categories, extrinsic and intrinsic rewards. If the employees
believe that their efforts are not rewarded, they, in turn,
demonstrate undesirable behavior and a lack of motivation.
Conversely, when the rewards system is well executed, employees
tend to show an increase in morale and productivity.
Human resources in businesses of the future will need to
demonstrate not only the ability to deal with the "domestic"
market but also the global market, amidst these and other forces.
Companies will have multiple stakeholders both in the internal
and external environment such as employees, competitors,
suppliers, foreign governments, customers, investors, financial
institutions etc. To exist and compete in the future, new roles
need to be adopted by human resources for dealing with the global
economy and competitive forces and creating a sound workplace.
Borrowing the terms from Dave Ulrich in his article New
Mandate for Human Resources (Harvard Business Review, January -
February 1998) new human resources (HR) should not be defined by
what they do but by what they deliver -- results that enrich the
organization's value to customers, investors, and employees. It
means that human resources should be involved in strategy
execution. By doing this, employee morale (also management
morale) will increase due to appreciation of the work involved.
Further, new HR should be held accountable for ensuring that
employees are engaged and committed to the organization and
contribute fully. HR must take responsibility for orienting and
training line management about the importance of high employee
morale and how to achieve it.
In addition, the new HR should be the employees' voice in
management discussions, offer employees opportunities for
personal and professional growth, and provide resources that help
employees meet the demands put on them.
In this case, HR's involvement in the decision making process
clearly represents employees' views and supports their rights.
This role will minimize problems of individual psychology such as
stress, lack of confidence, lack of motivation etc., creating a
better environment in the workplace.
To achieve employee satisfaction and company goals, competency
should be properly executed, particularly by managers. There are
at least three competencies that lead to managerial success in
this case i.e.: (1) Personal impact: The ability to create a good
impression and instill confidence in the eyes of others, (2)
Resistance to stress: the ability to maintain work performance
even under stressful conditions, and (3) Tolerance for
uncertainty: The ability to maintain work performance in
unstructured and uncertain situations. These competencies are at
the very least expected to maintain a conducive atmosphere in the
workplace.
The work environment should be as conducive as possible
enabling employees and managers to develop creativity and
innovation in order to meet organizational goals.
A compelling place to work program should be implemented to
air employee attitudes about the job and about the company. On
one hand, employees should: feel a sense of accomplishment, feel
proud working at the company, understand the company's business
strategy and feel good about the future of the company and
others.
On the other hand, the company should create the physical
working conditions that influence overall attitudes to the job
and enable it to compete effectively (fair treatment, etc). This
program is intended to create desired employee behavior.
By implementing the new roles of HR, at least, the problems
encountered by the individual can be minimized, and the company's
ability to compete in global business can increase.
The writer is a researcher in the Foreign Exchange Reserve
Management Division of Bank Indonesia, Jakarta.