As the developing of economy in the world, human resources can be paid further more attention to the tourism industry that before. Good human resources management can help the organisation to be successful. Line managers are the important aspect of HR department that can accomplish the organisation’s objective. There are three major level of management structure in the organisation, respectively top level (i. e. president and CEO), middle level (i. e. marketing vice president, finance vice president, and human resources vice president), and bottom level (i. e. different line managers of training & development).
There is a possible evolving HR organisation example, which will be indicated the following article. Business policy and code of ethics are very important to the organisations that can help the firms to be more competitive. Human resources department is responsible for formulation of policy, approved by senior management, and the daily implementation of this policy and the monitoring of its effectiveness, and employment and career development of all individual employees in the organisation.
Line managers should monitor and correct the situations of training staffs and normal working of staffs. The Role of Line Managers and (HR) Human Resources Roles Line manager should authorise to direct the work of subordinates and has the responsibility to accomplish the organisation’s objectives (Stone, 2005). As the traditional work of HR managers decreases, line managers are stepping up and performing some duties typically done by human resource professionals (Mondy, 2007). Line manager connects directly with the employees in the general time.
There are a lot of different types of line managers in the organisation. They have different duties to manage their subordinates. They may work together with their subordinates in the same place. They know the employees very well. The success or failure of managers is largely based on the quality of their subordinates. Therefore, line managers are increasely involved in the selection process. Supervisor is one kind of line managers that most organisations will have. Supervisor can take some duties of manager when the manager is not in the company.
Likely, a staff has been sick and asked for leave. The supervisor can let him/her leave and call another staff to instead. But the supervisor cannot decide the company’s goals or sell what kinds of products or services of the company. In addition, supervisor can monitor for the employees’ working situations. When supervisor find there is a staff always late and laze on the work, supervisor can reflect this situation to the manager. The supervisor only can warn this staff, but has no force to fire this staff.
The managers will not work together with the employees in some companies. At that time, the line managers or supervisors become more important to monitor and manage the general employees to keep operating the business. As the developing of economy in the world, human resources management can be paid more and more attention to the organisations. “The field of human resources encompasses the type and level of management requisite for the active and effective recruitment, hiring, day-to-day employment practices, job termination policy, job description policy and much more.
Indeed, the role of human resources in the workplaces has shifted dramatically as these consultants, specialists, teams and entire company departments apply proven methods of management to what would otherwise be sprawling and ineffective employee bases (hrVillage. com, 2007). ” Human resources management focus on managing people within the employer-employee relationship, and seeks to strategically integrate the interest of an organisation and its employees relating to the coordination of an organisation’s human resources (Stone, 2005).
Good employer-employee relationship is real helpful to operate the business, especially in the tourism industry. The core of tourism industry is serving with people. It let HR become very important for the travel and tourism organisations. Human resources management specifically includes the productive use of people in achieving the organisation’s strategic business objectives and the satisfaction of individual employee needs. Organisation’s human resources can be the force for the business’s success or fail.
Thereby, to manage the organisation’s human resources can be the most important thing when the organisation is running the business. More recently, organizations consider setting up their own HR Department as playing a major role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so that people and the organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling manner (McNamara, 2002). It really adds value to the organisations. The existence of a human resources department is vital to overall productivity and efficiency of the strong workforce in any thriving company.
In fact, good human resources can be one of the most valued and respected departments in an organization; their job is people, and people are the company's most important asset. Management Structure Traditionally, if the firm is unionized, it creates labour relations, separates functions such as staffing, training and development, compensations, safety and health, and places under the direction of a human resource manager or executive (Mondy, 2007, p17). Large company may have had a manager and staff for each human resources function. The HR vice president worked closely with top management in formulating corporate policy.
The following figure shows the traditional human resource functions in a large firm (Mondy, 2007). This figure displays the large firms how to design traditionally the organisation’s management structure. The top level of company is the president and CEO, which is the top manager to decide the company’s goals and some decision of operating the business, and manage the whole company. The middle level is middle managers in the firm, separately marketing vice president, operations vice president, finance vice president, and human resources vice president.
They are the managers of the individual departments in the internal firm, such as marketing department, operations department, finance department, and human resources department. These managers can make the decisions in their own departments. The bottom level is line managers who are the supervisors to monitor the general employees. It includes training and development manager, compensation manager, safety and health manager, and labour relations manager. These line managers just monitor and manage the employees in each department.
They have no force to make some decisions that will influence the business operating of the firm, such as firing staffs, choosing the company’s business partners, and making the business objectives and planning. Although the line managers seem no powerful in the company, actually, strategic human resource focus more on the bottom line of the organisation (line managers), and leave the more administrative tasks to technology or others. Each organisation will seriously take care of choosing the line managers, because they are the core function to keep the natural operation of business.
Examples of management
There is another figure displayed blow, which is a possible evolving HR organisation example (Mondy, 2007). The company has outsourced training and development, a function previously performed by the Training & Development Department. The compensation function is now performed at a shared service centre. Safety and health has been removed from HR and, because of its importance in this particular firm, reports directly to the CEO. Staffing activities remain under the strategic vice president for human resources but many activities have been automated and line managers are more involved in the selection process.
Since the firm is non-union, there is no Industrial Relations Manager. In this example, the HR vice president is now more concerned with the strategic human resource matters. Because of the many changes that have occurred in HR in recent years, a typical HR organisation realistically cannot be shown. Some firms have chosen to totally outsource their HR function: others choose different options. The organisation of HR in today’s environment is truly a work in progress. The example still has three levels, respectively top, middle, and bottom, just like a hierarchy.
Likely, the president and CEO (top manager) can command the strategic human resources vice president (middle manager) to make a decision of redundancy because the business of firm is not good and cannot support too many employees. The human resources vice president has a conversation with line managers to realise the employees’ working situations, and then chooses some staffs that have bad working behaviours to fire. Business Policy and Code of Ethics Business/Disciplinary Policy Each organisation has the business policies, which are the rules of company that all employees should observe.
The rights of managers to discipline and discharge employees is increasingly limited. Disciplinary action taken against an employee must be for justifiable reasons, and there must be effective policies and procedures to govern its use (Bohlander & Snell, 2003). A major responsibility of the HR department is to develop, and to have top management approve, its disciplinary policies and procedures. The HR department is also responsible for ensuring that disciplinary policies, as well as the disciplinary action taken against employees, are consistent with the labour agreement and conform to current laws.
As the simple words, HR department has been approved by top manager (president and CEO) and followed labour agreement and current laws when it develops the business/disciplinary policies. However, the primary responsibility for preventing or correcting disciplinary problems rests with an employee’s immediate supervisor. This person should observe evidence of unsatisfactory behaviour or performance and to discuss the matter with the employee, because he/she is the sample of the employees (Bohlander & Snell, 2003).
The line manager or supervisor should strive to use a problem-solving attitude when disciplinary action is needed. Supervisor has the responsibility to monitor and warn the employees with unsatisfactory behaviour against business/disciplinary policies. For example, the business/disciplinary policies include that all the employees should work on time and wear the uniforms. The policy also can be that do not bring any items of office when you leave. All the policies will be displayed on the employment contract that employees should sign on the document to promise observing the policies.
Code of Ethics
To employ the good people is very important for organisation to grow and prosper. Today college job seekers believe that corporate leadership ethics is important in their search for the right firm to work for (Mondy, 2007). As one survey, 82 percent of people said that finding an ethical firm was essential in their job search (Bates, 2002). By establishing a strong ethical culture, organisations may gain well the confidence and loyalty of their employees and other stakeholders that can cause in decreased financial, legal, and reputation risks, as well as improvements in organisational performance.
To set up and support an ethical culture, firms are necessary to have a comprehensive framework, which consists of communication of behaviour expectations, training on ethics and compliance issues, stakeholders input, resolution of reported matters, and analysis of the entire ethics program (Childers & Marks, 2005). It indicates that the code of ethics is very important for the organisations to maintain the business operating. Many industry associations adopt such codes that are them recommended to members.
Some companies retain some consultants to help specialising to embed ethical principles in their corporate cultures. There is a great example of a code of ethics that develop from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). The major code of ethics of SHRM involves respectively professional responsibility, professional development, ethical leadership, fairness and justice, conflicts of interest, and use of information. With regard to conflicts of interest, the code states, “As HR professionals, we must maintain a high level of trust with our stakeholders.
We must protect the interests of our stakeholders as well as our professional integrity and should not engage in activities that create actual, apparent, or potential conflicts of interest (SHRM, 2008). It is essential human resource department to understand these practice that are unacceptable and ensure that organisational members behave ethically in dealing with others. A code of ethics builds the rules by which organisation lives and becomes part of the organisations’ corporate culture (Childers & Marks, 2005).
Especially, the organisations of tourism industry need to build solid trade relationships with many different organisations. The network is so huge and well-known. If the firm is not ethic, no one will like to be a partner with this firm because the other companies cannot trust the unethical firm. Therefore, HR department must take care of establishing the code of ethics of the company, and lead every employee to observe. The Relationship between Line Managers and (HR) Human Resources Relationships and Roles Line managers are the basic aspect of human resources management because they connect directly with the general employees.
Successful organisations pay more attention to their human resources and try the best to manage them. Managing people is every manager’s business, and successful organisations are to combine the experience of line managers with the expertise of HR specialists to develop and utilize the talents of employees to their greatest potential (Sherman, Bohlander & Snell, 1998). HR departments have rarely the exclusive responsibility to acting alone the HR issues.
Instead, HR managers work side by side with line managers to address people-related issues of the organisation. And while this relationship has not always achieved its ideal, the situation is quickly improving. Moreover, focuses on the line manager as a key stakeholder in the human resource development process, and considers the general trend towards development of human resource activities to line specialists (Heraty & Morley, 1995). Examines issues included in devolving training and development to the line, with specific emphasis on the potential difficulties.
Line managers have inherited many of the tactical aspects of HR. With HR departments focused on the knottier or bigger picture issues, and line managers actually managing the line, it's vital these two functions understand each other - and that's easier said than done. Human Resources departments within organizations traditionally conduct exit interviews with those employees who are leaving voluntarily. The aim is to gather information through questions relating to working conditions, salary, benefits, career advancement opportunities, quality/ quantity of workload and relationships with line managers and colleagues.
Therefore, line managers are just like the executants to act the orders from the HR department in the organisations. Staffing and Employment Line managers can promote the development of their employees in two ways. Firstly, within their own work environment they should seek to provide as many opportunities as possible for individual growth by means of job experience and on-job training. Secondly, within the larger environment inside and outside the organisation they need to encourage their subordinates to pursue all available opportunities for self-development (Tyson & York, 1996).
Line managers necessarily bear a major duty for the effective employment and development of an organisation’s human resources, because they have a direct and immediate effect on all employees. Training staffs are very important for the organisations that can help the employees work rather effective and safety. Line managers can monitor directly the training staffs, and correct and advice the staffs at the same time. For example, a travel agency want to hire a staff who can book air tickets online. It needs the professional knowledge of airline booking system, such as Galileo, Sabre, and Mars.
Knowledgeable employed staffs still need to train a period, because different company has different working situation. At that time, supervisor has the responsibility to teach and help the staff to be familiar with the working as possible as he/she can. Therefore, line managers are essential for staffing the employees. Line managers also need to reflect the working situation to the HR department. For instance, supervisor finds that there are no enough staffs working in a period. He/she should reflect this situation to the HR department, such as what kinds of staff they want, and let department decide to hire more staffs, or not.
Thereby, line managers also can be helpful to the HR department for employment. Likely, line managers can create an open and trust type of climate that encourages rather than hinders the effective employ and development of subordinates. They should delegate as much responsibility as possible to allow subordinates to learn form their own mistakes, to mature and to develop self-confidence. In addition, line managers consult regularly with subordinates about objectives and methods of improving the effectiveness of work and its environment.
To approach the formal tasks of staff reporting, they should performance appraisal with utmost proportion, care and conscientiousness (Tyson & York, 1996). Furthermore, they can liaise continually with the personnel and training staffs to inform them of developments affecting jobs, employees, training and educational needs. Finally, they are personally alert to current developments in managerial training and education and constantly developing their own knowledge and skills as managers. All of them above can help line managers to take certain positive steps to promote the achievement of these goals.
