The Human Resource Investment
Employee Engagement Strategies
Employee engagement refers to the ability of the employees to feel deeply connected to the organization, their work, and to develop good relationships with their colleagues leading to improved production outcomes (Sparrow, 2012). High employee engagement is not just about job satisfaction but involves developing a personal connection to the work. The AmerisourceBergen employs various strategies to develop high employee engagement. One of the key strategies is to enhance job satisfaction by providing attractive benefits to employees. These include attractive health benefits, paid leave or time off including holidays, disability protection, life insurance, and attractive retirement benefits (AmerisourceBergen, n.d). Many of the benefits are fully paid for by the company. Another engagement strategy is open communication and involving the employees. AmerisourceBergen maintains good relations with employees by engaging in talks with employees when issues arise. For instance, the company encourages talks to avert employee strikes.
Another key employee engagement strategy is personal growth. According to Sparrow (2012), personal growth reflects employee’s attitudes towards their job in terms of appropriateness of work challenge, skill development, and in providing opportunities for career advancement. The company encourages professional growth, engages in training employees to improve their skills, and conducts career development activities (AmerisourceBergen, n.d). Supporting and recognizing success is another method of employee engagement. The company does not have an employee recognition program. AmerisourceBergen has developed initiatives that help employees in maintaining work-life balance. This is an important engagement strategy, which involves giving employees paid holidays. The overall impact of these employee engagement strategies is greater level of employee performance. This is because of improved job satisfaction, improved discretionary effort, and high emotional and rational commitment.
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Global Talent Management
Global talent management refers to all activities within an organization concerned with hiring and retaining the best employees (In Ariss, 2014). These activities range from attracting the best employee to developing ways of retaining them. It is worth noting that high employee turnover could be costly to the organization. Global talent management takes into consideration the various differences that exist among countries in talent management. The major aim of global talent management is to help the organization in achieving its strategic objectives by hiring and retaining the best talent. Global talent management at AmerisourceBergen focuses on providing attractive benefits to employees in a bid to encourage retention. The company recruits qualified employees in order to enhance productivity. The most visible impact of effective talent management is high employee productivity and reduced turnover levels at the company.
Corporate Social Responsibility
Corporate social responsibility involves giving back to the community. The organization should participate in voluntary activities, which have a positive impact on the society. Corporate social responsibility is a way of recognizing the importance of the physical, social, and economic environments in which the company operates. The company must acknowledge the fact that its success is largely the result of the interplay of factors within the three environments. The company utilizes local resources while providing various products and services to its customers. As such, the company must ensure that there is sustainable utilization of critical resources. AmerisourceBergen integrates the principles of social responsibility and sustainability in its operations. This is through establishment of various environmental and social responsibility programs.
AmerisourceBergen has established a number of focus areas in corporate citizenship. These areas include operations, communities, associates, and the entire healthcare supply chain (AmerisourceBergen, n.d). With regard to operations, the company aims at increasing energy efficiency, reduce waste, ensure safe product handling, and cut on greenhouse gas emissions. With regard to communities, the company aims at improve the standards of living by donating critical products, improving education standards, and to develop partnerships with other organizations to improve health. The company looks into the welfare of its associates by creating professional wellness (AmerisourceBergen, n.d). The benefits of corporate social responsibility include brand recognition, improved company image, customer loyalty and higher sales, ability to attract and retain best talent, and ease of access to capital.
Human Resource Technology
In the recent past, there has been an explosion of new human resource technologies that aim at improving the human resource management process. The emergence of new human resource technologies is driven by the development of mobile technologies, the increased application of analytics and artificial intelligence, and other form of innovative technologies in the workplace (SHRM, 2017). Key areas of improvement include new performance management systems, real-time applications, and people analytics. The new performance management systems focus mostly on check-ins and agile goal systems while focusing less on ratings, which were common in the past. In addition, current performance management systems are data-driven. Real-time engagement systems enable organizations to obtain real-time data about employees or business processes (SHRM, 2017). People analytics involve the increased application of analytics models that are purchased from vendors.
Human resource technology has a significant impact on the company. One of the key impacts is efficiency of administration. It might be complex to manage the entire human resource using a paper-based system. Human resource technology enables firms to overcome the complexities of managing the workforce especially in multinational organizations. Human resource technology reduces operational costs. The application of human resource technology enables companies to manage many employees using workforce data. This translates to cost savings. Another impact is easy access to information. This makes it easy to track employees and their performance. Human resource technology can lead to improved communication between management and the workforce. Lastly, it leads to enhanced security of documents and confidential information.
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Employment Law and Human Rights Issues
The employment law and human rights issues are critical in the workplace. The organization should ensure that its employment policy conforms to the established local, state, and federal employment laws. Legislation on human rights ensures that employees receive protection against discriminatory practices in the workplace. It is the mandate of the employer to ensure that there are no issues concerning discrimination in the workplace. The employer should establish a formal complaint mechanism for use by aggrieved employees. The employer should also develop awareness among the employees concerning their legal rights. AmerisourceBergen ensures there is diversity in the workplace by providing equal opportunities regardless of race, gender, religion, nationality, ethnicity, and other groupings (AmerisourceBergen, n.d). The impact of this is diversity and low legal suits brought by employees against the company. By observing the employment law, AmerisourceBergen reduces legal suits that may be expensive. Another impact is good relations with employees since the company respects the rights of the employees.
Emerging Trends in Human Resource Management
The emerging trends in human resource management include political, social, economic, and technological trends. Technological trends are the most perverse in the human resource sector. In the recent period, the application of information system has become integral to human resource managers (Pillai & Jose, 2015). The human resource managers access the information system tools via the internet. Organizations can also use various applications to improve the human resource management experience, including in recruiting and training of employees. Another trend in human resource management is cross-cultural context (Pillai & Jose, 2015). Today’s organizations are dealing with increasingly diverse workforce. This has resulted to increased training on cross-cultural understanding. This is because cross-cultural differences can negatively affect the company especially when there are misunderstandings among individuals.
The human resource management department is leaning more on outsourcing for performance of particular tasks or activities. Outsourcing refers to hiring of outsiders to complete certain tasks, usually at a lesser fee than what it would cost to hire someone to work in the company. Outsourcing is closely tied to employee leasing, also a new concept. Employee leasing occurs when the outsiders who take jobs hire the same employees who ought to do the particular tasks. Another trend is talent management. This involves establishing the employees’ talents and placing them in areas where they can utilize these talents and improve the overall performance. Today’s companies are emphasizing on talent retention, which involves developing permanent relations with employees (Yadav & Singh, 2014). Talent retention is critical in saving the company hiring/placement costs.
Human Capital Challenges in the 21st Century
In a survey conducted by SHRM (2015), the greatest human capital challenge facing organizations in developing high employee engagement levels. Highly engaged employees are more enthusiastic about what they do and could go an extra mile to achieve the goals set by the organization. Another challenge is in developing future organizational leaders. Due to the existing general differences in the workplace, there is a challenge among current leaders to train young employees into leadership roles. Another human capital challenge is in maintaining competitive salaries and benefits. As the cost of living increases, employees are demanding higher wages. Close to this is the challenge of retraining employees, whereby most companies are experiencing high employee turnover rates. Organizations are finding it difficult to find employees with highly specialized skills. Another challenge is in managing the four generational groups in the workforce, with different values, beliefs, skills, and attitudes.
Best Practices in Human Resource Management
The concept of best practices refers to those practices that help in continuous improvement of the organization in terms of performance. One of the best practices in human resource management is talent management (Stiles et al., 2006). This involves establishing high potential employees and outlining strategies to retain these talents. Talent management encompasses various activities such as recruitment, selection, retention, and planning about succession. Successful companies are more committed towards training and development of employees. This is an important HR best practice since it improves the productivity of the employees. Another best practice is performance management (Stiles et al., 2006). This involves setting objectives, providing rewards or recognition, giving appraisals, and others. This ensures employees remain motivated. Another best practice is developing and maintaining good employee relations. This includes recognizing the importance of trade unions rather than barring employees from joining trade unions. Lastly, there is an effort to develop a strong organizational culture.
References
AmericansourceBergen. (n.d). About. Retrieved from http://www.amerisourcebergen.com/abcnew/careers/benefits.aspx
In Ariss, A. A. (2014). Global talent management: Challenges, strategies, and opportunities. Retrieved from http://www.worldcat.org/title/global-talent-management-challenges- strategies-and-opportunities/oclc/879570405
Pillai, J., & Jose, J. (2015). Emerging trends in human resource. International Journal of Academic Research, 2(2): 76-79.
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2015). Business and human capital challenges today and in the future. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/about- shrm/press-room/press- releases/Documents/SHRM%202015%20Business%20Human%20Capital%20Challenge s.pdf
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). (2017). 9 HR tech trends for 2017. Retrieved from https://www.shrm.org/hr-today/news/hr-magazine/0217/pages/9-hr-tech- trends-for-2017.aspx
Sparrow, J. (2012). The culture builders: Leadership strategies for employee performance. Farnham, Surrey, England: Gower
Stiles, P., Trevor, J., Paauwe, J., et al., (2006). Best practice and key themes in global human resource management: project report. Retrieved from http://www.cihrm.jbs.cam.ac.uk/research/downloads/ghrra_report.pdf
Yadav, P., & Singh, J. (2014). Paradigm shift in human resource management in present scenario – emerging trends. Sumedha Journal of Management, 3(3), 59.
