Hr Function

Problem:

Prioritize the following HR functions considering your present job situations and explain why? The five functions are Motivation, Planning, Recruitment, Training & Management Development and Performance Appraisal.

I am serving an IT organization involved mostly in developing customized software for its clients. The company itself is a sister concern of a big RMG (Ready Made Garments) group and thus mostly focusing the clientele from RMG sector. However, the company is certainly a small one in size having only 5 people as full time employee including two management personnel. Besides there are a pool of technical IT specialists (software developer) work for the company on job basis.

I have been serving the company since last five years and thus exactly know that an efficient HR planning is required to enhance the company performance further. Even though there is no such formal HR department exists, the company certainly has the functions of Human Resource Management which are partially undertaken by me being the Business Manager of the company together with the company Chairman, who takes major role in HR functions like recruitment and performance appraisal.

The function related to HR refers to those tasks and duties performed in the organization to provide for and co-ordinate human resources. Like all other organization the human resource function of my organization are concerned with a variety of activities which significantly influence all areas of my organization and include following HR functions:

1. Motivation

2. Planning

3. Recruitment

4. Training & Management Development

5. Performance Appraisal

Considering the nature of my organization and type of HR activities and the experience I have had within the company, I would say the HR function ’Motivation’ is the main concern which requires more attention.

As it is defined, Motivation is a psychological characteristic that contributes to a person’s degree of commitment. It includes the fact that cause, channel and sustain human behaviour in a particular committed direction. More specifically, Motivation can be defined as the need or drive within an individual that urges him or her towards Goal-oriented action.

Looking at my company and my present job situation, I find the employees are not motivated enough and do not act sufficiently required to achieve company objective to the highest extend. Being a small company and having a very small employee group where three of them are software developer, one looking after marketing and one the overall management, it is very difficult to sustain if there are no motivated employees working. For a small company like us, since the income is also small, compensation policy does not always can satisfy the employees. Therefore, there has to be very effective motivational factors which can drive the employees towards achieving company objectives.

Besides, the main productive employees of the company are the software engineers, profession of which has highest demand in domestic and international market. It is very difficult to keep the employees from such profession within a company for a longer period if there are not effective motivational factors applied in the right manner as they have plenty of options to decide in the job market. That is what exactly happened number of times in my organization. The software engineers are leaving the company quite regularly either for better compensation opportunity elsewhere or migrating to other countries. This high rate of employee turnover is not only the major problem of my company but also the problem for the IT sector of the country overall. Departure of IT professionals for a company involved in customized software hinders the growth of the company heavily as it is not only the loss of skilled human resource but also the loss of company’s technical know-how on specific technical issues directly related with the specialized customized software development after long exercises. More importantly, for a customized software development firm, a software developer usually can achieve to develop an effective customized software for client after spending considerable period following lot of trial and error procedures and once he/she achieves it, it is expected and only commercially