Hrm Challenges

HR Challenges Paper

The organization I have chosen is the U.S Navy. The U.S Navy was founded as an organization, which will train and activate skilled combat naval personnel, the epitome of a human resources program to say the least. The mission statement for the Navy states, "The mission of the Navy is to maintain, train, and equip combat-ready naval forces capable of winning wars, deterring aggression and maintaining freedom of the seas." (http://www.navy.com)

The Navy prides itself on the adventurous spirit it takes to embark on a career in service of one's country. Unfortunately, pride and the patriotic spirit alone cannot fill the ranks. Recently, with the advice of an outsourced human resource organization the Navy has developed new exciting recruitment campaigns in an effort to attract the younger generation. To aid in capturing the attention of the latest generation, the navy has adopted the "Accelerate your life".

These statements suggest the Navy is not only clear in its purpose and design, but also dedicated to its end. The clarity of its mission is seen in the extensive training, which recruits receive in boot camp and the mental focus directed, by their superiors to focus on the mission statement.

Identified Five HR Challenges

In the current Navy human resource management environment, the five critical challenges, which need to be faced, are:

* Globalization

* Training

* Retention

* Outsourcing

* Adapting to Change

Globalization

Globalization is important for any organization, but more so for the Navy, as it attempts to gain competitive advantage through continual innovation, and the development of retention systems for staffing, governance and rewards. The rampant pace of global competition, the speeds of technological developments, rapidly changing demographics, and the incredible increase in information technology have resulted in a business environment, which changes day-to-day, hour-to-hour. To remain competitive in such a dynamic environment, the navy must continually improve their human resource management systems and improve organizational changes. Leaders/Managers must continually be looking for ways to improve all aspects of service member relationships.

Leaders/Managers are more often being challenged to balance the demands of thinking globally and acting locally. People, ideas, products, and information must be moved around the world to meet local needs. Volatile political situations, global trade issues, fluctuating exchange rates, and unfamiliar cultures and war, now enter into everyday business decisions. Leaders/Managers must become schooled in the ways of their international environments. They must enhance their ability to learn to work together to manage diversity, complexity, and ambiguity across the globe. Within this environment, HR managers have a particular job to do, in ensuring that HR policies and practices pay attention to the balance between consistency and co-ordination versus recognition of cultural and other differences.

Training

The bottom line for any organization is how efficient the workforce is at producing a quality product/service. Any company, which desires to stay ahead of its competition, will engage in training and team building efforts for their employees.

Human power in terms of employees, are the most critical and important resource the navy has thus far. The effective utilization of service member capability is the focus of the concentration in human resource management. One of the major challenges faced by the navy now is to balance the search for competitiveness by consideration for the training, development and occupation health and safety operations of its service members. The pressure brought to bear for an increased training program has become even stronger, as the navy expands more and more globally (specifically the Middle East).

The types of training techniques utilized in the navy range from on-the-job training, apprenticeship training, informal learning, job instruction training, programmed learning, audiovisual techniques, vestibule or simulated training, computer-based training, training via CD-ROM, and distance to internet-based training. For managers, there will be on-the-job training techniques as well as off-the-job training techniques. There are four on-the-job training techniques most commonly utilized by the navy, they are job rotation, the coaching/understudy approach, action learning, and the case study method.

In general, the human resources core purpose is to facilitate the transformation of work life at any organization to a standard, which surpasses the organizational planning objectives. The naval human resource departments (administrative officers and career counselors) have several goals to accomplish, including attracting, developing and retaining a premier and diverse workforce, anticipating trends and consequently providing strategic solutions, fostering creativity, innovation, and learning as a whole to foster and facilitate change through training and education of their employee base.

Retention

Employee retention has always been an important focus for the navy. Once the organization has invested time and money to recruit and train a good employee, it is in their own best interest to retain that employee, to further develop and motivate him so he/she continues to provide value to the organization. However, employers must also recognize and tend to what is in the best interest of their employees, if they intend to keep them. When a company overlooks the needs of its employees and focuses only on the needs of the organization, turnover often results. Excessive turnover in an organization is a prime indicator that something is not right in the employee environment.

Employee retention is measured by an employees' longevity with a company, and is the desired outcome of a company-hiring workers it wants and needs. Many organizations find it more productive and profitable to redirect resources formerly allocated to recruiting, hiring, orienting, and training of new employees and use them instead toward employee retention programs. Such programs identify good performers who are likely to leave the company and work proactively to retain them. Although there is no tried-and-true prescription for retaining good employees, there are five factors, which have a proven positive impact on retention in the navy. In addition,