This Human Resource Management Assignment Explores The Changing Nature Of HRD Responsibilities And Duties
Question
Task: How can Human resource management assignment research strategies help identify the Changing Nature of HR roles and responsibilities?
Answer
Introduction
This Human resource management assignment evaluates the overall scope of the HRM practices that includes talent attracting, on boarding, developing, motivating, and retaining highly qualified employees. As opined by Atchyutuni and Narasareddy (2018, p. 70), it is aimed at improving the business performance of companies with practices that help in making the employees much more productive. Hence, the present study focuses on the challenges faced by the world-renowned company Microsoft within their talent management practices during the Covid 19 situation and how it affected their performance along with the ways they have applied to overcome it.
The response was given by the company on the fast-changing environment and its investment within the talent acquisition and retainment and the ways in which the performance of the company was affected
The Microsoft corporation is among the most successful and largest computer technology firms in the world that have achieved its success through applying the best talent management practices it can provide. Hence, some of the best practices identified on this Human resource management assignmentinvolve the following,
Learning
As evidenced by Chebolu and Nair (2021, p. 204), it is the core value within employee development as it helps in mastering the experience of employees in the ever-changing world of technology and other forces. Thus, to maintain that Microsoft provides its employees with on-the-job training that offers practical training sessions for the individuals regarding the ways they can handle their task much better. With this initiative of Microsoft, it becomes easy for the employees to enhance their educational skills and also it compensates for the cost of undertaking such programs. Moreover, Microsoft has been flexible in assigning duties to employees who are already going through such sessions and programs.
Figure 1: The training and learning process of Microsoft
Source: (Business Jargons. 2022)
Development
The first and main point identified on this Human resource management assignment is Employee development, it is the holistic approach taken by Microsoft that helps in adding the desirable values within their employees which develops them to get suitable for the present and future perspective and designation. As stated by Garcia (2018, p. 17), the management provides the session where the employees are taught to be coordinating with their co-workers along with understanding the external forces of the business environment that could be managed with the help of internal capacities that helps in achieving the success. This sort of development helps the employee to get groomed for the senior positions in the company and the way they could lead others and understand the expectation of the stakeholders.
Figure 2: Career development programs offered by Microsoft
Source: (Pinningtonet al., 2022)
Talent assessment
At Microsoft, the HRM department offers the program of identifying the best talent in the field of building software and hardware devices and it also helps in identifying the different talents that will be suitable for the different departments of the company. As stated by Eichinger(2018, p. 10), the supervisor and management are allowed to identify the skills of the employees that they think are needed in the company and they would then write up a letter to the HR department explaining the reason. Thus, these letters are reviewed on this Human resource management assignmentand are determined for the necessity of re-assigning the employees to the task or department in which they will be suitable.
Figure 3: The training assessment and selection practice of Microsoft HR department
Source: (Siyamak, 2022)
The ways the performance has been affected
The above practices of talent management offered by Microsoft have helped the company to improve its business performances as the employees feel to be engaged, motivated, and skill that allows them to work towards the direction of the organization's business goals that in return helps in increasing the customer satisfaction and the further advancement of the business performance. Moreover, as evidenced by Ahmed et al., (2021, p. 210), such a well-structured and on boarding session of Microsoft has helped in retaining the top talents within the company that saving the cost of performance management and recruitment for the long run. The talent management practices analysed on this Human resource management assignmenthelp the organization in making consistent and systematic decisions regarding the staff development that guarantees the skill development of the employees, hence, as they start to feel engaged, they start to work more for the productivity and development of the company, which has made Microsoft gain such hierarchical position in the world business scenario.
Figure 4: The performance assessment practices followed by Microsoft
Source: (Awadet al., 2022, p.101699)
Furthermore, Microsoft at the end of every year evaluates the performance of their employees that determines the way the workers have met the objectives. They are assigned with the task in which they have their mastery and the individuals who have surpassed the targets are rewarded which helps to boost their morale.
Impact of the Covid 19 as observed on this Human resource managementassignment
As mentioned by Schutte (2022), during the Covid 19 era, Microsoft was bound to garner its reputation through a rough patch where the employees stated that the management of the organization was bureaucratic and political. Two of the Microsoft employees mentioned the Stack Ranking, which is a review process used in Microsoft for raking the employee's performance as a Talent Management tool, saying that even if the individuals working within a team performs adequately, only a few from the team would be credited after the completion of the project as the top performers. Such ranks and feedback would immediately affect the salary, stock awards, and bonuses of the employees, as some individuals would be paid higher and some would be paid the same even after doing the same amount of work together. The stack ranking during the covid era was not suitable to use and is considered to be the most destructive procedure as something that tends to drive out the untold count of employees.
Figure 5: Talent management challenges faced by Microsoft during Covid 19.
Source: (Panovaet al., 2022, p. 290)
Furthermore, the management sometimes go out of their way to label the employees as there was training held where the individuals were assigned with different colours based on their personality test. Then the posters of the employees with their names and assigned colours were posted in the hallway and hence, the tasks were assigned to them as per that which was wrong to do as the allocation of the tasks must be based on their expertise and talent. Moreover, as evidenced by Gitonga(2019, p. 130), the employees were given the "work from home" facility during the Covid-19 period to maintain their safety and health, but it was argued by many, that they had ended up working for crazy hours with multiple tasks assigned to them that increased their stress and tension for which many were bound to resign from their respective positions.
Recommendation for the enhancement of the talent management strategies for improving their performance after the covid 19 era.
Certain practices could be beneficial for Microsoft if they apply them within their talent management process such areas,
Specifying the skills needed by Microsoft
Microsoft must determine the kind of people they want to hire and should specify the skills they need to possess to fill the gap for which the recruitment is done. The company should think about whether they could develop their internal employees or they may need to search for it elsewhere for the talent needed.
Building the diverse pool of candidates
As suggested o this Human resource management assignmentby Galunic(2022, p. 200), Microsoft must reach out to the different networks and groups that are interested in the job position that has been posted by the company for hiring. To execute this, Microsoft can apply certain strategies like building partnerships with multicultural associations, creating employee referral schemes that help in encouraging diversity along removing the biased language used in job descriptions.
Creation of an organized process of on boarding
Microsoft needs to be prepared for their new employees to begin by giving them the proper orientation and assigning someone who can direct their on boarding experience. Hence, Microsoft must take the wise decision of which task they would assign to those employees, the kind of documentation that would be needed along organizing the training session and scheduling those activities within the appropriate manner.
Human resource management assignmentplanning for succession
According to Panovaet al., (2022, p. 290), Microsoft must provide their best for supporting and nurturing their employees for steering them towards the direction of the career path they have desired for. The organization must equip its workers for performing the best of their abilities with the help of the learning and development opportunities that the company already offers to its employees along with continuous feedback given by the seniors. Furthermore, the company must conduct an exit interview for the employees who have decided to leave the company to understand their decisions and reason for doing so.
Hence, the above-mentioned recommendation, if applied within the functions and operation of Microsoft could stand out to be an important learning opportunity that would prevent them from facing challenges regarding Talent Management practices in the future.
Conclusion
To conclude, the present study signifies the importance of Talent Management practices that help in the success or failure of the company if applied wisely. The study mainly focuses upon renowned computer technology company Microsoft and mentions the talent management practices used by them and how it affects their business performance. Moreover, the study also describes the impact of the Covid 19 period upon the talent management practices and how the company was affected through it. Lastly, theHuman resource management assignment provides recommendations regarding talent management practices that would help Microsoft in preventing such challenges further.
References
Ahmed, S.S., Khan, M.M., Khan, E., Sohail, F., and Mahmood, N., 2021. Enhancing Intellectual Capital and Organizational Performance Through Talent Management. In The Dynamics of Intellectual Capital in Current Era (pp. 205-220). Springer, Singapore.Human resource management assignment.
Atchyutuni, N. and Narasareddy, V., 2018. Agile talent management strategies for a fast-changing workplace. Gavesana Journal of Management, 10(1), pp.68-74.
Awad, A., Luo, W. and El-Rawy, M., 2022. Improvement of the DRAINMOD model's performance under time-variable surface storage capacities using neural network models. Ain Shams Engineering Journal, 13(5), p.101699.
Business Jargons. 2022. What is Training Process definition and meaning - Business Jargons. [online] Available at:
Chebolu, R.M. and Nair, J., 2021. Microsoft: Building a Collaborative Work Culture to Foster Innovation. IUP Journal of Organizational Behavior, pp. 204.
Eichinger, R.W., 2018. The War for How to do Talent Management or is There Really Anything New. People & Strategy, 41(1), pp.9-13.
Galunic, C., 2020. Developing Talent and Capabilities. In Backstage Leadership (pp. 187-232). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Garcia, C., 2018. Why talent management is missing its target. People & Strategy, 41(1), pp.16-17.
Gitonga, A.G., 2019. Influence of Human Resource Capability in Relating Talent Management Strategy and Competitive Advantage. Journal of Human Resource Management, 7(4), pp.120-130.
Panova, E.A., Oparina, N.N. and Bondareva, L.V., 2022. Talent Management: Tasks and Challenges for a Digital Tomorrow. In Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference “Smart Nations: Global Trends In The Digital Economy” (pp. 288-294). Springer, Cham.
Pinnington, A., Aldabbas, H., Mirshahi, F. and Pirie, T., 2022. Organisational development programmes and employees’ career development: the moderating role of gender. Journal of Workplace Learning.
Schutte, S., 2022. The five best and worst companies to work for. [online] Real Business.Human resource management assignment. Available at:
Siyamak, Q.A., 2022. The effect of human resource management (HRM) practices on organizational performance. Science and Education,Human resource management assignment. 3(1), pp.710-715.
