Early studies of leadership including that of
the theoretical development of Great Man
Theory approached leadership from a trait
perspective and argued that there were
characteristics within a leader, which made
them successful. This theaoretical position
thus supported the contention that leaders
were born and not made. One of
the earliest approaches to leadership, Great
Man theory paved the way for a study of the
leader as a separate entity to those within the
firm. Aligned to this, autocratic styles of
leadership promoted a separation between the
leader and his employees. Autocratic leaders
are therefore leaders who impose a style,
which is characterised by individual control
over decisions within the firm. motivation can be defined as the
psychological process which drives the
purpose and direction of one's behaviour. Of
all the responsibilities of a manager, employee
motivation is perhaps the most complexed
one. The reason behind
this is the continuous change in the factors
which motivate workforce.
Many factors underpin employee motivation at
different hierarchical levels, among which pay
is the common motivator which works for all
age groups. In the highly
competitive job markets, devising motivational
strategies for employees has become a part
of employer branding for organisations,
through which they intend to be the employer
of choice for job seekers and work towards
retaining the existing employees.
Considering the kind of learning and
experiences they have had while pursuing
their degree, fresh graduates tend to develop
leadership skills, whereby they gain the
capability of meeting deadlines and producing
good quality work with little supervision. This leads them
to an expectation of being empowered at their
workplace to do their work on their own, either
individually or in groups with in-depth
guidance, but little supervision.
There are different viewpoints about the work
attributes of graduate trainees; while some
researchers talk about their enthusiasm to
perform their best in their first job there are others who state that
performing a full-time job role in a
professional environment may prove to be
stressful for a recent graduate, resulting
lower levels of productivity.
Recruitment is the first step in order to
achieve highly qualified employees for the
organization. The more successful an
organization's recruitment strategy, the
stronger the applicants pool, thus, the
stronger the resulting hired employees. There
are a wide variety of recruitment strategies
which include advertisements on newspapers
and job websites such as SEEK and Indeed.
Another recruitment strategy that is used in
organizations is recruiting internal applicants
for jobs. Not only do these individuals
understand the values of the organization,
they also possess the desired skills that meet
the organizations standards.
Selection is the second major step required in
the staffing process. The goal of any selection
systems is to identify which applicants has
the knowledge, skills, abilities and other factors to develop the firm. Selection is the second major step required in
the staffing process. The goal of any selection
systems is to identity which applicants have
the knowledge, skills, abilities and other
important factors that will be beneficial and
suitable to the organization on order to
succeed within the job role.
Many challenges are faced in selecting
employees such as legality, therefore having a
well thought out and legally defensible
selection system is crucial for organizational
success. Selection tools used to assess
candidates have improved onto more
comprehensive systems such as interviews,
work samples, application forms, written
psychometric instruments and many more.
Having these instruments to make sense, they
must be tied to the results of the job analysis. For managers to investigate what motivates
their employees they can use the practice of
communication or appraisals. HR managers
can drive employee engagement by using a
continuous relationship with line managers to
effectively get across the organizational
objective while also acquiring performance
information on employees. To obtain this information, surveys
online or in-house can be used to measure
what motivates employees and how the
employees view the organization's
commitment to them. Evaluations can also be
used to gauge employee's performance and in
turn, contribute to the organization's
recognition of valued staff. Creating rewards for those that are hard working by arranging dinner, trip or free day for the person.
In conclusion, Human resource management plays a vital
role in the organization while dealing with
workplace issues. As human resource
management deals with the management of
human resources in the workplace, the issues
related with the human resource must be
focused by the top level management. The
major ethical issues that have to be deal by
the human resource management are a
concern with the privacy issues, cash and
compensation plan, employment issues,
safety issues, race and disability, performance
appraisal and employee's responsibility. Each and every employee is
important for the organization to achieve the
stated goal so the issues related with the
manpower must be identified on time for the
better performance.
