Major Challenges in Human Resource Management

1. Environmental Challenges
These are the external forces that exist outside the environment of an
organisation and can influence the performance of the management of an
organisation.
They are out of the control of the management of an organisation and can
be regarded as a threat to be dealt in a proactive manner.
1. Workforce Diversity: The changing environment provides both the
opportunities and threats to the human resource management of the
organization. The HR manager should adopt such policies that can make
possible the diverse workforce of employees. Although on one hand
diversity creates a big problem, in the long run, the survival and
performance of the organization is flourished.
2. Globalization: It has an enormous impact on HR practices and policies
due to global mobility of workforce. Due to this Human Resources has
to solve the issues like data privacy, working across multiple labour
legislations, working in remote teams over different cultures. Hence
global HR governance is the need of the day.
3. Labour Laws and Compliances: There are certain labor laws that are
declared by the government for the benefits of the working employees.
Some of these laws are disadvantageous to the interests of the
organizations so it is one of the big challenges for the HRM to
implement all those labor laws within the organizations. If any such law
is violated, serious actions are taken by the relevant government
authority that may result in serious penalties for the management of the
organization.
4. Technological Advancement: Technology is growing at higher rate
especially in the field of electronics and telecommunication. New
methods are emerging that quickly dominate the older ones and make
them obsolete. Therefore, the skills required by the employees also
change with the changing technology and this would compel the
workforce to advance the skills three to four times throughout their
working lives. So there comes a burden on the HR department to
constantly update the skills and expertise of its employees.
5. Job and Family Roles: In recent years, dual-career families are
increasing in which both the wife and husband work. This creates a
serious burden on the women that they have to give time to their families
also. In many organizations, the policies of HR favours the employment
of more than 10 years. The working hours of the organizations are also
 strict and tight for the employees. The selection and training procedures
are two tough and time consuming so most of the talented women
hesitate to join any organization which would result in the wastage of
talent and potential. Even working men also suffer from these
employment policies because they do not properly give time to their
families. So the challenges for the HRM increase with this particular
issue and special favourable working policies are needed to be employed
in all organizations.

2. Organizational Challenges:
The organizational challenges for HRM are related to the factors that are
located inside the organization. These challenges are evolved as a by-
product of the environmental challenges and can be controlled by the
management of the organization to substantial extent.
1. Compensation and Benefits Packages: A compensation package can
include Salary, health-care benefits, and other benefits such as EPF plan.
But it might be smart to better meet the needs of your employees by
making some changes to these existing plans. the compensation package
should be positive enough to attract the best people for the job. An
organization that does not pay as well as others within the same industry
will likely not be able to attract the best candidates, resulting in a poorer
overall company performance.
2. Retention Rate: There can be many reasons for an employee to leave an
organization. It is very essential for an organization to know the reasons,
which can help the organization in making the job attractive and
encourage the employees to stay with the organization. The first and
foremost requirement is to measure the key factors which influence the
retention rates, such as salary expectations, employee engagement,
working environment and boss/managers. Once these measurements are
identified, the initiatives can be planned and implemented for
improvement of the retention rate.

3. Improving Operational Efficiencies: The Covid-19 crisis made

operational efficiency the primary indicator of a viable business.
Organisations removed boundaries like slow-moving hierarchies to
increase decision-making speed, accelerated innovation, and used
technology in ways no one thought possible. Now the challenge for HR
Leaders is to hardwire the adrenaline-fueled operational efficiencies
forged during the pandemic into new operating models.
4. Conducting Objective and Legally Defensible Layoffs: Laying off
employees is one of the hardest tasks HR Managers face. Layoffs are a
significant blow to company morale. However, in today's volatile
business landscape marked by tumultuous markets, intense competition
and rapid advances in technology, shedding workers may be required to
keep a company afloat. Organizations can develop an equitable and
transparent process for determining who stays and who goes using skills
assessment tests to quantify employees' job-relevant skills and
behavioural assessment tests to evaluate cultural fit. When clearly-
defined and measurable criteria are used to make layoff decisions, this
skill-based approach to downsizing is objective and legally defensible.
5. Leadership Development: Employees with poor relationships with their
direct managers are four times more likely to separate from their
company than employees who feel their leader is competent and skilled.
Now more than ever, employees look to their managers as a source of
inspiration and motivation. But this can be potentially
problematic if those leaders-in-the-making stick around long enough
to become leaders. And, in an increasingly millennial-heavy workforce,
companies are seeing higher turnover rates from potential leaders than
ever. This is what makes leadership development one of the largest HR
challenges being faced today.
6. Resistance to Change: One major challenge HR managers and
supervisors face while implementing organisational change is
overcoming employees’ resistance to change. Change in an organization
is inevitable in the fast-paced, ever-changing corporate world today. This
change could be structural, economical, geographical, procedural,
managerial, or technological, the latter having the greatest influence and
posing the biggest challenges to HR.
HR faces major issues of reduced employee morale and satisfaction,
self-doubt, attrition, etc., during change. Employees not being able to
adapt to change can lead to the failure or death of an organization.
The inability to adapt to change could be because of various factors,
such as employee resistance to change, lack of necessary skill and
training to adapt to change, sudden but drastic requirements to change,
etc. It is thus imperative for an organization to foresee, plan/predict, and
communicate change.
7. Performance Management and Alignment: While an organization may
be able to provide the necessary training and development to its
employees, it is equally important for it to be able to track the impact of
this training on the performance of the employees.Performance
management and the related next steps, such as performance
improvement plans, are becoming difficult with the fast pace of business
operations and the lack of time for performance alignment. Larger
organizations also face challenges of helping employees understand how
their job roles and performance indicators align to and contribute to the
achievement of the overall organizational objectives.