Contemporary Issues in HR

Unit 4
Index
• Work Life Balance - definition, importance and challenge
• Human Resource Information Systems - definition, importance and
scope,
• Happiness at work,
• Managing Protean career,
• Moonlighting phenomenon,
• Managing Workforce Diversity - concept, benefits and challenges.
Work life balance
• Work life balance is a method which helps employees of an
organization to balance their personal and professional lives.
• Work life balance encourages employees to divide their time on
the basis on priorities and maintain a balance by devoting time
to family, health, vacations etc. along with making a career,
business travel etc.
• It is an important concept in the world of business as it helps to
motivate the employees and increases their loyalty towards the
company.
Importance of work life balance
• Allows an employee to maintain a fine balance in the time he or
she gives to work as well as to personal matters
• By having a good balance, people can have a quality of work
life.
• Helps to increase productivity at workplace as the employee is
relaxed about his personal commitments.
• It also allows the employee to give quality time with family to
spend vacations, leisure time, work on his/her health etc.
• Hence work life balance is extremely important for employees
and increases their motivation to work for the company.
Challenges in work-life balance
• Company culture. ...
• Company policies. ...
• Management. ...
• Imposter syndrome. ...
• Always-on communication. ...
• Unclear work priorities. ...
• Job insecurity. ...
• Bank of America (BOA) looked for a computer-based solution for its
problem of merging selection tests with the firm’s applicant-tracking
software application and found that this could be done. The Bank
wanted to improve the quality of the applicant pool it obtained
through internet recruiting by adding selection tests to the process.

• Aswathappa, K. Human Resource Management, Text & Cases (p. 710).

Mc Graw Hill India. Kindle Edition.
 HRIS
HRIS is the integration of all HR systems and processes with the use of technology
to benefit the overall management of HR in an organisation.
HRIS acts as a means to:
•Automate all routine and transactional activities relating to employees,
•Identifying potential employees from among job-applicants,
•Maintain records on existing employees including their skills, their preferences,
their performance capabilities, areas of development of employees’ talents and
skills
Identify the manpower requirements for meeting the organisation’s long-term
business plans and strategic goals,
•Analyse attrition trends,
•Track workforce deployment and staffing effectiveness, and
•Track compensation programmes to make salary forecasts and pay budgets.
HRIS
 Specific benefits from HRIS include
•Faster information processing.
•Greater information accuracy.
Improved planning and programme development.
•Enhanced communication.
•Reduce operational costs.
•Better transparency in the system.
•More meaningful career planning and counselling at all levels.
•HR functions are made portable, i.e., accessible via social media and cloud
platform.
•Perform routine and time consuming tasks discharged by HR team. HR leaders
are able to focus on more critical tasks like talent attraction and retention and
culture management.
•Facilitate talent management initiatives like online learning and development.
•Tracking simple HR metrics like diversity ratios and HR cost analysis.
 HRIS TRENDS
• Talent management analysis
• Data analytics
• Social, cloud and mobile enabled
• Employee engagement
• Integrated HRIS
Happiness at Workplace
• As per the recent workplace trends in India, the employees’
emotional health is a distant luxury; the concept of ‘happiness at
work’ is just a fantasy and people-culture is a myth.
• The concept of happiness is empirically defined by positive
psychology with a scientific construct called PERMA (Positive
Emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and
Accomplishment).
• The happiness model was first developed by Martin Seligman with
the main objective of bringing positive change in personal lives and
nurturing emotional health among people in general.
 Workforce Diversity
• Workforce diversity is the inclusion of employees from different
backgrounds, races, cultures, genders, ages, religions, and sexual
orientations in the workplace. It is also about including employees with
different abilities and disabilities.
• In simple terms, it refers to a diverse organisation with a heterogeneous
workforce.
• The concept of workforce diversity has evolved over the years as
organisations have become more global and inclusive. In the past,
workforce diversity was often thought of in terms of gender and race.
However, today, the definition of workforce diversity has expanded to
include a wide range of dimensions, including but not limited to gender,
race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status,
ability, and skills.
 The Importance Of Workforce Diversity
1. Reflect The Community: In order for businesses to be truly representative of the
communities they serve, it is important that their workforce is diverse. This is
especially important for businesses that provide services to the community, such as
healthcare and education.
2. Retain More Employees: A diverse workforce can help to retain employees.
Employees are more likely to stay with an organisation if they feel that they belong
and that their unique talents and perspectives are valued.
3. Attract Top Talent: A diverse and inclusive workplace is attractive to top talent. In
a competitive job market, businesses need to be able to attract the best and the
brightest if they want to be successful.
4. Address The Needs Of A Changing Labour Market: The labour market is changing
and becoming more diverse. As such, businesses need to be prepared to meet the
needs of a diverse workforce.
5. Better Understand Customers: In order to be successful, businesses need to
understand their customers. A diverse workforce can help businesses to better
understand their customers and the communities they serve.
6. Improve Their Reputation: A diverse and inclusive workplace is often seen as a
good place to work. This can help businesses to attract new customers and to build
a positive reputation.
Types Of Workforce Diversity
• Internal Diversity: Internal diversity characteristics are those that the
employees are born into. This includes gender, race, ethnicity, age,
sexual orientation, religion, socio-economic status, and ability.
• External Diversity: External diversity characteristics are those that
employees acquire from their experiences outside of work. This
includes skills, education, life experiences, religious and cultural
experiences, and international experience.
• Organisational Diversity: Organisational diversity relates to the
characteristics within the workplace like job functions, management
status, employment status, union membership, etc., that can create
different perspectives and experiences.
• Worldview Diversity: The way different workers conceptualise world
events, problems, and solutions is known as worldview diversity.
These include political beliefs, moral values, and social attitudes.
Challenges of diversity in workplace
• The Potential For Conflict: One of the challenges of
diversity is the potential for workplace conflict.
• The Need For Training: Another challenge of diversity is
the need for training.
• Communication Barriers: Communication can be a
challenge in a diverse workplace.
• The Risk Of Discrimination: There is always the risk of
discrimination when there is a diverse workforce.
• Cultural Misunderstandings: Cultural misunderstandings
can also be a challenge in a diverse workplace.