ACADEMIA Letters

Human Resources In The Professional Sphere:

Performance and Flaws in Their Management
Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, Paris Diderot University - University of Paris

Abstract
The main objective of this analysis is to study the impact of human resources on the productive
efficiency of public or private companies and the conditions of their management (favourable
and unfavourable).

Keywords: human resource management, recruitment, redeployment, assessment, perfor-

mance and flaws, interactions, communication, digitalization.

In modern society, human resources management is made up of a set of skills that connects
private and public organizations and companies, employees, the work environment with the
ambitions of performance, productivity, efficiency, innovation and development. To this end,
human resources departments of all kinds of organizations must carry out practices related to
the overall strategy, planning and management of human capital undergoing economic, polit-
ical, legal, psychological and social changes. In this sense, several researchers consider that:
“Human resources management” (HRM) provides multiple functions at the same time: an
integration function for employees (social dialogue, interaction, productivity), a differentia-
tion function (recruitment, selection, transfer, salary and remuneration, individual differences,
evaluation, etc.), a function of staffing and skills of each employee, general and specific func-
tions of each concrete organization, society, company, etc. (professional culture, creativity

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

1
and motivation of its employees, health and safety policy, labour law, psychology, external
or international commercial and professional relations, etc.” [e.g. Leatherbarrow & Fletcher
2018; Boselie & Paauwe, 2005; Radtchenko-Draillard, 2020]. I think it is necessary to focus
on understanding human resource management (labour and personnel management in organ-
isations) and on analysing the closely interdependent boundaries, including: between HRM
and the quality of work; between the socio-psychological actions of employees (behaviour,
reasoning and creativity, motivations, communication, interactions) and the economic or in-
dustrial effects of the organisation or company; between the general policy each concrete orga-
nization (modernization, digitalization, restructuring) and labour law, occupational medicine
which are specific to its country, etc. Consequently, human resources management (HRM), is
a fundamental activity in any organization (whatever their activity: commercial, industrial, fi-
nancial, public management, societal, scientific, university education, medical, etc.) in which
human beings are employed. In addition, HRM is an inevitable consequence of the existence
and optimization of any organization in all countries of the world.
Strategic human resources management focuses on systemic issues and focuses on the
global HR strategies adopted by the productive, innovate, commercial units of organizations,
societies or companies and it tries to measure their impacts on performance. The links with
strategic management are therefore well known, particularly through the mutual relationships
between the two areas for the resource-based vision and for the strategic decision-making
processes of the concrete organization (e.g., Peel & Boxall, 2005; Lazear, 2000, Harzing &
Van Ruysseveldt, 2004). The other major area is international HRM (IHRM). International
HRM is closely linked to important issues in the fields of scientific exchange, international
trade, international relations, the legislation and economic structure of different countries,
the psychology of different peoples, the mastery of foreign languages, including the whole
process of internationalization. The strategy of international HRM contains the search for
competent executives, the recruitment, the salary contract, the training and the preparation of
certain employees who will work with the various foreign companies and customers within
the company and will be expatriated abroad to work in the subsidiaries of the given company
or in foreign companies, universities and scientific centers, etc.
Another important point to add is that the main task of analytical HRM is to build the con-
cept and collect data in order to take into account how management actually behaves in the
organization of work and the management of people in different jobs, workplace and private
or public companies and organizations. The growth of the HRM domain has placed a strong
emphasis on how HRM models vary from culture to culture and reflect the impact of different
labour laws and institutions in different countries This extremely important analytical devel-
opment: it means that HRM must become better integrated with theories of organizational

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

2
behavior and with other accounts of how HRM works, such as those in professional relations,
labor economics, assessing outcomes. From the point of view of Boxall, Purcell and Wright
(2018) “ Analytical HRM has three important characteristics: first, it is concerned with the
‘what’ and ‘why’ of HRM, with understanding what management tries to do with work and
people in different contexts and with explaining why. Second, it is interested in the ‘how’
of HRM, in the chain of processes that make models of HRM work well (or poorly), thus
building much stronger links to companion disciplines such as strategic management and or-
ganizational behavior. Third, it is interested in questions of ‘for whom and how well,’ with
assessing the outcomes of HRM, taking account of both employee and managerial interests,
and laying a basis for theories of wider social consequences” [1] Currently, the cognitive and
social changes of digitalisation applied to the working environment result from a strong change
in the activity of the individual in his professional environment. In my opinion, this profound
evolutionary movement carries the potential, evolution, restructuring of human resources in
the modern economy of private and public organizations and societies. In addition, infor-
mation and communication technologies (ICT) are involved not only in industrial, economic,
financial and production processes, but also in all areas of human resources management. It
can be said that ICT and the Internet have thus enabled this development by proposing multi-
ple means of interaction: in particular, at the level of technical software and interfaces offer
multiple possibilities for interactions and communications with employees; and at the level
of business process management (BPM) which brings together the business processes of an
organization or company and models their management. The objective of this modeling is to
create an overview of the actual functioning of the private or public organization and soci-
ety. For Radtchenko-Draillard (2020) the BPM is a tool for optimizing the productivity of the
company organization (or companies and private or public organizations), which includes: 1.
Objectives, 2. Analysis of the needs of the organization in order to define the activities of the
different professions necessary for its productivity. 3. Modeling business processes for hir-
ing, paying or relocating employees within the organization or company. 4. Management and
development to optimize the business processes of employees and apply these optimizations
according to the objectives and profitability of this organization or company. Radtchenko-
Draillard (2020)also believes that “…it will also be possible to describe the strategic and
operational indicators and link them to the processes concerned, to verify that each indicator
is well defined according to an objective and to ensure that these objectives are consistent with
the company level. This approach is a prerequisite for the implementation of the BAM (Busi-
ness Activity Monitoring) tools that will enable continuous measurement of the performance
of the company’s key business processes.”[2]
Among the main functions of human resources management are recruitment, employment

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

3
contract, management of salaries and bonuses, career management (evaluation, development,
training, etc.), reclassification or requalification, retirement, dismissal, in case of change in
the general policy of the company and personal problems of the employee. The recruitment
strategy is dominant in human resources management activity (in particular, the number of
vacancies to be filled and the date on which the posts are to be filled; the type of candidates
sought: (level of education, diplomas or non-graduates, skills, motivations, etc.), job perfor-
mance targets for new employees, etc.), the expected retention rate of new employees, etc.
Recruiting the right people is a monumental task that requires vast interpersonal skills and in-
tellectual dexterity. HR online courses equip HR professionals with peer interaction, people
management and make their position in the organisations and firms replete with job security.
Recruiting the right people is a monumental task that requires vast interpersonal skills and
intellectual dexterity. HR online courses equip HR professionals with peer interaction, peo-
ple management and make their position in the company replete with job security. Clarifying
expectations and identifying goals are taught in HR online courses from reputed e-learning
platforms. It should be pointed out that the method of recruitment in private companies or pri-
vate university depends directly on the company’s policy and the strategies of its management
and employers. On the other hand, the recruitment method is very complicated in public in-
stitutions or services and in state universities or national scientific centres (competitions, calls
for tenders, fixed-term or indefinite contracts, national or regional qualifications, selections,
etc.); it also varies from country to country and depends on the national culture, the policy in
force, the economy or the powers and governances in place. It should be noted that in most
private and public organizations or companies and firms the workforce is treated as machines
or tools in performance management. The basis for pay in performance management is job
evaluation. In most cases of human resources management, the evaluation of employee per-
formance with its subtle levels of efficiency and productivity in different sectors of activity is
considered for compensation.
In career management strategy, an assessment center is often used (a process, using a vari-
ety of techniques, designed to determine the suitability of candidates for a specific job within
an organization). In the strategy of career management it is often used an assessment center
(a process, using a variety of techniques, designed to determine the suitability of candidates
for a specific job within an organization). Assessment centers combine traditional assessment
techniques such as psychological tests with personalized simulation exercises based on digital
technology, such as email inboxes, phone calls, use of general and specific statistical software,
role-playing, negotiations, and other tasks representative of on-the-job requirements. On the
other hand, it should be noted that level-specific success profiles offer a much more practical
and enforceable way to identify high-impact capabilities and behaviours essential to the pro-

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

4
ductive and creative performance of the company than traditional skills models. It should be
noted that several human resources managers and occupational psychologists also examine
the importance of performance, the effectiveness of evaluation methods and procedures, and
the level and quality of training of evaluators themselves. While these are questions about
“best practices”, they also highlight how evaluation practices are often influenced by guid-
ance provided by the organization’s or firm’s administration, managers’ belief systems and
cognitive biases, and are often located in the strategic context of the organization and the pub-
lic or private company. It is important to add that many studies on these issues highlight the
flaws in these evaluation practices (Gray &Kaufmann, 1998; Rose-Askerman, 1989; Pelletier
& Bligh, 2008; Ulrich, Brockbank, Johnson and Younger, 2007 et al.). Among the most cited
flaws are: on the one hand: favouritism, privileges, lack of objectivity, subjective criteria
of appreciation, conflicts of interest, nepotism, cronyism, elitism, self-promotion of certain
people; on the other hand: discrimination, based on age, sex, nationality or race for other
persons; and also widespread corruption, which largely affects private companies or public
institutions, university academic councils and national university councils in the various coun-
tries with their opaque policy of professional evaluation, qualification and recruitment, etc.
These anomalies in recruitment, evaluation and qualification procedures particularly affect
the highly qualified people: managers, engineers, graduated and experienced specialists and
high-level researchers.
In addition, the automation of the means of production and the digitization of information
processing encourage human resources management to carry out major reclassifications of the
workforce and the reorganization of work, the content of tasks; the status of the employees,
etc. In my opinion, these changes can be analysed at two levels: 1) the general impact of new
digital technologies on work and specific activities is associated with certain forms of new
production, such as communication and digital interaction platforms; 2) the automation of the
means of activity eliminates routine tasks and develops more analytical, interactive and non-
standard tasks for highly qualified employees. Adding that the combination of automation and
digitization also contributes to the creation of highly competitive and scalable ways of reor-
ganizing professional work. These changes can increase stress and suffering at work, either
because of increased responsibility or because of the risk of failing and losing the job. Another
trend in HRM practice is the fragmentation of tasks and new methods of communicating infor-
mation that create huge opportunities for internal and external mobility between the place of
the organization or company and the place where the work can be done (teleworking at home,
traveling, business trips or in places dedicated to coworking, etc.). It is necessary to analyse
these risks: more specifically, working hours may become uncontrollable and may be aggra-
vated by employers’ demands; there is also a risk of invasion of work into the private lives

Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

5
of employees and also increases in nervous illness and burnout. Finally, my analysis carried
out and other studies carried out on human resources management and cited in the article find
that it is absolutely necessary to make profound improvements in the monitoring of the career
path of employees and to eliminate certain gaps and abuses in the management of professional
careers within the organization. In this era of intense competition, all organizations must pri-
oritize and value human capabilities and place their interests together with the fundamental
needs and objectives of their business. At the same time, human resources management must
play a central role in eliminating the practice of treating employees as machines that have to
bring only the benefits to their organization. In conclusion, human resources management
still needs to make huge progress in its activity to bring synergy between the organization and
its employees to work towards a common goal - productivity, efficiency, profitability of the
organization and self-satisfaction, fulfilment, achievement of each employee.

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Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.

6
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Academia Letters, August 2021 ©2021 by the author — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0

Corresponding Author: Svetlana Radtchenko-Draillard, radtchenkodraillards@gmail.com

Citation: Radtchenko-Draillard, S. (2021). Human Resources In The Professional Sphere: Performance and
Flaws in Their Management. Academia Letters, Article 2499. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL2499.