Emmanuel DRIEUX ERASMUS, France

Human Resources Management

Project
Guests (2011)* thought-piece on HRM and performance highlights the shortcomings of our knowledge and understanding surrounding the possible links between HRM and performance. Choose any TWO topics covered in the course and critically assess our level of knowledge and understanding as to how they affect organisational performance. What do we know? What gaps remain? What should be done to address these gaps?

Introduction

As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, Nothing is permanent, but change. Human Resources managers and scholars deal with the evolution of the society to find the best way to manage the work in organisation. Indeed, the society has known a lot of evolution for decades. As an example, the aging of baby boomers and the increase in life expectations have a strong influence of human resources management. Consider by Armstrong (2006) as the management of an organization's employees, the human resources management is the part of an organisation responsible to plan the working conditions. Face to the evolutions in the society, an abundant literature emerges on the best way to manage people in order to increase performance of the organisation and by taking account of these changes. However, the knowledge of real output of human resources management initiatives seems to be limited according to Guest (2011). A lot of human resources topics could be chosen in order to illustrate the limit of our knowledge, but it seems to be interesting to focus on two of them as symbols of this statement. Thereby, the management of aging workforce and the consideration of balancing work and life by human resources management could constitute two examples of the complexity to manage societal evolutions in organisations. In fact, a lot of stereotypes and common ideas surround these questions which make their understanding really hard. For instance, face to the ageing population; opinions are divided between the fact of hiring more old workers, considered as more than 50 years old worker, or to privilege young workers. The aim of this essay will be to introduce the questions of old workers and the balance between work and life in current organisations and the controversies linked to them in human resources management

As shown the French debate around the extension of the age of retirement, the question of old workers is more and more pregnant in developed countries. Several factors can explain the increase in age of workers. The first of them is demographic; indeed, the life expectation has rose by 10years between 1960 and now in western countries. This growth of life span comes from the progress of healthcare and the change in the economic structure such as the expansion of the tertiary sector at the expense of more manual jobs which tired bodies. Otherwise, the demographic issue lead to a more economic one. Western countries face a demographic time bomb, the more the people will live older the more it will be difficult for the countries to implement viable pension plans. It is necessary to evoke another root of the increase of old workers. This one is social. The retirement involves the separation with the working life that constitutes an important space in the social life. Thus, people want to work longer in order to struggle against social exclusion. For all these reasons, the employment rate of people over 55 for men and 50 for women has increased since 2004, according to a Labour Force Survey. 27.6% of men in employment and 26.1% of women are over 50. Another evolution concerning the old workers concerns there work time. The part of full time job in old workers is increasing. This fact shows that people are more and more concerned about money.

Both states and organisations try to manage the question of old workers. As an example, the UK legislation tends to fight the discrimination which touches the old workers. It is the case of Employment Equality Regulation of October 2006 which tries to help people old workers to continue their job. This legislation reduces the incentives to retire early, gives to people the right to request to work after the 65 years old legal age of retirement. Also, this act increases the severity to discrimination on age. A major part of organisations seem to be reluctant to hire old workers. First of all they consider them as not volunteered to work, but more important, they are seen as too qualified, or maladjusted to the working market. As an example, to prepare my essay I went to Scotmid to buy some cans of an energetic beverage. The cashier searched on the package if the drink contained alcohol. After that he made a mistake and counted my order twice. He had to call an assistant to help him to repair the mistake. This example can be considered as a caricature but it embodies a common thought about old workers. Despite the legislation, a lot of stereotypes remains in the companies and influence the attitude of human resources manager against old workers. These stereotypes are positives but also negatives. It seems important to evoke them in order to understand the complexity of the

human resources management to study old workers. First of all, old workers are seen to be more committed, conscientious and patient in their work. Also, they benefit from a mature perspective which helps in team working and to have lower expectations. By reading these stereotypes, one could think that old workers present a lot of advantages and so can be a chance for the companies. But on another side, they are perceived as less efficient and more absent. The more common thought about them is the fact that they are resistant to change. The problem of qualification and evoked beyond with my Scotmid experience is ubiquitous in companies. Oswick and Rosenthal (2001) consider that the stereotypes about old worker in jobs is the main reason why companies drawn implicitly what they called an age typing of jobs. In spite of the evolution in the society and the appearing of a pro old worker legislation in the UK, human resources managers continue to have a problem to run this issue. According to a Metcalf and Meadows, 42% of the companies ask about the age during their recruitment process.

It is important to say that some companies seem to take into account the question of old workers. Some of them implement a special policy concerning them. The Metcalf and Meadows survey quoted previously shows that 67% of the organisations asked during the survey have an equal opportunities policy which concerned the age of workers. B&Q and Asda are known for their policy in favour of old workers. In these companies, they are promoted because they present an experience and a patience that younger worker could not provide. Nevertheless, these policies present a major limit; they just concern low jobs in the companies hierarchy. The companies who have the most advanced policy about the age of worker are retailing companies and the jobs concerned are the most time cashier or vendors. For example, my accountancy teacher explained us that the big Four auditing cabinets always hire young workers. This strategy is a part of seducing operation. Indeed, they want students to apply to apply in the companies where the employees seem to be the most dynamic. More generally, companies draw a portrait of the perfect employee, this one is nor old, nor young and is a man. (Riach and Loretto 2009) Except the fact that they mostly reject old workers, organisations are not able to answer their requirements. Generally speaking, this kind of workers has a preference for flexible, part-time and short contracts jobs. They globally want job with which they can conjugate personal life and job who permit to earn a sufficient amount of money. An example of this inequality between workers and companies concerns one main evolution of the past decades in the working life, flexible working. According to Smeaton and Vegeris (2009), old workers mainly

support the flexible working. However, companies do not give them the opportunity to implement their requirement, as shown Loretto et al (2007). It remains a lack of understanding between companies and workers that human resources management try to underline but some reasons of this incomprehension are really hard to evaluate. For example, the problem of discrimination is always exists, despite the legislation. A latent ageism, not affirmed tends to be in increase. The number of cases concerning this behaviour into companies has rose by 37% from 2008/2009 to 2009/2010.

Since the beginning of this essay, I have just explained the problem of resistance of organisations against the increase of old workers. But this issue could also be taken on the other side. Old workers are necessary in the current context to permit the growth of the economy but a major part of them doesnt want to continue to work (Vickerstaff et al 2008). Indeed, a lot of more 50 years old people claim their right to retire. The other reasons why they dont want to continue to work concern health considerations and a quite false idea that the fact to continue to work will have tax effect on their pension. Except the human resources managers, the issue of old workers continue to divide governments. As an example, the abolishment of the Default Retirement Age in 2011 in order to prevent discrimination against old workers has been criticized. This act permitted to give a chance for young workers. Generally the question of managing and ageing workforce create a tension between two of thinking. On one hand the one who want to permit everybody to work and on the other hand the one who want to open the labour market to young workers. Lastly, the topic seen on lecture 4 underlines the difficulties to human resources management to give a final answer to the question of ageing workforce. It is really hard to conciliate the need of the population to work for economic and demographic reason and the way to employ them. Stereotypes on old worker influence companies and scholars who have difficulties to manage these workers in order to obtain the best performance. The evaluation of workers is biased on stereotypes and reluctant which maintain that question as one of the future questioning on the organisation of work. This question enrols in a more general trend in human resources management issue saw in lecture 5, the balance between work and life.

In his book Hypermodern Times, the French sociologist Gilles Lipovetsky explains that individuals dont reach an amount of quantity but quality. In this perspective, people want to manage their own time between work and private life in order to live as more comfortable as possible. It is important to know the reasons why people want such a change to understand how human resources management try to answer it. The first reason is growing of life expectation and the lengthening of the retirement date. Workers have to work longer so they want this time to be more acceptable. Also, the extension of full time education leads to people who will have to work longer to afford they needs. Other reasons can be evoked. People want to devote time on their private life while continuing working. So, human resources management has to take into account new demands from the workers. On another side human resources management tends to develop balancing work with life in order to improve the performance of workers. This embodies the action of companies to improve the well-being of employees because they consider it as a key to performance. Google has been a pionner in this idea by the creation of their space in the company. In order to develop its employees creativity and conveniences by offering them a space designed for relaxation.

The question of childcare is central in the questioning around balancing work with life. The development of paid maternity in the last years is an example of this wish to have time for the family life. A lot of European government have implemented paid maternity in order to allow people to take time with their children. In the UK, the legislation on maternity leave has been meliorated on several occasions. In 2002, the Employment act extended the paid maternity from 18 to 26 weeks. Then, in 2006, the Work and Family had stretched its period to 52 weeks. The legislation around family life and maternity comes from Scandinavian country when the nuclear family is less important than other countries because of the priority gave to individuals. As an example, they were the first countries to give paid paternity leave. In the rest of European countries, the legislation seems to be late to that. For example, in France the paternity leave has been introduced in 2002 with a period of 11 days. But the question maternity leaves leads to problem for the human resources management. This kind of incentives give and advantage to people who have a family and develop misunderstanding over people who havent got ones. Family questions are not the only one linked to the managing of time between work and life. According to Maciness (2005), it exist several of flexibility needed by the workers. One of the question concerns the weekly time of working. European legislation and

companies try to manage to it to obtain an acceptable time of work associated to the most performing for the worker. In 1998, the British government limited it to 48 hours maximum in a week, with the possibility for employee to request for more. But the UK legislation is far from other one and the country stays one of the longer working hours ones in Europe. As an example, in France the legislation impose a maximum of 35 hours a week. But this topic has to be considered with economic problem. Human resources management has to improve the well-being of workers while maintaining the performance of the organisation. Thus, a lot of critics have emerged in France concerned the 35 hours legislation and its economic viability. Currently, French debates are concentrated on the difficulties for public services, and especially healthcare, to pay the expenses issued of the reduction working time. Indeed, with this legislation, workers accumulate paid days off. Organisations cannot afford them and hospital and central state struggle in order to know which one has to pay.

Another issue for the human resource management is the work at home. Some companies try to develop it. Behind this, one can find the idea that the more people are comfortable, the more they will perform in the organisation. This question of home working embodies the difficulties for human resources management to manage the idea of balancing work with life. Several problems emerges with working home, the first one is the evaluation of employees. The companies have difficulties to know if employees really work at home as much as they would have done if they were in their office. The fact of working outside the company also introduces a security issue. The development of third spaces to work such as coffee shop introduces the problem of keeping the private data safe. More generally, human resources management struggles to make initiative in favour of balancing work with life accepted by everyone. In fact, its practice is really different within sectors. For example a worker in service industry can work at home whereas its impossible for an agricultural labourer. That explains why the home working or the job sharing are more developed in the public or the finance sector rather than the manufacturing one. Also, autonomy and liberty in work can help in certain industry and notably in the software (Hyman et al 2003). That explained the development of third space in Google evoked higher. Finally, the question of balancing work with life makes up a lot of problem for human resources management in term of performance evaluation or adaptation to different kind of work.

Conclusion

To conclude, the evolution of the working market has pushed the human resources management to think about the best way to manage the work in organisation by taking into accounts the evolution of the society. One of the major evolutions is the ageing of workers, more and more of them want to work but the companies struggle to adapt themselves to this new situation. Indeed, stereotypes are omnipresent and the organisations dont manage to evaluate perfectly the performance of this kind of workers. As shown Jean Marc Moutouts movie Violence des changes en milieux tempr, organisations prefer to hire young worker as managers. The economic situation remains complicated because human resources management has to find the best to permit the most people to work while keeping and economic efficiency. Another issue for human resources management is the wish of workers to conjugate private life and working life. Here, organisations have to permit people to be well-adjusted by developing home working or time for their family life while maintain a good evaluation of the performance and by adapting measures to industrial or personnel specific situation. Finally, the resistance to change of organisation could be the subject of another essay to analyse how the modification in groups in order to improve the performance can stop the improvement in the state of change.

Bibliography

Armstrong, Michael (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice (10th ed). London: Kogan Page

CIPD Research Insight (2008) Managing an Ageing Workforce: The role of total reward, London: CIPD.

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Guest, D. (2011), Human resource management and performance: still searching for some answers, Human Resource Management Journal, 21, 1, pp3-13. Hyman J., Baldry C., Scholarios D., and Bunzel D. (2003), Work-life imbalance in call centres and software development, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Vol 41 No 2, pp.215-239.

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Lipovetsky, G. and Charles, S. (2005) Hypermodern Times, Polity, London Loretto, W. and Vickerstaff, S. (2010) The Relationship Between Gender and Age, in E. Parry and S. Tyson (eds) Managing an Age-Diverse Workforce, London, Palgrave Macmillan.

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Moutout, J, M. (2004) Violence des changes en milieu temprs Riach, K. and Loretto, W. (2009) Identity Work and the Unemployed Worker: age, disability and the lived experience of the older unemployed, Work, Employment and Society, 23 (1), 102-119.

Smeaton, D. and Vegeris, S. (2009) Older People Inside and Outside the Labour Market: A Review, Research Report 22, Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Smeaton, D., Vegeris, S. and Sahin-Dikmen, M. (2010) Older Workers: Employment Preferences, Barriers and Solutions, Research Report 43, Equality and Human Rights Commission.

Loretto, W., Vickerstaff, S. and White, S. (2007) Flexible work and older workers, in W. Loretto, S. Vickerstaff and P White (eds) (2007) The Future for Older Workers: New Perspectives, Bristol: The Policy Press.

Metcalf, H. and Meadows, P. (2010) Second Survey of Employers Policies, Practices and Preferences Relating to Age, 2010, London, BIS and DWP, Research Report No. 10.

Oswick C, and Rosenthal, P (2001), 'Towards a Relevant Theory of Age Discrimination in Employment' in M. Noon and E. Ogbonna (ed.), Equality, Diversity and Disadvantage in Employment, Palgrave, p.156-171