1.
HRM
Kannur University 2017-19 MBA
Module-2 Challenges in HRM
Competitive Challenges- Work force Diversity- Protean careers- Moonlighting
Jinuachan Vadakkemulanjanal
Vimal Jyothi Institute of Management & Research,
Chemperi PO, Kannur Dr , Kerala-670632 www.vjim.ac.in
jinuachan@gmail.com; +91-9447373415; 04602213399; 2212240

2.
Module -2
• Competitive Challenges and HRM
• Competitive Challenges: Technological
Changes
• Workforce Diversity and Employee
empowerment
• Managing protean careers- Moonlighting
Phenomenon
• Moonlighting Phenomenon –relevance issues
in role/case/discussion

3.
Competitive Challenges and HRM
• Technological changes
• Workforce diversity- multi culture issues
• Contextual issues
• Change management- at par with technology
• Outsourcing- non core HR
• Health and welfare – workplace safety & privacy concern
• Recruitment and availability of skilled labour
• Retention and succession planning
• Restructuring- process and services
• Industrial relations – stress, target, personal issues,
• Employee compensation and rewards -
• Retirement

4.
Technological changes
• Exponential Growth in knowledge : trade in
knowledge-intensive goods and services such as
biomedicine, robotics, and engineering- AI, ML, VR,AR
• Shift in human competencies: knowledge workers.
• Global market connection: Technology is dissolving
borders and creating an interconnected marketplace.
• Business & IT: Easy to use communication as
whatsapp, e-mail, electronic conferencing, and
databases for better decisions to geographically
dispersed workers.
• Innovation: Teams of marketing, engineering, and
production personnel working in parallel with
computerized files, data, information develop products
faster. Eg Simulations

5.
• Quality improvement: The entire process of production,
marketing, and servicing is enhanced by computer
monitoring systems and through robotics
• Artificial Intelligence: The expert systems - computerized
programs- capture the knowledge processing & decision
making process as in analytics
• Rapid response: Technology permits quicker
communications, which allows faster decision-making.
• Automated services: Routine process, services, IVR,
guided demos, kiosks, vending machines
• Easy Payment services: internet, plastic money, m-
banking, cardless cash, UPI
• Advanced logistic services : tracking, video monitoring

6.
Workforce Diversity
• Hiring people for a work place with different
human qualities or who belong to various cultural
groups
• Workforce diversity consisting of a broad
heterogeneous mix of workers from different racial
and ethnic background of different ages and
genders, and of different domestic and national
cultures
• Diversity encompasses race, gender, ethnic group,
age, personality, cognitive style, tenure,
organizational function, education background,
Economic level, Sexual orientation and more

7.
• Primary Dimensions: Inborn difference - Have an
impact throughout one’s life: Gender, age, ethnicity,
gender orientation, physical ability, race
• Secondary Dimensions: Acquired or changed
throughout one’s lifetime Have less impact – still
impact self definition: Marital status, parental status,
work background, income group, education, religious
experience, Political Views
Dimensions of Diversity

8.
To identify, attract, and retain, the best people of
each group.
To create a workplace where that talent can perform
at its best to maximize shareholders value
Workforce Diversity

9.
Attitudes Toward Diversity
• Ethnocentrism = belief that one’s own group or
subculture is inherently superior to other groups
or cultures
• Enthno-relativism = belief that groups and
subcultures are inherently equal
• Pluralism = an organization accommodates several
subcultures
• Monoculture = A culture that accepts only one
way to do things. There is only one set of values
and beliefs

10.
 Optimize the productivity.
 Enhanced creativity, innovation, and value in
today’s global marketplace
 Increase the loyalty of employees.
 Getting competitive advantage.
 Improving decision making by providing different
perspective on problems. Generate more and better
alternatives to problems
 Satisfy diverse needs of customers:
 Integrate the cultural benefits, Enhance corporate
reputation
 Produce more creative solutions than homogeneous teams
Significance of Workforce Diversity

11.
High –low context Diversity
• High and Low Context refers to the attitude of
the people due to cultural differences
between societies.
• The "high context" and "low context"
popularized by Edward Hall.
• High context refers to societies or groups
where people have close connections over a
long period of time as Family, clan, tribe

12.
High –low context Diversity

13.
Challenges For Management
CHALLENGES OF
CULTURAL
DIVERSITY
Organization Culture
Valuing differences
Prevailing value system
Cultural inclusion
HR Management Systems (Bias
Free?)
Recruitment
Training and development
Performance appraisal
Compensation and benefits
Promotion
Higher Career Involvement of
Women
Dual-career couples
Sexism and sexual harassment
Work-family conflict
Heterogeneity in
Race/Ethnicity/National
ityEffect on cohesiveness,
communication, conflict, morale
Effects of group identity on
interaction (e.g., stereotyping)
Prejudice (racism, ethnocentrism)
Promoting knowledge and
acceptance
Education Programs
Educate management on
valuing differences
Taking advantage of the
opportunities that diversify
provides
Source: Taylor H. Cox and Stacy Blake,”Managing Cultural Diversity: Implications For Organizational Competitiveness,” Academy of Management Executive 5, no 3 (1991), 45-56

14.
Employee Empowerment
• Employee empowerment is giving employees a
certain degree of autonomy and responsibility for
decision-making regarding their specific
organizational tasks.
• Empowered employees are committed, loyal and
conscientious. They are eager to share ideas and
can serve as strong ambassadors for their
organizations
• It is obtained by transfer of authority to make
decisions and take actions.

15.
• Controlled transfer of authority to make
decisions and take action
• It gives front-line employees the authority to
make decisions
• Power-sharing, trust, team-building
• “Its not about having power over other
people.
• Its about empowering people to step up and
lead.

16.
• A primary goal of employee empowerment is to give
workers a greater voice in decisions about work-
related matters.
• Their decision-making authority range from offering
suggestions to exercising veto power over
management decisions.
• Possible areas include: how jobs are to be
performed, working conditions, company policies,
work hours, peer review, and how supervisors are
evaluated

17.
Need for empowerment

18.
How to empower?
• Theoretical basis

19.
Motivation theories
• Maslow – hierarchy of needs.
• Alderfer – ERG theory: Existence needs,
relatedness needs and growth needs.
• McClelland – Need for achievement, affiliation
and power.
• Herzberg – Two factor theory X-Y.
• Skinner's reinforcement theory.
• Vroom's expectancy theory.
• Adams' equity theory.
• Locke's goal-setting theory.

20.
Types of Empowerment
Types of empowerment: by Bowen and Lawler
1) Suggestion involvement
2) Job involvement
3) High involvement
• Decision-making Empowerment
• Financial Empowerment
• Time Management Empowerment
• Shared Information Empowerment
• Cultural empowerment

21.
Components of empowerment
1. Foster a Social Workforce
2. Consult Employees
3. Establish Guidelines
4. Create Flexible Team Structures
5. Encourage Open Communication
6. Inspire Employee Growth & Development
7. Provide a Level of Freedom
Ref: Fundamental Components Required in Your Employee
Empowerment Strategy taken from research Aria Solar on
August 07, 2017

22.
benefits
• It strengthen motivation by intrinsic rewards
from their work
• It can increase productivity is through better
decisions: Toyota employees to identify and help remedy
problems occurring during product assembly
• Increases trust & belongingness to the
organization
• Improved employer satisfaction. By being
shared, organizational power can grow.

23.
Challenges
• Insufficient Training, skills
• Reluctant Managers
• Breakdown of Organizational Structure
• Giving up control can be threatening to some
managers.
• Managers may not want to share power with
someone they look down upon.
• Managers fear losing their own place and
special privileges in the system.

24.
Discussion
Employee Empowerment Good Or Bad?

25.
Employee Empowerment
Good Or Bad
• Pros of Employee Empowerment
• It leads to greater job satisfaction, motivation,
increased productivity and reduces the costs.
• It also leads to creativity and innovation since
the employees have the authority to act on
their own.
• There is increased efficiency in employees
because of increased ownership in their work.
• Lesser need of supervision and delegation.

26.
Employee Empowerment
Good Or Bad
• Employees when empowered become more
entrepreneurial and start taking more risks.
Greater the risk, greater are the chances to
succeed.
• Focus on quality from the level of
manufacturing till actual delivery and service
of goods.

27.
Employee Empowerment
Good Or Bad
• Cons of Employee Empowerment
• Egotism / arrogance: Worker arrogance can
create a big trouble for the supervisors and the
managers. There can be problems in delegating.
Employees avoid reporting about their work and
feedback can be taken negatively.
• Risk: Creativity and innovation demands a greater
risk bearing capacity and there are equal chances
of success and failure. Workers often lack the
expertise to execute are enterprise, which can
cost big.

28.
Employee Empowerment
Good Or Bad
• Industrial Democracy: Labor unions and
workers are empowered and they may misuse
the same. Strikes and lock outs become more
frequent. Also, labor unions gain insights into
management and their functioning and they
leak the same.
• Security: Since information comes and is
shared by all, there are apprehensions about
leakage of critical data

29.
Protean Careers
• The protean career is a process which the person,
not the organization, is managing.
• It consists of all of the person's varied experiences
in education, training, work in several
organizations, changes in occupational field, etc.
• The protean person's own personal career choices
and search for self-fulfillment are the unifying or
integrative elements in his or her life. (iD Musthafa PC)
• The criterion of success is internal (psychological
success), not external/salary/grade.
Ref: Hall, D.T. (2004). Protean career, a Sloan Work and Family Encyclopedia
entry. Retrieved May 10, 2007, p201

30.
• The career of newgen will be protean, which is driven by
the person, not the organization, and that will be
reinvented by the person from time to time, as the person
and the environment change.
• The Protean Career is a concept that requires everyone to
1) monitor and assess the job market; 2) anticipate
future developments, trends, and industry shifts, 3) gain
the necessary skills, qualifications, relationships, and
assets to meet the shifts 4) adapt quickly to thrive in an
ever-changing workplace.
• The word “Protean” comes from the Mythical Greek Sea
God“Proteus,” who was best known adaptability.

31.
Characteristic of protean career
• Focus on psychological success rather than vertical success
• Lifelong series of identity changes and continuous learning
• Career age counts, not chronological age
• Job security replaced by the goal of employability
• Sources of development are work challenges and
relationships, not necessarily training and retraining
programs
• The new career contract is not a pact with the organization;
rather, it is an agreement with one’s self and one’s work
• Focus on learning metaskills (learning how to learn), i.e., how
to develop self-knowledge (about one’s identity) and
adaptability
• Adaptability and identity learning is best accomplished
through interactions with other people (reflected in
interdependence, mutuality, reciprocity, and learning from
differences)

32.
Boundaryless Career
• Individuals careers are becoming boundaryless,
reflecting career paths that go beyond the boundaries of
single employment settings (Defillippi & Arthur, 1996).
• careers that involve & moves across the physical
boundaries of separate employers, such as stereotypical
Silicon Valley careers.
• It encourages mobility, flexibility, the development of
knowledge and networks, and the taking of
responsibility for one's own career.
• The boundaryless career resonates effectively with the
temporary organization structures and “knowledge
workers” becoming characteristic of the new century.

33.
• Baker and Aldrich (1996) defining it in three
dimensional terms: 1) number of employers
2)extent of knowledge accumulation 3) the
role of personal identity
2) the degree of market valued skills and knowledge
(general skills) that an individual gains through
multiple work experiences
3) how a career can be identity enhancing, particularly
in work settings that facilitate working toward
challenging but attainable goals and which build on a
sense of who they are (Baker & Aldrich, 1996).

34.
Salzman’s Alternative Paths ƒ
• Backtrackers: choosing self demotion ƒ
Plateauers: purposely staying at one level to
stay in control of your life ƒ
• Career shifters: transfer skills to less
pressured field (not career changer) ƒ
• Self employers: going solo to gain
more control over work ƒ
• Urban escapees: people who opt to
live in less stressful geographic areas

35.
Knowledge workers
• Workers responsibilities are extend beyond the
physical execution of work to include planning,
decision making, and problem solving.
• They under go knowledge based training. Online
instruction
• “Just-in-time” learning via the Internet on company
intranets
• Eg purchase study,

36.
Moonlighting
Moonlighting is defined as an employee’s tendency to work
with two different companies at the same time. To work in
both the companies, they divide their work on the basis of
day and night. It is also known as double jobbing
In today’s fading economy most of the employees are
looking for moonlighting for:
• More income,
• Test a job in different profile,
• Lack of motivation and recognition by the employer
• Spare time for newly start-up business.

37.
Moonlighting Phenomenon etc
• Moonlighting arises among employees on
account of dissatisfaction from present wage &
salary structure.
• They feel that employer enjoys the increased
profit and that they are being exploited by the
employer.
• Consequently they agitate for hike in wages or
take up another part-time job or business
simultaneously with that of the original job. This
is also known as Double Jobbing.

38.
Moonlighting….
• It affects almost all the functions of Human
Resource Management.
• Its effects would be mostly negative & it
poses challenges to the personnel manager.
• Presently very limited number of employees
does moonlighting,
• Immediate grievance address is needed to
eliminate it

39.
Types of moonlighting
• Blue moon,
• Quarter moon,
• Half-moon and
• Full moon.

40.
Dual Career Group issues
• There has been a tremendous increase in the number of
female employees in all types of organizations.
• Both wife & husband will be loaded with grievances &
problems as both of them share their problems, both at
work and off the job.
• They spend their time and energy in solving the
problems or grievances redressel for both.
• There will be possibility of less commitment to the work
in the organization by both the parties
• So, treat people as resources, reward them equitably,
and integrate their aspirations with corporate goals
through suitable HR policies.

41.
References
• Mejia, Luis Gomez; Balkin, David B & Cardy, Robert L, Managing
Human Resources, PHI learning Pvt Ltd, Delhi 2006-5th edi
• Snell , Bohlander; Human Resource Management,
• Armstrong, Michael; Armstrongs’s Handbook of Human
Resource management Practice, 2012, 12th edi
• Belcourt Monica and McBey Kenneth J, ‘Strategic Human
Resources Planning’, 2nd ed. Noida: Thomson Pub, 2007
• https://cb.hbsp.harvard.edu/cbmp/pages/discipline/humanres
ources
• http://www.hrmguide.co.uk/hrm

42.
Jinuachan Vadakkemulanjanal
Administrator & Faculty,
Vimal Jyothi Institutions
Chemperi PO, Kannur Dr , Kerala-670632 www.vjim.ac.in
jinuachan@gmail.com; +91-9447373415; 04602213399; 2212240
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