1.2 Internal Factors
Internal factors that may impact an HR manager are the elements generally within the company’s control that can have a significant impact on HR policies, practices, and outcomes. Key internal factors include:
Organization Culture
Understood as the organization’s shared values, beliefs and attitudes and how they impact the employee’s behaviour. The culture of organizations is viewed by employees within the mission and vision statements ( part of the strategic plan). It speaks to symbols, stories, and ceremonial events. As well, it helps employees gain a sense of purpose, describes the norms of the company (which are the beliefs, values and attitudes). The culture shapes the attitudes of the employees and defines employees’ roles within the company.
The result is loyal and committed employees. A bank with its bureaucratic structure and hierarchy has a different culture from Facebook, which has less structure and a flattened hierarchy. HR departments are important to the organizational culture in creating and maintaining the proper culture. They may have employee-of-the-month wall pictures to celebrate an employee’s achievements. Companies plan parties, baseball games, and family outings for employees. A logo for a company is distinct and viewed as a symbol for employees. All these cultural efforts support recruiting employees and help to retain employees through loyalty.
Management Practice
Traditional hierarchical structures are built as pyramids. The CEO leads the organization, and everyone else is a subordinate. There are many levels of management, with employees at the bottom of the pyramid. It serves employees to work smart and find opportunities for advancement. Often, employees become specialists in the field and narrow their focus to their own department. Communication across departments can be challenging. Sometimes, companies are slow to change as they are bogged down in bureaucracy.
Management practices have shifted over the years from traditional hierarchical structures to flat structures that strive for better communication and relationship building between management and employees. The result is a simpler and more efficient chain of command. In turn, employees have more responsibility to make decisions. By eliminating the middle manager, the budget costs are lower. HR departments play an important role in creating and implementing management practices through performance management and through designing employee compensation, training and development for advancement, goal setting with employees, and helping the organization simplify its technology and analytics.
Organizational Climate
Refers to the atmosphere of the organization and the employee’s perception of the organization (Jay, n.d.). It is much like a personality, with each person being unique. Each company wants to be unique, too. The climate of the company influences the behaviour of the employees in how they build relationships, their autonomy and the organizational structure. Some employee perception examples include whether employees are trusted to complete their jobs without micromanaging, whether they feel they are developing in the company, and whether they are rewarded for high performance. Employees who are happy are productive employees. HR can support the organizational climate by using surveys to measure the “temperature” of the organization and make suggestions to improve the climate for employee satisfaction and skill development that leads to higher productivity. This results in employee retention and more profits.
Technology
Technology has revolutionized how organizations function. They have the ability to automate all processes/products/services, overhead costs are reduced, employees are more productive, customers are served better, and remote work opens a wider pool of talent for companies. Digital innovation allows organizations to easily control work with more uniformity, opens up faster communication through email, instant messages and video conferencing. Through quicker communication, collaboration is increased, which leads to more creativity. Employees and teams can respond to problems and changes in minutes with solutions. Technology eliminates waste, resulting in cost savings and increased revenue. It has and will continue to shape the workplace and innovation. HR departments use technology to hire employees, support administration, training and development, provide analytics, and much more. There are many technological tools that help HR Managers make decisions related to attendance, legal issues, track employee progress, and assist in the strategic alignment of the business. Communication is enhanced between the company and employees with relevant and up-to-date data and reports.
“1.5 Human Resources and Environmental Factors” from Human Resources Management – 3rd Edition Copyright © 2023 by Debra Patterson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.
