HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENTIN INDIAN COAST GUARDWAY AHEAD1. INTRODUCTIONa. Human Resource Management involves recruiting [pic]Personnel and their training, salary administration and handling union management relations. Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organizations most valued assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business.[1] The terms “human resource management” and “human resources” (HR) have largely replaced the term “personnel management” as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations.
[1]Its features include: ??? Personnel administration ??? Personnel management ??? Manpower management ??? Industrial managementb. But these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the theoretical discipline. Sometimes even industrial relations and employee relations are confusingly listed as synonyms, although these normally refer to the relationship between management and workers and the behavior of workers in companies. The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.c. HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach.
Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in risk reduction within organizations. Synonyms such as personnel management are often used in a more restricted sense to describe activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. So if we move to actual definitions, Torrington and Hall (1987) define personnel management as being ???a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing organizations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled”While Miller (1987) suggests that HRM relates to:”..
…..those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining competitive advantage”The goal of human resource management is to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining employees and also to manage them effectively. The key word here perhaps is “fit”, i.
e. a HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an organizations employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller, 1989).d. The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines; therefore we need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace. Fields such as psychology, industrial engineering, industrial, Legal/Paralegal Studies and organizational psychology, industrial relations, sociology, and critical theories: postmodernism, post-structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities offer bachelor and master degrees in Human Resources Management.
e. One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields for the HRM function:[6] ??? Strategic business partner ??? Change agent ??? Employee champion ??? Administrationf. However, many HR functions these days struggle to get beyond the roles of administration and employee champion, and are seen rather as reactive as strategically proactive partners for the top management. In addition, HR organizations also have the difficulty in proving how their activities and processes add value to the company. Only in the recent years HR scholars and HR professionals are focusing to develop models that can measure if HR adds value.[7]2. LEAN AND EFFICIENTa. Postmodernism plays an important part in Academic Theory and particularly in Critical Theory.
Indeed Karen Legge in Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities possess the debate of whether HRM is a modernist project or a postmodern discourse (Legge 2004). In many ways, critically or not, many writers contend that HRM itself is an attempt to move away from the modernist traditions of personnel (man as machine) towards a postmodernist view of HRM (man as individuals). Critiques include the notion that because Human is the subject we should recognize that people are complex and that it is only through various discourses that we understand the world. Man is not Machine, no matter what attempts are made to change it i.e. Fordism / Taylorism, McDonaldisation (Modernism).
b. Critical Theory also questions whether HRM is the pursuit of “attitudinal shaping” (Wilkinson 1998), particularly when considering empowerment, or perhaps more precisely pseudo-empowerment – as the critical perspective notes. Many critics note the move away from Man as Machine is often in many ways, more a Linguistic (discursive) move away than a real attempt to recognize the Human in Human Resource Management. Critical Theory, in particular postmodernism (poststructuralist), recognizes that because the subject is people in the workplace, the subject is a complex one, and therefore simplistic notions of the best way or unitary perspectives on the subject are too simplistic.
It also considers the complex subject of power, power games, and office politics. Power in the workplace is a vast and complex subject that cannot be easily defined. This leaves many critics to suggest that Management Gurus, consultants, best practice and HR models are often overly simplistic, but in order to sell an idea, they are simplified, and often lead Management as a whole to fall into the trap of oversimplifying the relationship.3. HUMAN FACTORa. It is a term with which many organizations describe the combination of traditionally administrative personnel functions with performance, Employee Relations and resource planning.
The field draws upon concepts developed in Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Human resources has at least two related interpretations depending on context. The original usage derives from political economy and economics, where it was traditionally called labor, one of four factors of production. The more common usage within corporations and businesses refers to the individuals within the firm, and to the portion of the firms organization that deals with hiring, firing, training, and other personnel issues.
This article addresses both definitions. The objective of Human Resources is to maximize the return on investment from the organizations human capital and minimize financial risk. It is the responsibility of human resource managers to conduct these activities in an effective, legal, fair, and consistent manner.Human resource management serves these key functions: 1. Selection 2. Training and Development 3. Performance Evaluation and Management 4.
Promotions 5. Redundancy 6. Industrial and Employee Relations 7. Record keeping of all personal data. 8. Compensation, pensions, bonuses etc in liaison with Payroll 9. Confidential advice to internal customers in relation to problems at work 10.
Career development4. CHALLENGES AHEADa. Emergence of the Coast Guard in India on 01 Feb 1977 as a new service was the result of an awareness that had been growing for some time in the Government for the requirement to enforce National Laws in the waters under national jurisdiction and ensure safety of life and property at sea. It was also considered desirable that these law enforcement responsibilities should be undertaken by a service suitably equipped and modeled on the Coast Guards of advanced nations like USA, UK etc leaving the Navy to exercise the fleet for its wartime role.
b. A committee was, therefore, constituted in Sep 1974 with Mr KF Rustamji as its chairman to study the problem of seaborne smuggling and the question of setting up a Coast Guard type of organization. This committee recommended the setting up of a Coast Guard Service patterned on the Navy for general superintendence and policing of our seas in peace time under administrative cover of the Ministry of Defence. The Maritime Zones of India Act was passed on 25 Aug 1976. Under this Act, India claimed 2.
01 million sq km of sea area in which she has the exclusive rights for exploration and exploitation of resources, both living and non-living at sea. Following this a Cabinet decision was taken by which an interim Coast Guard Organization came into being on 01 Feb 1977. The Coast Guard in its present shape was formally inaugurated on 18 Aug 1978 as an independent armed force of the union with the enactment of the Coast Guard Act 1978 by the Parliament with its motto as `VAYAM RAKSHAMAH; which means `WE PROTECT.5. CONCLUSIONThe need for a Coast Guard force in India to perform various non-military maritime roles had been felt for sometime, particularly by Naval Headquarters. It was however, not until 31 Aug 1974 that a serious official consideration was given to this problem when the Defence Secretary addressed a note to the Cabinet Secretary, spelling out the need for setting up of a Coast Guard type national organisation. In essence the Defence Secretary??™s note brought out that an organisation for ensuring safety of life and property at sea and for law enforcement in the waters under our jurisdiction had not kept pace with the substantial increase in maritime activity in our surrounding seas.
The note had further suggested that a suitable inter-ministerial body could examine the adequacy of the existing organisations and the possibility of closer coordination between their activities either by merging some or establishing a central organisation like a Coast Guard. In this context, the Chief of the Naval Staff had also stressed the need for greater inter-ministerial coordination in the maritime field to avoid duplication of effort and for dovetailing measures to ensure that the national objectives are attained by an integrated approach. It was also felt that the law enforcement activities should not be undertaken by the Navy, which would inevitably detract them from their operational role and interfere with their training. Further, deployment of sophisticated warships and manpower trained for specialised roles, on law enforcement tasks on a continuos basis in peace time neither was nor considered cost-effective.For an effective Coast Guard service, no single factor is as important as the men who are in it. Despite the all-round technological advancement, the single most important factor even today, are the Officer and Men? who will ultimately meet the challenge at sea.
For the Coast Guard to be efficient, it requires top rate men. You could be just the man for this challenging sea-going career if you are intelligent and bold and can think with originality and possess leadership qualities.? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? Service in Coast Guard is not merely an employment, it is where you play the most important role of protecting the national interests of your motherland. The life of a Coast Guard officer is a happy mix of many things: hard work, professionalism, risk and adventure and the opportunity to move around and visit different placed within India and abroad and to meet a variety of people. There is also the satisfaction of being involved in the nation??™s defence.
Thus career in the Coast Guard cannot be measured in financial terms only.Good pay and abundant perks are supplemented by a constantly improving job satisfying versatile career difficult to match in civil life.
