HR Design for a Hypothetical Firm

Hatch (1997) and Perrow (1990) are among the organizational theorists who offer concrete suggestions for firm managers who will be charged with establishing HR departments, many of which will be used in the overall design of the hypothetical firm called for in this assignment. As Perrow observes, the only way to get consistent results in hiring is to have a consistent hiring process. Others agree with this belief. ôYou need consistency in recruiting, consistency in interviewing, and consistency in selecting candidates and extending offers. And there is only one sure way to achieve the required consistency -- centralized control (Brewster, 1995, 14).

During the last ten years, much attention has been given in the academic and management literature concerning the topic of Employee Management (Adam & Ebert, 1990; Daniels & Burns, 1997). The theories expressed by these authors apply more directly and relevantly to the particular business of providing services (which is of course exactly what a management consulting firm is).

The company is still new to the operations management concept, but the top management and the HR director are willing to try anything. After much research, management has learned the importance of approaching the planning in a logical and flexible manner (Hersey, Blanchard & Johnson, 1996). The short range goal for the operation is to have key elements of a developmental plan that is lo

. . .
such products and services have manufacturing or delivery characteristics in common. Therefore, HR planning and its ability to expedite production flow are natural additions to the strategic planning mix. Aggregate planning, as a subset of HR planning, opens channels of communication between top management and manufacturing. The production plan summarizes the production resources that are needed to achieve the strategic objectives of the firm. The objectives of HR Production Planning are (a) determining production quotas during each time period in the intermediate time chart, and (b) adjusting employment capacity to meet the production requirements (Zhiwei, Cernich, Meredith, Lanier, 1997). The HR manager has several options available to him or her for making these capacity adjustments: (a) The work force can be expanded by hiring more temporary workers (b) The length of the workweek can be expanded by working Saturdays and Sundays. (c) The number of shifts worked can be expanded into two, or around the clock particularly in some word processing preparation functions. It is the plan of the HR program to utilize aggregate production techniques to maintain schedules of a master production schedule utilizing two separat
. . .

Some common words found in the essay are:
Roles Cohen, Saturdays Sundays, Training Zweig, Overview Hatch, HR Management, Meredith Lanier, Daniels Burns, Dr Cohen, Aravindan Natarajan, Blanchard Johnson, hr planning, hr department, aravindan natarajan 1997, human resource management, adam ebert, journal operations, production management, operations production, john wiley sons, objectives hr, zhiwei cernich meredith, international journal, york john wiley, meredith lanier, natarajan 1997,
Approximate Word count = 1315
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page)

More Essays on HR Design for a Hypothetical Firm