Knowledge Management-1

There is a broad range of thought on Knowledge Management with no unanimous definition. The approaches vary by author and school. Knowledge Management may be viewed from each of the following perspectives:

Techno-centric: A focus on technology, ideally those that enhance knowledge sharing/growth.

Organizational: How does the organization need to be designed to facilitate knowledge processes? Which organizations work best with what processes?

Ecological: Seeing the interaction of people, identity, knowledge and environmental factors as a complex adaptive system.

In addition, as the discipline is maturing, there is an increasing presence of academic debates within epistemology emerging in both the theory and practice of knowledge management. British and Australian standards bodies both have produced documents that attempt to bound and scope the field, but these have received limited acceptance or awareness.

Knowledge Management has always existed in one form or another. Examples include on-the-job peer discussions, formal apprenticeship, discussion forums, corporate libraries, professional training and mentoring programs. However, with computers becoming more widespread in the second half of the 20th century, specific adaptations of technology such as knowledge bases, expert systems, and knowledge repositories have been introduced to further enhance the process.

The emergence of Knowledge Management has also generated new roles and responsibilities in organizations, an early example of which was the Chief Knowledge Officer. In recent years, Personal knowledge management (PKM) practice has arisen in which individuals apply KM practice to themselves, their roles and their career development.

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Skills Management -2

Skills management systems record the results of this process in a database, and allow analysis of the data.
In order to perform the functions of management and to assume multiple roles, managers must be skilled. Robert Katz identified three managerial skills that are essential to successful management: technical, human, and conceptual*. Technical skill involves process or technique knowledge and proficiency. Managers use the processes, techniques and tools of a specific area. Human skill involves the ability to interact effectively with people. Managers interact and cooperate with employees. Conceptual skill involves the formulation of ideas. Managers understand abstract relationships, develop ideas, and solve problems creatively.

Thus, technical skill deals with things, human skill concerns people, and conceptual skill has to do with ideas. A manager's level in the organization determines the relative importance of possessing technical, human, and conceptual skills. Top level managers need conceptual skills in order to view the organization as a whole. Conceptual skills are used in planning and dealing with ideas and abstractions. Supervisors need technical skills to manage their area of specialty. All levels of management need human skills in order to interact and communicate with other people successfully.
As the pace of change accelerates and diverse technologies converge, new global industries are being created (for example, telecommunications). Technological change alters the fundamental structure of firms and calls for new organizational approaches and management skills.
ref: wikipedia

Training and Development

Processes covered in Human Resources Management we are talking here. We talked Workforce planning, Recruitment, Induction and Orientation, Skills management in previous post. Today we are going to talk about Training and Development.

In organizational development, the related field of training and development (T & D) deals with the design and delivery of learning to improve performance, skills, or knowledge within organizations.

In some organizations the term Learning and Development is used instead of Training and Development in order to emphasise the importance of learning for the individual and the organization. In other organizations, the term Human Resource Development is used.

Training and Development includes following topics.

• Coaching
• Continuing Professional Development
• E-learning aka Online Learning, Distance Learning, Web-Based Learning
• Executive education
• Executive development
• Leadership development
• Instructional Animation
• Instructional Design
• Instructional Strategies
• Knowledge Management
• Mentoring
• Organizational Learning
• Structured Training
• Teaching Method
• Teletraining
• Training Within Industry
• Outbound Management Development Programmes
• Blended learning
• Performance Management

We talk on each of the above topic as part of Training and Development.

ref: wikipedia

Workforce planning

Strategic Workforce Planning involves analyzing and forecasting the talent that companies need to execute their business strategy, proactively rather than reactively, it is a critical strategic activity, enabling the organization to identify, develop and sustain the workforce skills it needs to successfully accomplish its strategic intent whilst balancing career and lifestyle goals of its employees.

Strategic Workforce Planning is a relatively new management process that is being used increasingly to help control labour costs, assess talent needs, make informed business decisions, and assess talent market risks as part of overall enterprise risk management. Strategic workforce planning is aimed at helping companies make sure they have the right people in the right place at the right time and at the right price

Through Strategic Workforce Planning organizations gain insight into what people the organization will need, and what people will be available to meet those needs. In creating this understanding of the gaps between an organization’s demand and the available workforce supply, organizations will be able to create and target programmes, approaches and develop strategies to close the gaps.

ref: wikipedia, agents website design, insurance software

Business Practice -HRM

Human resources management comprises several processes. Together they are supposed to achieve the above mentioned goal. These processes can be performed in an HR department, but some tasks can also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other departments.

• Workforce planning
  
• Recruitment (sometimes separated into attraction and selection)
  
• Induction and Orientation
  
• Skills management
  
• Training and development
  
• Personnel administration
  
• Compensation in wage or salary
  
• Time management
  
• Travel management (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
  
• Payroll (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
  
• Employee benefits administration
  
• Personnel cost planning
  
• Performance appraisal

we will talk on each of the above process of human resources management in coming posts.

ref: agentswebworld, insurance software, insurance crm, wikipedia

Critical Academic Theory

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).

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 recognise the Human in Human Resource Management.

Critical Theory, in particular postmodernism (poststructualism), recognises that because the subject is people in the workplace, the subject is a complex one, and therefore simplistic notions of 'the best way' or a 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.


Ref: agentswebworld, insurance software, insurance crm, wikipedia

Human Resources Management (HRM) -3

Academic theory for Human Resources Management:--
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 organization's employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller, 1989).

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 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.

One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields for the HRM function:

• Strategic business partner
• Change agent
• Employee champion
• Administration

However, many HR functions these days struggle to get beyond the roles of administration and employee champion, and are seen rather more reactive than 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.

ref: wikipedia, agents webworld, insurance software

Human resource management (HRM) -2

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.

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.

ref: wikipedia, agents webworld, insurance software

Human resource management (HRM) -1

Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. 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. Human Resource management is evolving rapidly. Human resource management is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce.
Features
Human resource management (HRM) features include:

• Personnel administration
• Personnel management
• Manpower management
• Industrial management

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.