The author of “Key Trends in Workforce Management and New Challenges for HR, Marc Moschetto, addresses the common challenges that HR teams face. These include difficulty keeping up with the pace of new laws and regulations and the automated management processes. Indeed, workforce management has numerous gaps, such as non-compliance to news laws and regulations amongst organizations. The article’s key findings are based on the results from an extensive survey of HR professionals, which showed a common trend in organizations of all sizes.
Key findings
The article outlines numerous key findings on compliance with laws and regulations as a component of workforce management within many organizations. The author contends that keeping up with the rapidly changing laws is a major challenge for many human resource teams. Therefore, employers must ensure that they are up to date with the business-related regulations and that the employees understand and are informed about policy changes. Per the author, an increase in entitlements and sick-time ordinances have become common challenges within many businesses. Moreover, according to the article, poor staffing contributes to employee fatigue, leading to poor performance and safety risk issues. Lastly, the author notes that fatigued employees are more prone to mistakes than well-rested ones.
How employer-employee relationships factor into legal compliance with workforce management laws?
Employer-employee relationships factor directly into the legal compliance of management laws. Numerous laws regulate employer-employee relationships across the United States. These include the Fair Labor Standards Act, which establishes the minimum wage and rights to overtime for certain workers, and the federal civil rights laws, which prohibit employers from discriminating employees based on aspects such as race, gender, cultural background, among other aspects (Walsh, 2019). For employers to maintain better relationships with their employees, they ought to inform them of any policy that might impact them. In my perspective, employees should also hold themselves accountable to find out what policy changes may have been made both at the federal and state levels that could affect them.
Does the article consider various employer-employee relationships?
Although the author outlines the numerous challenges that employees and employers face, it does not consider the various types of employer-employee relationships. The article does not mention how various types of employees may factor in the legal compliance process. The article solely focuses on the relationship between employers and permanent employers and how they factor into the legal compliance process.
The aspect I agree/disagree with
I do not disagree with various aspects that the author outlines within his article. However, he does not explain in detail the various claims he makes. For instance, the claim that poor staffing contributes to employee fatigue. The author does not outline the mechanisms through which poor staffing leads to fatigue amongst workers to support his claim.
Can the author’s opinions be universally applied to the workforce?
The author’s opinion cannot be universally applied across the workforce due to the fact that every type of business has a unique structure. For instance, small-size businesses may easily implement an automated workforce management process due to having a few employees, and this can enable them to maintain time and attendance tracking and perform staff scheduling. Moreover, due to small-size staff, employers and employees may build stronger relationships at the workplace (Ishikura & Yamamoto, 2001). On the other hand, keeping time and attendance tracking in large-sized firms may be a great challenge because of the high number of employees. It is exhausting for the HR teams to keep track of a huge number of employees. In large-scale firms, employers and employees may end up having an ineffective relationship due to a lack of frequent meetings or involvement in particular daily activities, unlike smaller enterprises.
Workforce management is an essential aspect that organizations ought to consider in their decision-making processes. Workforce management is riddled with gaps across various organizations, including non-compliance to laws and regulations. Therefore, there is a need for employers to oblige to the existing laws and regulations and ensure that they communicate any policy changes to their employees. I disagree with the author’s claim that poor staffing contributes to employee fatigue as he does not explain the claim in detail.
References
Ishikura, H., & Yamamoto, F. (2001). Impact of information systems on Japanese small and medium-sized manufacturers. International Journal of Manufacturing Technology and Management, 3(4-5), 356-360. https://doi.org/10.1504/IJMTM.2001.001416
Moschetto, M. (2014). Key trends in workforce management and new challenges for HR. Employment Relations Today, 40(4), 7-13. https://doi.org/10.1002/ert.21428
Walsh, D. J. (2019). Employment law for human resource practice. Boston, MA: Cengage.