Human Resources is considered the most significant component of an organization. So The failure of the Human Resource Management System of an organization extensively hinders organizational progress. Managing the human resources of a company is one of the most important as well as critical tasks. When an organization fails to manage its people in a proper way, the achievement of the organizational mission and vision is greatly hampered. Also, a weak HR system results in an unstable working environment that causes profound employee dissatisfaction and reduces the productivity of an individual employee and the whole team. Therefore, most organizations invest a massive amount of money and time in establishing an effective Human Resource (HR) Management system. But still, numerous companies are failing to grow just because their HR system does not work well.
Reasons of Human Resource Management Failure
There are plenty of ways related to the failure of the HR system of an organization. This blog will briefly describe the best seven seasons of Human Resource Management system failure in any organization.
1. Micro-Level Management
A leader can’t be everywhere. So it is not realistic for a leader to be involved in every single matter of the team. Besides, The flow of authority and accountability plays an essential role in organizational discipline. The practice of micromanagement significantly hampers this discipline. Micromanagement is a sign of weak leadership because, in this case, the subordinates feel that their leader loses their trust in them and stops thinking, understanding, and realizing what they are doing. To know more about the adverse effect of micromanagement, please read “How Micromanagement Destroy Your Team”.
A manager is supposed to delegate responsibility. If s/he micromanages somebody, s/he is not letting the team do their job. S/he is doing it for them. Thus, it makes the team frail.
“Micromanagement is a sign of weak leadership because in this case, the subordinates feel that their leader loses his or her trust in them and they stop thinking, understanding and realizing what they are doing, and they just do what their leader says.”
2. Prioritize System over Human
Another reason for Human Resource Management failure is too much dependency on the system. The company often invests a large number of times and money in improving the technology system with the hope of improving efficiency. Still, after the initial excitement of the new process, people return to their old behavior, and the expected outcome from the system is not achieved. While introducing a new system, it should be kept in mind that it is people who should control the system but not the system control people. So, when a company gives its full concentration on new system development, without changing the organizational culture, with an expectation that it will fix everything and underestimate the human resource, it loses its long-run sustainability. Because in the future, there is a possibility that people will stop using it.
Stephen Fortune, the principal consultant at the Oxford Group, suggests that if the employer wants to implement the new system, they need to change the culture and behavior of the employee first.
3. Laxity to Measures Employee satisfaction
High employee turnover indicates the presence of an inactive HR system. Employees mainly resign when they find no significant development and growth of their career, unfriendly working environment, and long-time suppression by their boss or superiors. An active HR management system measures employee satisfaction from time to time and takes necessary measures when someone has been found dissatisfied. An effective HR department estimates the following issues and takes the required steps accordingly-
Internal promotion vs external recruitment: when a department needs to hire more external employees, then the internal promotion indicates less employee development of that particular department.
Employee turnover: a high employee turnover indicates the absence of an effective working environment and inefficiency of the boss.
Employee unrest and lack of cooperation: employee unrest happens due to the poor management skills of the boss and the practice of nepotism.
4. Underestimating the Power of Right Human Resource
Not involving the people having the right skills at the right time is another major reason for HR failure. It demotivates effective people, and their knowledge and skills remain unutilized and cause human resource management failure.
An important part of the HR department of any organization is to conduct skill assessments of employees on a regular basis. It will help them pick the right person to reward and identify the remiss of the penalty. Also, it is essential to understand the capability of the employee before delegating any assignment.
5. Overemphasizing Recent Performances
This is one of the most common mistakes that HRs make. When the employees are evaluated based on their recent performance only, there is a great chance of being overvalued or undervalued.
“This can lead to an inaccurate and unfair assessment when it comes to reviewing an employee’s performance.”
So employees should be evaluated based on the overall performance of a certain period of time because overemphasizing the recent performance can result in a great failure of the performance management system as it can make or break a performance review.
To know more about the adverse effect of micromanagement, please read “Employee Performance Appraisal | a Detailed Insight.”
6. Excessive Penalty and Less Reward
Another reason for Human Resource Management failure is the excessive penalty and less reward. Sometimes the employee gets a severe penalty for a venial offense due to an unjustified HR evaluation system. On the other hand, they are rarely recognized when it comes to rewarding. This kind of behavior from the HR department demotivates the employee to take an innovative, challenging, out-of-the-box initiative.
When the employees fear that their little mistake may cause them a high penalty, they will lose their enthusiasm for undertaking any challenging initiative rather than preferring to do the routine work. The employee also feels insecure to work in such a corporate culture.
“Sometimes the employee gets a severe penalty for a venial offense due to an unjustified HR evaluation system. On the other hand, they are rarely recognized when it comes to rewarding.”
7. Breaking of the Chain of Command
The chain of command plays the most important role to establish discipline in the organizational workflow. When the chain of command is not followed appropriately, it reduces the accountability of the subordinates to their superiors thus the superiors lose control over their fellow workers.
“The chain of command normally breaks when the supreme management can not trust the mid-level management and start interacting with the lower-level employee.”
If it happens very often, a huge number of employees start contacting directly to the top management, and the role of mid-level managers becomes inactive; therefore, it becomes tough for the top management to directly manage a vast number of employees.
Summary of Human Resource Management Failure
Human resource is more important than any other component of an organization. So, an employer suffers more than anything due to Human Resource Management failure. An employer must keep in mind that at the end of the day it is the employee that works for the success of the organization. So, if the company practices a bad HR policy the employees will lose their satisfaction which can result in great loss for the organization.
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