PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT – PERSONAL STATEMENT
I am very interested in the career path of human resource management, which involves the management of an organisation’s workforce and personnel. People are the most valuable asset in any organisation and therefore, in order to ensure the smooth-running of that organisation, it is essential that a HR manager possesses a solid understanding of human behaviour.
This is where my interest in psychology comes in. Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behaviour. In a HR environment, psychology is most relevant in recruitment. Recruitment managers must be able to quickly and accurately make judgements while interviewing and disciplining.
Psychology is becoming increasingly popular in the workplace, with employers using psychological personality tests in order to determine those candidates suitable for particular roles. A HR manager who is suitably trained in psychology will be able to identify job requirements with desired traits.
I particularly enjoyed studying psychology at college. It has it encouraged me to ...
As jobs are becoming more technical every year and innovations are arising with new job opportunities, finding employees that meet a business’ requirement is becoming more difficult (Nickels (290-346). This is why it is important to have a career that arises and evolves that meets this innovating world: Human Resources. Human resources plays a big part into a business’ success from hiring new employees, to employee retainment, and ensuring employees are trained to meet the evolving businesses requirements (Nickels (290-346). Human Resources is quickly evolving to become one of firm’s most critical professions in the industries market business.
Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources – the employees – necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to “establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals.” (Massey, 1994, p. 27)
Looking back at the history of the American Psychological Association (APA), we can see that minorities struggled with having their issues and needs acknowledged and addressed. In result of this, they started to secede from APA to develop their own associations. Over the years, the APA dealt with a number of other problems concerning their organizational structure, graduate training programs and other issues. Considering the competencies proposed by psychologists, the APA developed six Guidelines on Multicultural Education, Training, Research, Practice and Organizational Change for Psychologist (2003). The guidelines serves as a broad document that demonstrates the skills and knowledge needed by practitioners who work with fast changing, diverse populations. It also provides information that advances education. This paper will discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the Multicultural Guidelines as a whole.
Changing Roles. Traditionally, HR has been an administrative position-processing paperwork, benefits, hiring and firing, and compensation. However, recently HRM has moved from a traditional to a strategic role, the emphasis is on catering to the needs of consumers and workers. Before, HR was seen as the enemy and employees believed that HR’s main purpose was to protect management. Now, the position requires HRM to be more people oriented and protect their human capitol, the staff. In addition, human resource management has to be business savvy and think of themselves as strategic partners in the 21st century.
Human resource management (HRM) encompasses the activities of acquiring, maintaining, and developing the organization's employees (human resources). "The traditional view of these activities focuses on planning for staffing needs, recruiting and selecting of employees, orienting and training staff, appraising their performance, providing compensations and benefits, and making their career movement and development." HRM involves two aspects:...
Risavy, S., & Hausdorf, P. (2011). Personality Testing in Personnel Selection: Adverse Impact and Differential Hiring Rates. International Journal of Selection and Assessment, 19(1), 18-30. doi: 10.1111/j.1468-2389.2011.00531.x
Psychometric tests are designed to measure the behaviour and capabilities of possible employees. (Johnstone, 1999). Employers use these tests to measure two categories of qualities – abilities and preferences (Mills et al., 2011). This provides an effective and efficient way to find the best person for the job as the tests give a true reflection of how an employee can accomplish assigned tasks which is completed online as part of the application process. Candidates are chosen for the next stage of the process through the comparison of test scores, resulting in grouping candidates into high and low percentile scoring categories. The higher scoring applicants are put through to the next stage of the process. This would normally be the interviewing stage. The lower scoring applicants would be declined. This is a form of filtering down the number of applicants, although the interviewing stage provides the means of selection, despite its subjectivity the tests provide a uniform set of standards to measure one candidate objectivity against another (Johnstone,1999). Psychometric
Secondly, an evaluation of an employee’s personality helps the manager in his leadership approach of that employee. Thirdly, perceptions can be the deciding factor of whether or not a candidate is hired or promoted. Managers can use personality characteristics to form work teams or to make determinations on job placements. Chapter 4 Review Questions 1. How are attitudes formed?
Human resource is the most valuable and unique asset of an organization. The successful management of an organization’s human resource is an exciting, dynamic and challenging task , especially at a time when the world has become a global village and economies are in a state of flux. The lack of talented resource and the growing expectation of the modern day employee has further increased the difficulty of the human resource function.
The University of Tulsa prepares Industrial/Organizational psychologists to deal with individual problems in the workplace. This philosophy matches my research area of interest on the effects of individual differences in the work environment. I believe that individual differences influence nearly every aspect of human behavior and interaction, including those in the workplace. By necessity, a successful manager is one who understands the potential influences of individual differences in the work environment. As an example, the management style utilized (as I have learned first hand) must match the personalities of the employees being managed. By conducting research in this area, theory relevant to motivating individually diverse employees may be developed and then applied. Of particular interest is the motivation of aging employees. The elimination of a mandatory retirement age has greatly increased the need for further research in this area.
Industrial psychologists typically help employers find the best person for a job, evaluate job performance, and train employees. In developing a system for matching an individual to a job, an industrial psychologist must first determine what special knowledge, skills, and abilities the job demands. The psychologist then designs a selection system to judge an applicant's qualifications for the job. The objective of such a system is to predict a person's performance in the workplace. Commonly used selection tools include interviews, letters of reference, work samples, and tests of aptitudes, abilities, knowledge, interests and personality.
Human Resource Management (HRM) is fundamentally another name for personnel management. It is the process of making sure the employees are as creative as they can be. HRM is a way of grouping the range of activities associated with managing people that are variously categorised under employee relations, industrial/labour relations, personnel management and organisational behaviour. Many academic departments where research and teaching in all these areas take place have adopted the title department of human resources management. HRM is a coordinated approach to managing people that seeks to integrate the various personnel activates so that they are compatible with each other. Therefore the key areas of employee resourcing, employee development, employee reward and employee involvement are considered to be interrelated. Policy-making and procedures in one of these areas will have an impact on other areas, therefore human resources management is an approach that takes a holistic view and considers how various areas can be integrated.
Introduction A comprehensive Human Resource Management Strategy plays a vital role in the achievement of an organisation’s overall strategic objectives and visibly illustrates that the human resources function fully understands and supports the direction in which the organisation is moving. A comprehensive HRM Strategy will also support other specific strategic objectives undertaken by the marketing, financial, operational and technology departments. In essence, an HRM strategy’s aim should be to capture the ‘people’ part of an organisation and its medium to long-term projection of what it wants to achieve, ensuring that. It employs the right people, those have the right mix of skills, employees show the correct behaviours and attitudes, and employees have the opportunity to be developed the right way.
Therefore, human resource professions plan in a way by understanding the requirement needed to handle task of a particular department. Therefore, giving job description is essential where essential skills and requirement that a candidate need to have must be given. Besides, person specifications are also important to know the experience and qualities within a person (Wright et al. 2014). After recruiting the candidates they are screened and selected to come up in next level where interview will be conducted among the selected candidates. In addition, training is an important element that groom up the candidates according to the roles and responsibilities they will be conducting as an organisation