Discuss the challenges associated in the HRM in the present business scenario.

Challenges for Human Resource Management (HRM).

From the Industrial Age to the Information Age: Work performed in factories by machines is being replaced by work in offices or at computer terminals. And instead of working with things, people increasingly work with ideas and concepts. Information and knowledge have replaced manufacturing as the source of most new jobs.

From Restricted Markets to Globalization:

Our old local regional vision is giving way to a new global economic order and business vision. The new demand is think globally and act locally. We are also used to dealing with restricted or concentrated markets. We need to become accustomed to dealing with business from a new global perspective.

From Bureaucracy to Adhocracy: 

The rigid organizational hierarchy with its monolithic chain of command is giving way to integrated team networks based on autonomy and flexibility. Rigid departmentalization is being replaced by flexible organizational structure business units and profit centers that change rapidly. We are used to working in mechanical, bureaucratic, vertical and pyramidal organizations. We need to become accustomed to working in organizations that grow and change as if they were alive.

From Stability to Change:

Static, permanent organizations designed for a stable and predictable world are giving way to flexible, adaptive organizations more suited for a new world of change and transformation. Emphasis on permanence, tradition and the past is giving way to creativity and innovation in the search for new solutions, new processes, and new products and services.

Maintaining the status quo is less important than a vision of the future and the organization’s destiny. We are used to dealing with certainty and predictability. We need to become accustomed to dealing with uncertainty and ambiguity.

From Command to Orientation:

The traditional hierarchical notion of authority based on vertical imposition of orders and instructions is giving place to democratic leadership based on the organization’s mission and vision. Blind, reactive obedience is giving place to spontaneous, proactive collaboration, and employee commitment. We are used to working under authoritarian, autocratic command. We need to get used to working with democratic, inspirational leadership.

From Muscular to Mental Work:

Repetitive physical labor that doesn’t add value is increasingly being replaced by mental creativity. Routine and monotony are giving way to innovation and a break with tradition. In the past, people were considered to be merely workers, an old concept that associated people with things.

Now people are considered purveyors of activities and knowledge whose most important contributions are their intelligence and individual talents. We are used to dealing with physical, repetitive manual labor we need to become accustomed to dealing with mental, creative, and innovative work.

From Solitary to Collective Activity:

Teamwork is supplanting individual activity. The old emphasis on individual efficiency is being replaced by group synergy. It’s a matter of multiplying efforts, rather than simply. adding them. We are used to individualized, isolated work we need to change to high performance teamwork.

From Specialization to Multitasking:

The traditional division of labor with its consequent fragmentation of activity is evolving toward more varied and integrated work. Compartmentalization is changing to a systematic holistic vision, unified rather than separate. We are used to dealing with division of labor and task specialization. We need to become accustomed to working in teams and with holistic organizations.

From a Focus on Products and Services to a Customer Orientation:

In the past, the product or service was the most important element. Now, the customer to whom this product or service is targeted has become fundamental. Before, an internally focused vision based on the product or service prevailed. Now, an externally focused vision for the customer who is going to use that product or service predominates. In the past, the product/service was the goal. We’re used to working with the products and services we produce or offer. We need to shift toward looking after the customer’s needs.

From Full-time to Part-time Work:

Work carried out with total and exclusive dedication to a single company is coming to an end. It is being replaced by work carried out at any time, and at any place, to the extent that workers are becoming suppliers for various activities and various companies at the same time.

The old concept of a job with a single schedule and a formal job description, dating back to the Industrial Revolution and the main feature of the Industrial. Age, is being supplanted by a new concept of work that typifies the digital age.

Part-time work, remote work, and virtual work constitute these new forms of human activity. We are used to the old concept of a single job for life, exclusive and full time. Now, we need to become accustomed to work as it is defined in the digital age.

From Followers of Orders to Entrepreneurs:

The old, concept that people are hired workers who hold certain positions according to fixed schedules and following internal rules and regulations is being supplanted by a new concept that rewards internal entrepreneurship. In the past, performance evaluation emphasized things like absenteeism, punctuality, and personal discipline.

Now, it focuses on vision, goals and results, and especially on personal contributions to organizational objectives. Rather than being conservative bureaucrats, workers are becoming innovative and creative. And the new generation of workers (the networked generation) created by digital technology is leaving the older generation behind.

We are used to working by following rules and regulations, external controls and standards now we need to become goal oriented and mission driven.

From Human Resources to Business Partners:

In the past, human resources were considered passive agents of the company. Now, employees are considered active and proactive agents of the business they manage together. In the past, workers were considered an organizational resource.

Now, they manage the company’s organizational resources. We are used to talking about organizational resources. But a resource is a thing. People are human beings with minds, talent, Motivation, and the proactive capacity for decision-making. They can no longer be considered only as objects.

From Agents to Leaders:

The old autocratic, authoritarian, people-controlling bosses are becoming democratic leaders and people promoters. Formal hierarchical authority is being replaced by such modern concepts as motivation, leadership, communication,-interpersonal relationships, and development of high performance cohesive work teams.

We have been used to bosses who give orders to subordinates based on their linear hierarchical authority. Now we need to become accustomed to working with leaders who move, motivate and stimulate workers  leaders who are communicators and visionaries.

From Financial to Intellectual Capital:

Emphasis on money as the most important organizational resource is shifting to knowledge as the unlimited and fundamental input for business success. Traditional accounting centered as it is on physical assets convertible into financial currency, is being questioned for not involving such intangible aspects as internal systems, customers, and intellectual capital.

This happened as researchers began to perceive that investments in people provided such intangibles as company image, organizational climate, respect, job satisfaction, customer service, creativity and innovation, competitiveness, and much more.

They also, undoubtedly, because other intangible changes that traditional accountants don’t include in their reports, which are essentially numerical and quantitative, based on the past rather than the future.