Employee Resourcing

Citation

Rowley, C. (2001), "Employee Resourcing", Personnel Review, Vol. 30 No. 3, pp. 371-377. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr.2001.30.3.371.3

The areas of personnel, development, resourcing, rewards and employee relations (ER) have long been, and remain, critical to many aspects of life, socio‐economic and political discourse, business and education in terms of numbers of courses of a variety of types. When it comes to teaching in the area, we now have a glut of books, a sample of which is covered here. There are some commonalities running through this selection, not least in that they are part of the IPD’s People and Organisations series. An overview of each of the books’ main coverage and contents is provided, and some key points, strengths and weaknesses and criticism, singly and as a group, are also noted.

This series is written, as the editors’ foreword states, to provide guidance and reference for all those involved with people in organisations and the main body of knowledge and pointers to the required level of skills for personnel and development (P&D) practitioners in all types and sizes of organisation. The books are also written to satisfy new IPD professional standards and cover a variety of the knowledge aspects of NVQs in personnel and training development.

Marchington and Wilkinson cover the essential knowledge and understanding required of all P&D professionals, who need to be aware of the wide range of circumstances in which P&D takes place and thus the degree to which particular approaches and practices may be appropriate or not. This book is organised into an “Introduction” (noting key assumptions – the area needs to be understood by all graduates of the IPD irrespective of job and position, vertical and horizontal integration, line management commitment, ethics and professionalism); plus 19 chapters in seven parts. These are as follows: “The context for P&D” includes the nature of work, skills, labour markets, flexibility, the legal and institutional framework, and the professional and ethical basis of P&D. “Employee resourcing” covers human resource (HR) planning (often stressed as key to professional and strategic approaches, but in practice often more mundane with organisations operating in an ad hoc and reactive fashion), recruitment and selection (job analysis, job descriptions and person specifications), managing performance and attendance, from induction through to measures to ensure performance, counselling and employee assistance programmes. “Employee development” includes individual and organisational learning processes, theories and examples, the training and development process, training needs, plans, methods and evaluation, transferring learning to the workplace and a variety of examples. “Employee relations” covers management styles and managing with or without unions, processes (such as collective bargaining and involvement), procedures (such as discipline and grievance). “Employee reward” includes motivation and strategy, job evaluation, equal value and a wider perspective, such as pensions, sick pay, harmonization, non‐financial rewards, and job redesign. The section on “Integrating P&D” includes linkage with business strategy and measuring its contribution, responsibility, practice, and some UK‐based case studies (US photographic company; manufacturing plant owned by a Japanese heavy engineering company; provider of priority services and community are for a local health authority; metropolitan council; retail bank, building contractors). The “Review” section has examination questions and advice, case studies, questions requiring short answers, reports, practical assignments, examination guidelines.

Some of the most important points of this book are in the penultimate part: Chapter 17, on vertical integration and extent to which broader business strategies determine P&D; and Chapter 18, on horizontal integration, and analysis of “best practice” P&D, which draws on UK and US studies to construct a list of ten practices which might be utilised by employers claiming to be at the “leading edge”.

Some key conclusions from Marchington and Wilkinson are, first, “… P&D can never be a simple technical exercise, whereby answers are read off according to well‐known scientific formulae, and implemented without a problem …”, rather it is “… fraught with tensions and contradictions, and with situations that are characterised by uncertainty, indeterminacy, and competing perspectives” (p. 4). Even though national and institutional context has a major influence, it does not determine P&D precisely. Second, “… despite the trend to devolve more P&D issues to line managers and bring in consultants, specialists still have an important role to play” (p. 6). Third, the employment relationship is characterised not just by co‐operation, but also by conflict, with neither “… never totally absent” (p. 6). Fourth, employee relations (ER) procedures still have an important role to play and employers who see them as little more than an unwanted legacy to be discarded in the pursuit of flexibility should be cautious.

Taylor’s 14 chapters are organised in seven parts. Part 1, “Context” includes work on environmental changes and trends, perspectives and assumptions, internationalisation. Part 2, “Planning” includes HR planning. Part 3, “Recruitment” covers job analysis, job descriptions, person specifications, induction, recruitment. Part 4, “Selection” includes the “classic trio” (application forms, interviews, references), tests and assessments. Part 5, “Performance” has work on performance management, different ways to improve performance, appraisals, issues and international differences. Part 6, “Absence and turnover” covers work on measuring and costing absence and turnover, and causes. Part 7, “Release” includes work on redundancy, and unfair dismissal.

One issue with Taylor’s book involves its glib chapter titles. These include “Navigating the high seas of the labour market”, “HRP is dead – long live HRP”, “Putting the flesh on the bones”, “Raising our game”, “Judgment day”. I was not keen on these here.

Armstrong’s second edition has 37 chapters in nine parts (100 pages up on the 1996 edition’s 29 chapters in eight parts). Part 1, “The conceptual framework” has work on reward systems; economic theories on pay, the psychological contract; motivation and reward. These not only cover the “usual suspects” (e.g. labour markets, determinants of pay, agency theory, the effort bargain, motivation theories), but importantly set out key contexts (international, national, corporate) and the need for a contingency approach to the management of rewards. Part 2, “Employee reward processes” covers reward philosophy, strategy, policy and planning as well as examples and auditing and evaluating systems. Part 3, “Evaluating, pricing and analysing jobs and roles” includes job evaluation and analysis, equal pay, conducting reward surveys. Part 4, “Pay structures” includes the purpose and types (graded, broad‐banded, job family) of system. Part 5, “Rewarding the individual and team contributions and organisational performance” covers contingent pay, pay related to performance, competence, contribution, profits, skills, and incentives, team rewards, and non‐financial rewards. Part 6, “Performance management” includes the processes, and appraisals. Part 7, “Employee benefits, allowances and pension schemes” covers types, harmonization, and flexible benefits. Part 8, “Managing the reward system for special groups” includes work on senior executives, international pay and expatriates’ rewards, and sales staff. Part 9, “Managing employee reward systems” covers policy advice, auditing, monitoring and evaluating, procedures and pay reviews and using computers.

There are several irritants with Armstrong. First, it is an odd and eclectic mix of description, prescription and analysis, such as Chapter 29. There is a tendency to use “support” from non‐academic sources, i.e. someone’s views are presented as reality, speeches at conferences and meetings and consultancy reports. Second, he should be given an award not only for “self‐citation”, which we all engage in to some extent, but also for unnecessary self‐citation as “the best, the only”, etc. Third, there is the unnecessary use of people’s first names along with surnames. Fourth, it is biased, Chapter 36 (p. 472) makes a point on “semantics” of being “average”, then falls into the trap by giving examples of “normal”, in an ethnocentric view. This reminds me of the film Local Hero when the US executive is offered a range of shampoo in a small Scottish shop and goes for “extra normal”. Another example is in the “competence” work, “… a jargon‐ridden area haunted by academics indulging in semantic obfuscation” (p. 294). This is a little rich given the turgid tone of some of this tome and naïve nostrums peddled, often based on the “support” of little more than self‐serving consultants. Fifth, there are distracting presentational and structural problems. There are far too many subtitles, e.g. two on one page (19) and two more on the following page (20), and a plethora of sections, e.g. three on one page (70), with one just a solitary paragraph of seven lines, others of three lines (p. 85) or one sentence and table (pp. 311‐12). Some chapters hardly deserve to be labelled as such. For example, Chapter 6 is just pp. 61‐8, Chapter 8 just 4.5 sides long, Chapter 22 just pp. 310‐14 plus nine lines of summary and includes a large table and three figures, Chapter 23 just pp. 316‐22 and Chapter 33 just pp. 436‐9 and a “summary” of eight/nine lines. Occasionally I became lost in all the tedium of some chapters, such as in part 3 with its welter of sub‐sections, bullet points, etc. Also, why suddenly does a conclusion (just 4.5 lines) appear on p. 82, when not in other chapters? Chapter 20 has a concluding section with a conclusion within it (pp. 284‐5)!

Harrison reviews the historical roots of HR development (HRD), links with business imperatives, its national and international context, management, ways of aligning with the organisation’s performance management system, and provides a framework that sets HRD in the context of organisational learning, the key capabilities of an enterprise and the generation of the new knowledge it needs. Its 20 chapters plus an introduction are organised in five parts. It has a common format of learning objectives, summary, self‐checks, case studies, practical guidelines and frameworks for each chapter. Part 1, “HRD and the business” includes the development of HRD, the strategic framework and smaller organisations. Part 2, “The wider context” has work on training and education and international comparisons. Part 3, “Managing the HRD function” covers the politics of HRD, roles, standards and responsibilities, organising, managing and developing practitioners, finance and its marketing, and assessment. Part 4, “The performance management and development system” includes learning needs and events, design, delivery and evaluation, and special groups. Part 5, “The landscape of corporate learning and knowledge productivity” covers careers, management development, and the knowledge‐productive organisation.

The second edition of the Gennard and Judge text contains an “Introduction” plus 12 chapters organised in five parts. Part 1, “Introduction” outlines the major themes and some definitions of key terms, while Part 2 is an “Overview”. Part 3, “Context, institutions, processes and policies” includes work, economic management, labour markets, flexibility, the state, the supply side, public expenditure, impact of technology, balance of bargaining power and management behaviour. The EU, its development, treaties, processes and so on, are also covered, as are ER institutions, such as employers’ organisations, trade unions, staff associations and agencies. ER strategies and policies are outlined, including a case study of BT, and union recognition. Employee involvement is covered, including objectives, mechanisms, communications and briefing systems, task and work group involvement, financial participation, representative participation, and introduction of schemes. Part 4 “Practice and skills in ER” includes negotiation (e.g. purposes; different types of situation, stages, outcomes, and skills), discipline (e.g. origins, legal position, procedures, handling issues, misconduct, appeals, and employment tribunals), grievances (e.g. the business case for resolving grievances, common grievances, take‐up, and procedures), bargaining (e.g. arrangements, multi‐unionism, preparations, presentation, mechanisms for resolving conflict, and coping with industrial action), redundancies (e.g. legal regulation, management of change, policies and procedures, the law and consultation, and post‐redundancy). Part 5, “Review” has examination questions and advice, including case studies; short answers and guidelines.

Some of the key themes of Gennard and Judge are worth repeating, as they are important and have a wider relevance and application. First, an IPD qualification is different in perspective from an academic one. Second, ER is just as relevant in non‐union environments. Third, changes in the corporate environment impact on the balance of bargaining power between employers and employees and on policies. Fourth, management behaving in a fair, reasonable and consistent manner is important. Fifth, there is a need to evaluate whether employment practices can be transplanted. Sixth, appropriate ER knowledge and understanding will not only contribute to organisations’ achieving objectives, but also enhance the credibility of HR managers.

However, the book has some problems. It is repetitive in places. It also makes confusing and sometimes inconsistent use of sections and sub‐sections. For example, a variety are used on pp. 16‐19, 24, 50, 292‐3, 354‐5. Some sections are not really “parts”, i.e. Parts 1 and 5 only have one chapter each (and Chapter 12 was just eight sides). There are problems with “missing” sections. Where are the introduction sections for Chapters 3, 6, 7, 10 and the summary section for Chapter 6? Why are some summary sections ponderous and long? For instance, those in Chapters 3 and 4 are 2‐2.5 sides long, while in contrast, Chapter 10 was just one paragraph of 11 lines. There is also some problem with the book’s balance. Thus, while the EU is undoubtedly important, there is too much dull detail on its intricate workings (pp. 77‐107). Likewise, l was not sure why some of the chapters covered a particular subject (especially those in Part 4), as they are more relevant and at home in personnel/HR books. While there are some useful international comparisons (as in Chapter 4), more could be provided. The same point can be made for cases. While Chapter 5 uses BT, others would be useful. On a more minor point, why is there a sudden shift from ER to using personnel/HR management (e.g. p. 77)? Also, I assume the authors are mistaken in listing Iceland (p. 81) as an EU member?

We can note some commonalities across the books. A fairly common problem concerns the lack of explicit concluding chapters. Harrison does make some conclusions at the end of the last chapter (the last three paragraphs), but these are weak and vacuous. Taylor oddly ends with a chapter on dismissals and Armstrong with one on computers. Gennard and Judge’s last substantive chapter is also a strange way to end.

Other commonalities (or some might say replication) include the coverage of some of the key areas and processes of personnel/HR and also flexibility. They usefully outline and explore contexts, contingency and best practice. For Gennard and Judge, “best practice” is the delivery of the personnel/HR strategy and policies that adds value to the business and thereby contributes to the achievement of the corporate‐organisational, economic and social objectives. It explains not only what they believe constitutes the “best practice” (acting with “just cause” and behaving “fairly and reasonably”), but also why operating to such standards is sound business practice (p. 6). They also see the purpose of ER as “… to reconcile the different interests of the buyers of labour services (employers) and the sellers of labour services (employees) …” (p. 6) and in so doing to assist organisations to achieve objectives.

At first sight this universalism may raise the barriers of many academics from the more analytical and critical end of management studies, who may fear the worst. However, this universalistic tendency is, unlike too many in this genre, mingled with notions of the limits to this and the need for contexts and contingency. As such, the books are generally to be welcomed to a field littered with naïve, prescriptive platitudes. Overall, they are much better than many “how to” and “best practice” books, as they have more sophistication and nuance.

As a conclusion to this review, several points are worth making. There is ever more on the market to help us teach in the area of HRM. Often there is a tendency to go for breadth over depth and complexity. Perhaps that is inherent in the nature of the contemporary trends in mass education? Finally, what we do have with this collection is a useful teaching resource. In totality, they provide a wealth of data; cases and examples of varying length, complexity type and sectoral coverage are used. They usefully note that, despite globalisation and internationalisation pushing some convergence, the countervailing diversity of employment, conditions and practices weakens any notions of simple, universal “best practice”. When having to prepare courses, lectures and seminars, with this collection of books on my shelves, I will be well equipped. When students then ask me the common question – what is “best practice”?, I can refer them to these books to read and then ask them “Tell me again, what’s the best way?”

Notes

1. 1.

   Annotated and updated edition, July 2000, ISBN 0‐85292‐808‐4.

2. 2.

   Second edition, July 2000, ISBN 0‐85292‐877‐7.