Challenges Facing Human resources Managers in Kenya Essay Example

talented and experienced people. This is because other organizations take prior precautions in the retention of skilled employee by applying motivation and empowerment theories to secure their loyalty and job satisfaction according to Tharow (1998). Some organizations may manage to convince the talented and experienced people to shift loyalties and this may transfer the challenge from one organization to another.

Recruiting the right people for the right job and training them to improve performance pauses a challenge to the managers especially when the higher learning institutions have not trained sufficient personnel like doctors who give essential services and pilots in the aviation industry. The managers need to develop new roles and agenda in delivering organization excellence such as partnering with senior managers and becoming agents of continuous transformation and shaping a culture that will improve the organization’s capacity for change (Aghazadeh, 1999)

The Human Resource department is mandated with the responsibility of maintaining the employee welfare. The HIV/AIDS pandemic that is affecting the whole globe has caused the government to force organizations to include the global HIV/AIDS policy into their organizational policies. This does not auger well with top managers in most private firms and organizations.

In such cases, top managers may force the Human Resource managers to discriminate against people by requiring them to go through rigorous blood screening processes to determine their HIV/AIDS status since the organization is putting into consideration the financial and time implications that may be used to recruit other staff in case people affected with HIV/AIDS succumb to the disease. The dilemma of obeying the top managers and complying to the laid down HIV/AIDS policy may pause grave challenges to the Human

Resource manager.

An American motivational speaker and author by the name Ziq Ziqlar once said, “People often say, that motivation doesn’t last. Well, neither does bathing-that is why we recommend it daily. ” We totally agree with what this author said. Motivation is a major function that a Human Resource manager is faced with on a daily basis. He or she is faced with the challenge of giving employees a reason to act. This ranges from improving working conditions to providing material gain. The challenges faced are as immense as the task itself. Budget and financial limitation is a headache to Human Resource managers.

This is because they do not have the autonomy to procure equipment needed to improve facilities. The equipment approved and procured by the organization may be inadequate or of poor quality. This may lead to poor working conditions which may in turn lead to staff demoralization and consequently drop in output. The top managers may decide to reduce the wages of the employees or to downsize them if the output is not profitable. Understaffing is a problem experienced by many organizations. Overworking the few employees by making them work overtime without pay and stay for long hours on the job may lead to burn out.

This impacts the Human Resource manager negatively for he/she has to overstretch his/her creativity to come up with ways of boosting the morale of the overworked employees. Trade disputes are a nightmare dreaded by almost every organization. Dissatisfied employees may turn to the human rights commission to seek justice for disability, sexual harassment and other employment related issues. This may cost the company money in form of legal fees,

possible awards for damages as well as the overall public scrutiny. Any organization expects the Human Resource manager to ensure there are no such incidences facing it.

This indeed is expecting way too much from the Human Resource manager. With the emergence of multinational companies in Kenya, workplace diversity has become a common phenomenon. The Human Resource manager faces a big challenge of motivating people composed of different ages, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical ability, race, education background, mental status, religious beliefs and work experience. The challenge is on how to manage a diverse body of talent that can bring innovative ideas, perspectives and views to their work.

If the Human Resource managers and the organizational environment do not support diversity broadly, the company risks losing talent to competitors especially in multinational components who have operations on global scale and employ people from different countries and ethical backgrounds such as the World Vision International, UNEP, AGRA foundation and many others. The Human Resource manager has to be mindful and may be advantaged by employing a ‘Think Global, Act Local’ approach in most circumstances. This is no easy task for the manager.

Human Resource managers are perhaps more likely to confront ethical dilemmas in the course of their duties than most executive managers since in most cases, they occupy a mediation role between management and the workforce, considering the interests of employees against the needs of the overall organization. For example, a Human Resource manager may desire to improve quality of employees’ working life, conditions, and increased participation but the other top managers may insist that the division of labor be applied as extensively as possible and that pay and

conditions of working be kept constant.

Retention of old and skilled employees is proving to be a challenge to many Human Resource managers in Kenya especially in view of the strong competition from other organizations. Employees are forced to undertake other opportunities in order to meet their financial obligation. There is an alarming rate of ‘moonlighting’ amongst employees in Kenya, which points to low salary. This therefore dictates that organizations adapt attractive motivation measures such as rewards, recognition and incentives which will in turn attract performance positively.

Apart from employee procurement and motivation, employee development is a task that falls on the shoulders of the Human Resource manager. This involves the general well-being of the employees-promotion, training and clear career paths for them. In their quest to achieve the above, Human Resource managers are left in a dilemma because of limited opportunities for promotions, lack of clear career paths, while in some government institutions, some official decisions made are hardly implemented. These include promotion and training.

Some Human Resource managers’ authority is limited in relation to the type of training or deployment they may wish to recommend for the employees. This is because the Human Resource functions are not centralized. Planning which is necessary for every department and organization as a whole may be a challenge to the Human Resource manager as far as HIV/AIDS infected employees is concerned. The dilemma that these managers face may arise when planning for training and career development. Frequent sick-offs and hospitalizations for the infected people may happen when training has been scheduled.

If the employee is a key person in a certain department, he/she may miss an important training event, which may

force the Human Resource manager to use more money to send that particular person for training when he/she resumes work. It may be more expensive to train one person individually as compared to him/her being trained with others in a group. Besides, pressure from the top managers may trickle down to the Human resource manager forcing him/her to terminate the services of the infected person.

Globalization is reducing the world to a small global village and this realization is arousing the need to embrace new ideas, products, as well as meeting the local needs. Consequently managers are expected to be alert and on the lookout for the latest information so as to blend it in their strategies and to come up with the best possible strategies. The managers are to be on the lookout for information which would enhance their employee development which at times may cause them to be overtaken by events.

Technology, a common term in the speech of every modern person is part and parcel of our daily lives for it is intended to make work easier. Since man is resistant to change, there are some employees who do not want to move with the times by learning technology skills. Some view it as a monster that has come to take away their jobs and so opt to resist it than to learn it. Some think they are “old dogs which can’t be taught new tricks” and so frustrate the efforts of the Human Resource manage in upgrading the technology skills of employees to enable them use the modern equipment that is currently available.

This resistance affects productivity. On the other hand, the young employees

are so much obsessed by technology that they spend long hours on social networks like Facebook, Twitter, which uses up many working hours socializing with friends all over the world on the internet. Human Resource managers are therefore faced with a challenge of curbing such behavior or are sometimes forced to spend a lot of time tracking what the employees are doing on an hourly basis. This is no easy task and can cause a lot of stress to the manager.

Resistance to change is another challenge faced by Human Resource managers for in some organizations, the managers, no matter how good their intentions may be, there are some practices which in the long run bring about conflict thereby creating a huge gap between management and employees. For instance, the introduction of downsizing in an organization is likely to be met with great resistance. This is because some employees will feel that they are being victimized especially when they are among the retrenched group.

What they fail to understand is that downsizing might work in their favor, in that they stand to gain more by getting rid of the so called ‘ghost workers. ’ Lack of support from line managers can be a nightmare to the Human Resource managers. For the organization to successfully implement its policies, the management team needs to work in tandem. Failure to do so will result in some departments falling behind in a bid to achieve organization goals. By doing so, the employees will not be in a position to undertake their duties accordingly as they will know that which is expected to be done.