Top 4 Challenges Faced by Human

Resources Professionals

By Robert Half September 23, 2015 at 4:30pm

Human resources professionals juggle a wide range of responsibilities,

from recruiting to retention and everything in between. However, these
four tasks rate tops for difficulty.

It’s rarely a slow day in a typical human resources department. Charged with
handling all types of personnel issues, HR teams provide the foundation for a
well-staffed and smartly managed company. Finding the right administrative
professional requires management savvy. But you have partners along the
way.

Here are the top four challenges faced by HR professionals, according to a

recent survey by OfficeTeam (also see infographic below):
1. Identifying and hiring candidates for open
jobs
Thirty-six percent of respondents claimed recruiting and identifying the right
job applicant was the biggest challenge. An HR professional needs to be
adept at finding and securing the best hires, even when the job market is in
the candidates’ favor.

They must be resourceful and know how to locate talent, beyond just placing
job ads. At the same time, they need to be an expert at marketing their
companies to potential employees, so the most skilled applicants are eager to
join their team.

Let OfficeTeam's expert career professionals help you find the right
administrative candidate for your company.

GET HELP WITH HIRING

2. Conducting employee terminations or layoffs

Since letting a worker go is usually an emotionally draining process, it's no
surprise that 26 percent of HR professionals claimed this to be the most
challenging part of their jobs. Also, the legal issues to consider can be
particularly stressful for HR workers because one misstep in the termination
process can lead to a time-consuming and expensive lawsuit for the company.

Knowing how to conduct effective and insightful exit interviews can help
identify reasons a business loses employees and lays the groundwork for a
plan to help improve retention in the future.

3. Managing benefits and perks programs

Health insurance, 401k plans, disability, paid vacation time, and a
company benefits and perksprogram can be extensive and complex. Twenty-
three percent of HR professionals felt that managing these programs was the
most challenging part of the job. Often, these programs include hidden perks
such as subsidized training, leaves of absence or seasonal perks such as
flexible hours in the summer. Casual dress codes and birthday celebrations
may not seem complicated, but they have the potential to start an
administrative snafu if not properly implemented.

When HR staff members see a new employee perk being implemented, they
have to look ahead to the potential impact and give it a thumbs up or thumbs
down, which doesn't always cast them in the most favorable light.

4. Ensuring internal and external compensation

equity
The pressure is on the HR team to ensure compensation is competitive. The
burden of making sure that a company's workers are not lured away by better
salaries, impressive titles or attractive perks rests on the shoulders, at least
partially, of human resources. As a result, it’s no surprise that 14 percent of
HR professionals cited compensation equity as their top challenge.

Employers are invested in improving employee retention by promoting their

top performers and implementing raises, bonuses and fringe benefits. The
company relies on human resources to help them do this in the most cost-
effective way possible. Regularly benchmarking salaries using tools like the
most recent OfficeTeam Salary Guide can give a company an edge.

Major Challenges Faced by

Human Resource Managers
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Some of the major challenges faced by human resource managers are as

follows: 1. Recruitment and Selection 2. Emotional and Physical Stability of
Employees 3. Balance Between Management and Employees 4. Training,
Development and Compensation 5. Performance Appraisal 6. Dealing with
Trade Union.

1. Recruitment and Selection:

Finding a suitable candidate for the job from a large number of applicants is a
basic problem for the human resource manager. They have to make suitable
changes from time to time in the selection procedure and see to it that the
candidate is up to the mark fulfilling the job requirements. If required, the
candidate should be provided with training to get quality results.

2. Emotional and Physical Stability of Employees:

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Providing with wages and salaries to employees is not sufficient in today’s

world. The human resource manager should maintain proper emotional
balance of employees. They should try to understand the attitude,
requirements and feelings of employees, and motivate them whenever and
wherever required.

3. Balance Between Management and Employees:

The human resource manager has a responsibility to balance the interest of
management and employees. Profits, commitment, cooperation, loyalty, and
sincerely are the factors expected by management, whereas better salaries
and wages, safety and security, healthy working conditions, career
development, and participative working are the factors expected by
employees from management.

4. Training, Development and Compensation:

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A planned execution of training programmes and managerial development

programmes is required to be undertaken to sharpen and enhance the skills,
and to develop knowledge of employees. Compensation in the form of salary,
bonus, allowances, incentives and perquisites is to be paid according to the
performance of people. A word or letter of appreciation is also to be given, if
some of them have done their jobs beyond expectations to keep their morale
up.

5. Performance Appraisal:
This activity should not be considered a routine process by the human
resource manager. If employees are not getting proper feedback from them, it
may affect their future work. A scientific appraisal technique according to
changing needs should be applied and the quality of it should be checked
from time to time.

6. Dealing with Trade Union:

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Union members are to be handled skillfully as they are usually the people who
oppose the company policies and procedures. Demands of the union and
interests of the management should be matched properly.

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9 Real Challenges Facing HR in the Future

Complaints… Complaints… Complaints!
Has your job just become the one where you are at the receiving end of every
complaint, from employees, from management and even from the CEO himself? If
you are the HR manager in your company, then you are most likely to hear more
complaints about recruiting. While at one side, unemployment is hovering over the
economy, companies are mourning over not being able to find the skilled workforce
and sometimes, filling a single vacancy may take months of head hunting.

HR professionals have more than one reason to explain this, but the problem doesn’t
end here, there are various other challenges that the industry is likely to face in the
coming years. With that in mind, here are the 9 major responses by different HR
professionals on being asked, “What will be the “real” HR challenges in the coming
years?”

1) Retaining and Rewarding Talented Candidates:

Around 59% seasoned HR professionals believe that in the next few years, major
battle will be retaining talented and well-performing candidates. Moreover, it is
going to become even worse to recognize and reward the real performers as the
market competitiveness is growing and that needs more collaborated efforts to
establish loyalty among employees.

2) Developing Future Leaders:

With growing options for top performing candidates, employers are in a great jitty
over how will they build the future pillars of the organization. The rising employee
turnover rate is giving recruiters really a tough time with implementing practices to
enhance employee engagement and make them stay for long in the organization.
Over 52% HR people have a serious concern over building next generation
organizational leaders.

3) Establishing Healthy and Cooperative

Corporate Culture:
Corporate culture has become one of the deciding factors lately. Elevating market
demands makes companies work more to grow, expand and sustain within the
volatile market scenarios. This, thus directly or indirectly affects the
organizational culture, as every resource is over-occupied with loads of work that
may affect the healthy work culture at office leading more to clashes or office chaos.

4) Attracting Top Talent to Organization:

During any job interview, a candidate’s job is to sell himself to the recruiters.
Similarly, the recruiters also need to sell themselves before the candidate. It is now
more important as the talent shortage is making every organization strive to bring in
the best talent and become the most preferred choice among available options.
Around 36% recruiters feel that it is the need of the hour to establish a corporate
culture that will attract best candidates to your organization.

5) Elevating Human Capital Investments:

Around two-fifth of HR professionals indicate that the biggest challenge for the
coming decade will be acquiring human capital and optimizing human capital
investments. On deeply analyzing the challenges, one thing that is clear is that the
most difficult challenge that’ll crop up is retaining good employees and attracting
best candidates. This entails that HR professionals need to develop talent
management tactics that can effectively contribute in attracting, retaining and
rewarding top performing employees. But what the organizations can do for
countering this skills shortage and ensure that they find right candidates? Here are
the major responses to this…

6) Flexible Work Arrangements:

Millennials just love it! The coming generation of employees emphasizes on
working in flexible set-ups and the major concern must be kept on giving results and
not on working in a traditional 9 to 6 set-up. This does not disrupts the company
decorum or discipline, it will just allow individuals to work the way they want and
exhibit better productivity. Even 40% HR pros believe that this can be a wining
factor.

7) Clear & Transparent Work Culture & Open

Leadership:
Employees demand it greatly, but are seen rarely! That’s a fact! Maximum
organizations fail to establish a culture of clear and transparent work communication
or open leadership that somewhere affects the employee morale and his dedication to
work. 37% have indicated that if communication barriers are removed, then the
organization can attract more candidates.

8) Career Advancement Opportunities for

Employees:
If the company takes employee career development seriously and strives to work for
it as well, then definitely you can shine out over your competitors who are also
looking to grab talented prospects for the same jobs. Around 26% professionals have
indicated this as a problem and major factor for increased attrition rate.

9) Better Compensations:
Undoubtedly, money matters! If you have a start performer, you need to take good
care of the compensation you offer. These days employers are largely playing on
this factor with awarding employees lucrative reward packages and attracting more
talent towards them. Thus, recruiters need to fold up their sleeves to attract the real
talent to themselves to stay ahead of their counterparts.

Recruitment processes are the first interface of candidates with the company and this
need to be the best of all. The employer must sell the organization to the candidate
and the boarding candidate must also feel elated on joining the same. Apart from
other factors, one is that of technology upgraded-ness. Now is the time of the cloud
and one has to be up on technology as every candidate wants to get smoother
recruitment application and processing. An effective Recruitment Management
System must be there that can take care of channelized processing from application
to on-boarding while the HR people can work on other retention and acquisition
tactics!

Biggest Challenges Facing HR Departments

The HR function has been changing over the years. More businesses are realigning the role of HR so they can best manage and
grow their company cost effectively. Some companies have decided that it’s best to outsource some functions to third parties so
that internal resources can focus more time on strategic issues. It’s safe to say that companies today are constantly examining
their HR function with a goal of figuring out best practices and best allocation of time.

HR deals with many issues, but probably the biggest challenges facing HR Departments today are Recruitment, Retention &
Motivation, Leadership Development and Corporate Culture. As HR works to move to a more strategic role, addressing these
issues has become a continual and time consuming process. Here’s why.
Recruitment, Retention and Motivation
This may be the most challenging issue that challenges HR today. Human resource professionals anticipate that retaining the best
employees will be the greatest HR challenge in 2022, according to a November 2012 poll by the Society for Human Resource
Management. 59% of respondents ranked this factor in their top three challenges, compared to 51% in 2010. Predictions indicate
there will be a lot of people looking for new jobs when the economy improves. There is always the perception that the “grass is
greener on the other side of the street”. In times of economic slowdown and periods when growth is slow, employees become
more open to considering other employment options.
Employers today have to find new methods to attract talent through social media, postings on job boards and even other
traditional methods such as attending job fairs and sending out promotional mailings to generate interest. The new generation
employees are looking for jobs that provide a balance between employment and family, and desire autonomy and the ability to
make a difference within the organization. Companies are well advised to search for diversity that can generate new ideas, better
productivity and a sense of equality that builds teamwork. Lack of technical talent has made it difficult for companies to fill
specialized positions. Even during periods of high unemployment, technical and technology-driven companies find a shortage of
employees with the training and competencies to perform in niche jobs.

Retention has become tougher than any time in the past and has become a heightened issue. Companies sometimes need to offer
more in terms of benefit packages or incentives, because people increasingly look for jobs that reduce their risks in tough
economic times. Employers are advised to identify their key employees from entry-level to upper-level management and take the
appropriate steps that are unique to their businesses to retain these individuals. Employers should consider merit pay increases,
projects that increase an employee’s responsibilities, and other benefits like flex time, telecommuting, or technologies to keep
employees happy. Building a workplace where employees are motivated is an ongoing issue confronting HR
professionals. Offering positive reinforcement and feedback to team members has become an ongoing initiative for HR.
Company managers must inspire employees and coach them to become top performers. HR professionals need to understand
what motivates company employees, and incorporate them into compensation or rewards systems. Finding out why people are
leaving and addressing the issues is a role HR also plays.

Leadership Development
The SHRM poll and a similar one in 2010 by PricewaterhouseCoopers both indicated leadership development as a key challenge
for HR. 52% of respondents indicated this factor was a concern, a significant increase over 29% in 2010. The workforce is aging
quickly, leading many HR teams to consider putting formal succession plans in place and to begin more emphasis on developing
future leaders. As companies grow and expand, developing leaders has become a major initiative. Successful companies that
work on leadership development will also make strides with better employee retention. Employees repeatedly say that poor
leadership as a reason for leaving jobs. They also want a more active leadership role in decisions within their jobs, which may
necessitate training. Unfortunately, businesses sometimes struggle to come up with the budgets necessary for strong employee
training and development programs that emphasize leadership and growth.
Culture
Research has proven that culture influences organizational performance, whether performance is defined in terms of customer
satisfaction, attendance, safety, stock price or productivity. Human resources plays an active role in the development of an
organizational culture. Great workplaces with a great corporate culture are more financially successful than their peers. Great
workplaces have lower employee turnover than their competitors and are able to recruit top talent that fits their culture and needs.
The end result is they provide top quality customer service and create innovative products and services that contribute to their
overall financial success. There is a strong relationship between cultures and hiring that comes into play with employee sourcing,
selection and retention. Cultural fit is the makeup of someone. It’s who they are and what they bring to the table. Generally it
can’t be taught. If your corporate culture is not in synch with your candidate, it will be difficult to change them.Most people can
pick up new skills with relative ease if you have the time to train them. Most companies pay relatively little attention to culture
despite its importance. It has been proven that actively managing and developing culture through hiring can significantly improve
employee retention and performance. In the end, this directly influences organizational profitability and growth.

The biggest challenges facing HR Departments today are Recruitment, Retention & Motivation, Leadership Development and
Corporate Culture. Along with the changing role of HR is a move to more strategic issues and outsourcing some functions so
they can best manage and grow their company cost effectively. It’s safe to say that companies today are constantly examining
their HR function with a goal of figuring out best practices and best allocation of time.
For assistance with any or all of your human resource needs, HR Affiliates provides solutions that fit any company.

Human Resource Management Challenges

September 25, 2015 by zkjadoon

There are number of human resource management challenges (HR Challenges) that
need to be address as it is an important function of any organization. These HR
challenges might be environmental challenges, organizational challenges and individual
challenges, etc. Always remember that these challenges are not related to the single
dimension; rather they are directed towards multi-dimensional issues that should be
tackled with immediate care. Following are the broad categories of the Human
Resource Management challenges in the today’s competitive world.

Human Resource Management Challenges (HR

Challenges)
1. Environmental Challenges
2. Organizational Challenges
3. Individual Challenges

Environmental Challenges:

The environmental challenges are related to the external forces that exist in the outside
environment of an organization & can influence the performance of the management of
the organization. These external forces are almost out of control of the management of
the organization. These can be regarded as threats to management & should be
handled in a proactive manner.
Following are the list of human resource management challenges that considered
as the environmental challenges.

1. Rapid Change
2. Work Force Diversity
3. Globalization
4. Legislation
5. Technology
6. Job & Family Roles
7. Lack of Skills

1. Rapid Change

The world is changing at a faster rate because change is constant from several
centuries. So the management of the organizations should be quickly adaptive to the
changing requirement of the environment otherwise they become obsolete from the
market. The human resource management of an organization plays a basic role in
response to the environmental change. The HR department should adopt such policies
that can avail the new opportunities of the environment & keep the organization away
from the newly emerging threats.

2. Work Force Diversity

The changing environment provides both the opportunities & threats to the human
resource management of the organization. The HR manager should adopt such policies
that can make possible the diverse work force of employees. Although on one hand
diversity creates big problem but in the long run, the survival & performance of the
organization is flourished.

3. Globalization

One of the serious issue that today’s organizations are facing is the issue of
globalization. The world is converting into global business and severe competition is
started between domestic & foreign companies. Such competition results in the laying
off the effective workforce of the organization. The HR department can play an
important role in keeping the culture of the organization as global & wider.

4. Legislation

It is the old environmental challenge that is faced by organization since many decades.
There are certain labor laws that are declared by the government for the benefits of the
working employees. Some of these laws are disadvantageous to the interests of the
organizations so it is a one of the big challenges for the HRM to implement all those
labor laws within the organizations. If any of such law is violated, serious actions are
taken by the relevant government authority that may result into serious penalty for the
management of the organization.

5. Technology

The technology is also growing with great speed especially in the field of computer &
telecommunication. New methods are emerging that quickly dominates the older ones
& makes them obsolete. Therefore the skills required by the employees also changes
with the changing technology & this would compels the worker to advance the skills
three to four times throughout their working lives. So there comes a burden on the HR
department to constantly update the skills & expertise of their employees.

6. Job & Family Roles

In recent years, dual-career families are increasing in which both the wife & husband
work. This creates a serious burden on the women that they have to give time to their
families also. In many organizations the policies of HR favors the employment of more
than 10 years. The working hours of the organizations are also strict and tight for the
employees. Moreover, the selection & training procedures are two tough and time
consuming so most of the talented women hesitate to join any organization which
would result in the wastage of talent and potential. Even working men also suffer from
these employment policies because they do not properly give time to their families. So
the challenges for the HRM increases with this particular issue & special favorable
working policies are needed to be employed in all organizations.

7. Lack of Skills

The service sector development is expanding due to many reasons like change in the
tastes & preference of customers, technological change, legal change etc. All of this
affected the structure and managing style of the business organizations. The skills
required in the employment of service sector is also advancing but the graduates of the
technical colleges & universities are groomed according to the latest requirements.
Therefore most of the employees lack the standard required skills to perform their
duties and it becomes a big challenge for HRM to properly train these new & old
employees to become an efficient & effective workers.

Organizational Challenges

The organizational challenges for the HRM are related to the factors that are located
inside the organization. Although these challenges are evolved as a byproduct of the
environmental challenges but these can be control by the management of the
organization to much extent. The proactive HR managers take notice of such challenges
in advance and take corrective measures before these would convert into serious
issues. The human resource management challenges within the organization include
competitive position & flexibility, organizational restructuring & issues of downsizing,
the exercise of self managed teams, development of suitable organizational culture etc.

When the workforce of an organization is effectively used in combination with other

factor of production, the opportunities of the environment are availed & the threats are
eliminated. The competitive position of the organization can be influenced by the
policies of HR in the following ways.

 Controlling Costs
 Improving Quality
 Developing Distinctive Capabilities
 Restructuring

1. Controlling Costs

An organization can avail the competitive position by lowering its cost & strengthening
its cash flows. For this purpose, the labor cost of the organization is minimized through
effective compensation system that adopts innovative reward strategies for good
performances. In this way the favorable behaviors of the employees are rewarded so
the organization would get the ultimate advantage. Moreover the policies of
compensation should keep the labor cost under control. The effective employees should
be selected that keep with the organization for a longer duration & proper training
should also be provided to these employees. The HR department should also restore
the work of the employees along with the improvement in the health & safety issue of
working environment. All of these efforts would limit the cost of labor.

2. Improving Quality

The quality improvement can lead an organization towards competitive advantage. The
total quality management programs are employed that improves all the processes
within the organization which would ultimately result in the improvement of the final
product or service.

3. Developing Distinctive Capabilities

Another method of gaining competitive advantage is to employ the people that have
distinct capabilities to develop extra ordinary competence in specific area.

4. Restructuring

Another technique is the restructuring of the organization in which the methods of

performing different functions are altered positively. In case of HR department, the
majority of functions are still performed within the organization.
In some organizations the major functions of HR department are now transferred to the
other parties in the shape of outsourcing, shared service center etc. The sizes of HR
department in those organizations are shrinking because most of functions are
performed by outsiders. But in most of the organizations the HR manager performs all
the relevant functions of HRM. The HR department is now involved in the mission
oriented & strategic activities.

Individual Challenges

The decisions related to the specific individual employees are included in the individual
challenges for the HRM. The organizational issues are also affected by the fact that how
employees are treated within the organizations. The problems related to the individual
level are as follow.

01- Productivity

02- Empowerment

03- Brain drain

04- Ethics & social responsibility

05- Job insecurity

06- Matching people & organization

1. Productivity

Productivity is defined as the measure of the value that an employee can add to the
final product or service of the organization. The increased output per employee is
reflected as increased productivity. Ability & motivation are two important factors that
affect the employee productivity. The ability of the employee can be improved by the
hiring & replacement along with the proper training & career development. On the
other high quality of work life serves as accelerator to the motivational factor of the
employees.

2. Empowerment

In the modern days many organizations make changes in such a way that their
individual employees exert more control on their work as compared to their superiors.
This individual control of employees is called empowerment which helps the employees
to work with enthusiasm, commitment & learn new skills because they are more make
normal decisions about their work by themselves & hence enjoy their work.

3. Brain Drain
One of the challenges for HRM is the detachment of the key potential employees from
the organization which link with the competitors for higher remunerations etc. In such
cases the organization loses its intellectual property & in many situations the leaving
employees at the higher levels also take with them the potential lower level employees.
This brain drainage is becoming serious issue in the high-Tec companies.

4. Ethics & Social Responsibility

Under this challenge, the organizations make an effort to benefit some portion of the
society. This is now considered to the social responsibility of the organization to show
favorable behavior towards the society. The ethics serves as the basic principle for the
socially behavior of the organizations. Within organizations, the HR departments
develop a code of conduct & principles of code of ethics that serve as the guidance for
the personal behavior of the employees of the organizations. The employees also
expect from the management to show favorable decisions.

5. Job Insecurity

In the recent years, restructuring & downsizing develops the sense of insecurity of job
within the employees of the organizations. Now many employees only desire to get a
steady job rather than a job with promotional future. Even most successful
organizations lay off its employees in the period of cut throat competition. The stock
market also shows favorable results when layoffs has been made. All these things
create a fear among employees about the insecurity of their jobs which would hinder
their effective performance.

6. Matching People & Organizations

It has been proved from the research that the HR department contributes to the
profitability of the organization when it makes such policies of employee selection in
which those employees are selected & retained that best suits the culture of the
organization & its objectives. For example it is proved from research that those
employees would become beneficial for the high-Tech companies that can work in risky,
uncertain environment having low pay. In short it is an important challenge for the HR
department to hire and keep such employees whose abilities & strengths would match
the requirements & circumstances of the organization.