Role That the HR Department Term Paper

Long-term vs. Short-term Orientation: Long-term Orientation, because all decisions being made within an organization impact the future, and in order for the company to have a successful outcome it should be oriented towards the future, instead of the past.

The seven Sullivan Principles promote equal and fair treatment to all individuals, regardless of race. They were issued in 1977 in South Africa and were aimed to help the aboriginal population that was being discriminated against by the new arrived whites.

The principles stress out the need for equal employment opportunities (promote nonwhites to leading positions), equal facilities, equal remunerations, better conditions outside the work for nonwhites and the abolition of the laws that allowed discrimination.

The Sullivan Principles became the "blueprint for ending apartheid" and made organizations realize the undoubted rights of the aboriginal community. When an international organization expands their business to foreign countries, they are not allowed to treat differently the locals from the new-comers. The living proof that these principles are being respected is presented today by the organizations' choice to appoint qualified local management, instead of bringing it from the company's original country.

7. There are two main solutions to the great number of pending retirements: hiring more young employees and re-hiring the retired on temporary or part-time basis.

The first proposition offers a long-term solution, but has the inconvenience of an unexperienced and untrained personnel. However, with sufficient training programs, the company will benefit of skilled workforce. On the other hand, the organization could start hiring the new employees prior to the commence of the retirements. This would generate increased costs, as for a certain period of time, the company would have to pay a larger amount of wages than necessary. But in this time period, when the new employees overlap with the pending retirees, the older employees could offer training to the new-comers.

The second proposition, that of continuing to collaborate with the old employees even after they retire, is a more and more common procedure due to its advantages for both the company as well as the retiree. The organization maintains its trusted and highly trained employees, and the retiree gets extra income and has the liberty to make up his/her own schedule.

All in all, the issue of the pending retirements and the insufficient young employees to replace them brings about a dramatic situation, and to solve it, managers will have to "devise creative strategies to keep their older workers on the job: hiring retirees as temps; letting employees phase into retirement by working part time; having experienced workers mentor younger employees; promoting telecommuting, flexible hours and job-sharing; urging retirement-ready workers to take sabbaticals instead of stepping down; or even offering bonuses to forestall retirement."

8. When interviewing a candidate for an entry level position, the manager presents all features of the job, with great emphasis on the required abilities. Since it is an entry-level, the interviewer knows that the candidate is probably a fresh graduate or in any case a person who does not possess any training or experience in the respective area. In this situation, the manager will inquire the candidate about his or her personal characteristics, such as determination, will to learn and adapt. "Entry level interview is generally easy and what the companies are basically looking for are people with right attitude for the job."

So the interviewer will present the available position in terms of necessary abilities and skills, without emphasis on knowledge. For instance, during an entry-level interview for a sales position, the manager will inquire about the candidate's ability to communicate with other people or about his or her ability to be persuasive. The manager could also ask what kind of sales training the candidate has had so far, but this feature will not be emphasized.

The managers that organize entry level interviews are not particularly looking for trained and experienced personnel, but for personnel with a positive attitude, who will be trained according to the company's policy and will be formed in the organization's mentality. In other words, the interviewer will present the available position within the company in terms of abilities, skills, attitude, behavior, rights and responsibilities, without focus on knowledge, training and experience.

9. Temporary employees have become more common nowadays generally because of the advantages generated by a fixed term contract between employee and employer. Temporary workers are mainly used for three reasons:

they can easily replace the permanent staff that, due to personal reasons, is on leave (maternity leave, vacation, sick leave); the temporary workers serve the purpose of getting the job done, and at the expiry date of the contract, when the permanent employee returns, the collaboration between employer and temporary worker ends amiably; they can complete the permanent staff in times of peak seasons.For instance, hotels in touristic resorts need numerous workers during peak season, but do not need them outside the touristic season. In this case, temporary employees are the most efficient solution; temporary workers are also used as means of recruiting. For example, an advertising company hires 5 temporary workers for a period of 12 weeks, at the end of which, the best candidate will be made an offer to join the company as a permanent worker.

When developing an advertisement for hiring temporary workers, the management has to be in full accordance with the EEOC regulations. As such, they will not discriminate against any individuals or groups on terms of age, sex, marital status, sexual orientation, race or religion. In other words, all individuals who desire to apply for the available positions within the company are encouraged to do so, and they will be presented with fair and equal chances to prove their worth.

The advertisement should contain a description of the available position in terms of skills, abilities, knowledge, experience, rights, obligations, remuneration and compulsory, the time period. Also, it should contain a description of the ideal candidate.

10. Managers claim that the use of illegal drugs has increased drastically during these past few decades, and that this fact is present even at the workplace. In order to make sure that their employees are not using illegal drugs, U.S. managers subject millions of employees to a urine analysis that shows whether workers are under the influence of drugs.

However, the results are not always accurate, and generally 10% up to 30% lead to erroneous conclusions. In case a worker is found to be using drugs, whereas he or she is not using them, his image will suffer as he will be discredited in the eyes of his employer and fellow workers. Furthermore, these tests are not always relevant, and do not show how or if the individual's work performance has been affected by drug consumption. For instance, a person that smokes marijuana on a Saturday night will test positive on Wednesday morning, but a person who uses cocaine on Wednesday morning, will test negative.

Aside from their inconclusiveness, drug tests are also humiliating and degrading towards employees as they violate their right to privacy. Even if the employee is not using drugs, so he'd would normally have nothing to hide, the urine test will reveal private information about his health condition, such as any treatments for heart illness, epilepsy, diabetes, depression or pregnancy.

In a nutshell, drug testing is degrading, it violets the right to privacy and it's not even a safe method to identify drug consumption. And no matter how the managers argue in favor of drug testing, they still won't make it a justifiable procedure. Drug testing should only be enforced upon those individuals who are under suspicion of using drugs, moreover when "many state and federal courts have ruled that testing programs in public workplaces are unconstitutional if they are not based on some kind of individualized suspicion."

Bibliography

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Clarence Zener, November 1967, a Contribution to Profit Maximization, Texas a&M University, College Station

A.H. Maslow, 1943, a Theory of Human Motivation, Originally Published in Psychological Review, 50, 370-396

The Mid-Amercican Manufacturing Technology Center, Human Resource Services, http://www.mamtc.com/humanResources1.asp, last accessed on September 4, 2007

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, May 17, 2007, Sexual

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The Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service, the a-Z of Work, Equal Opportunities - Sexual Harassment

Ben Dattner, Expatriate Training in Organizations, NYU Psychology Department, New York, http://209.85.129.104/search?q=cache:fsXH1m-jVHMJ:www.dattnerconsulting.com/presentations/expats.pdf+training+expatriates&hl=ro&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=ro, last accessed on September 4, 2007

Wikipedia, the Free Online Encyclopedia, August 18, 2007, Geert Hofstede, Framework for Assessing Culture, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geert_Hofstede,last accessed on September 5, 2007

Official Website of Rev. Leon Sullivan, the Sullivan Principles, http://www.revleonsullivan.org/principled/principles.htm, last accessed on September 5, 2007

Carolyn Said, Aprin 29, 2005, Wanted: Retirees to work; Employers try to prepare for pending exodus of Boomers, San Francisco Chronicle

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/04/29/BUGO7CH2691.DTL, last accessed on September 5, 2007

Interview Master, Preparation for entry level job interview, http://www.interviewmaster.org/interview/preparation-for-entry-level-job-interview.htm, last accessed on September 5, 2007

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