 Assalamu alaikum, I am Mokhtar Ahmad with the virtual university course of human resource management. And we are here today with our last lecture that is lecture number 45. We started this subject very important subject of human resource management. As I said this is very important subject, by now we have already completed 44 lectures. This may 40 lecture to Mokhthulif concept discussed where they come 41 to 43 were the basic review of basic human resource functions or 44th lecture to the last lecture that was about the concepts of human resource management in the international business. So what about today? Today is our last session, now I will talk with you in this lecture with this belief that all those concepts that material we have covered so far you are clear about that. The concepts are clear, so now let us see the broader picture what is happening in this field, why it is that much important. So stay with me and I hope we will learn something more from today's session 2. So I will directly start with today's topic and again the topic is the same the human resource management as we started in our first lecture. So what is human resource management? It is in managing the people, it is a managerial function that tries to match an organization needs to the skills and abilities of the employees that is one aspect, but it has to do with the managing the people working in the organization. When we are talking about managing human resources, so we are giving more focus towards organizational abilities, ability of what? How they should attract to whom? The people not simply the people the right type of people and who are the right type of people? People who have the desired skill, who have the desired abilities, who can deliver? The knowledge workforce, the learning workforce, the important concept developing in this era. What was the next? Develop then according to your environment, according to your situation, that is fine. Now people are used to your system, they are they have started performing. The next ability will be, the next challenge will be how to keep them motivated, so that they should deliver in the same pace rather more than that what they are doing today and what should be the last ability? The last challenge for organization to keep or retain those talented people because we have seen we have discussed so many times that in this era especially when they have so much and so many opportunities available, so this last one is big way very important. So we started our lecture number one, our first lecture with these thoughts, with these philosophies. And why? Why we think this human resource management is important? Because every manager manages human being or human resources, fair enough and human resources are the primary source of lasting competitive advantage. You remember when we started our lecture number one, I said that it was known that for survival, for richness, for importance, certain such resources are essential. So now someone has said that if you have more money, that is a good country, a good organization. They are from a country, they have natural resources, that is why they are rich, they are developed, are they important? Right, look at the Middle East, we always think that they are rich, they are important because they have the oil, similarly other things. But now we have reached a point where everybody understand and accept that they are not the kind of resources which can have the lasting effect. Because if oil is finished, what will happen? If money is gone, what is going to happen? If technology is absolute, then what? So who, what else? Which kind of resources we should be focusing or we should be banging on them which can have lasting effect and they are the only one and one and that is the human resource. See people do make a difference and we are talking about people who deliver, not the number. O lo jinn kaender potentials hai, jo talented hai, jo deliver kar sakne hai. And that is why we are taking this subject very seriously and we always preach or kind of convey to people that focus on these resources, they are very important, they are the main reason for your competitive work. Because as I said other type of resources can be duplicated easily or they can be arranged. Remember I said we were thinking that technology, money, these are very important to create a competitive work. Yes, they have the values but see if you have a good project, you can also arrange the money. If you have the money, arranging technology is not a big deal. So what else is making the difference then? These are the human resources and we are, that is the reason we are focusing on it. So why is HRM important? Because human resources, the primary source of lasting competitive advantage. What about traditional sources of competitive advantages? Professional or economic capabilities, product capabilities you might have a very specific product but then what is going to happen? Quickly your competitive will copy it. Then what? Technological or process capabilities, again you might get advantage for some time for some period but again easily or quickly people can duplicate those things. Similarly organizational capabilities, they have a very strong system. So they are the traditional sources for your competitive advantage. What are the strategies for gaining competitive advantages? How we can gain competitive advantages? If you are cost leadership, compete by lower cost and how can you compete by lower cost? So many different reasons. You can have the cheap raw material, you can have the labor cost less, you can have the good technology but again remember the main reason where you can reduce the cost if you have the efficient workforce. Similarly cost reduction effectiveness is also playing a very important role. Similarly if you can differentiate for the product, you have unique features for your product that can give you the competitive advantages. Similarly if you have the best customer service, here again the human resource is playing the vital role. In DC Dorme, Singapore airline was the number one. Why it was like that? Because the people working in that airline, they were giving the best customer service. That is why people were more tilted toward that airline. It was not that they have a spacious aircraft or anything else. Similarly speed to market, how efficient or how effective you are that can also give you advantage in the competitive market. But when we are talking about organization, see the whole organization they have a mission and based on that mission they can have their objectives or goals. To achieve those goals, they can develop the strategies and to fulfill those or to accomplish those strategic moves, they develop structure but again see the bottom line is the people who actually perform all those things to achieve those goals or accomplish the mission. So I believe it is clear that even the strategically when we are talking, this human resource is playing very important role. The strategic importance of managing human resources, let us discuss few things here. And do not worry, this is a generalized type of lecture. It is not part of your course that you should be worried as to how you will remember because I will be bringing different ideas here. And main reason is to give you and show you more importance about this subject so that you should take it seriously because it is going to help you in real life. Competitive advantage? How can you achieve competitive advantage when people come to you rather going to your competitors, for your product, for your service? And how, what are the ways, firms or organization can use HRM to gain sustainable, competitive advantage? We are talking about sustainable, maximize the value added by employees, acquire rare employees, the word is the rare employees, unique if they have the extra abilities, if they are the talented, develop a system in your organization with those talented people who can easily copy them. So then you can have the sustainable, competitive advantage in the market. Human resource roles, in the organization what kind of roles they are playing, let us quickly go through them and try to understand the importance of human resource management or human resources. They can play the strategic management role, enabler or consultant role, monitoring and maintaining role, we will discuss them individually, change and knowledge facilitator role and innovator role, let us go one by one and try to understand the role of human resource in the organization. Strategic management role, what they do basically they link their organizations HR policies or their firms HR policies and practices to the broader, longer term need of the firm and its stakeholders, how you develop the strategies, you do the SWAT analysis, you see the forces which are affecting you, the internal and external and based on that you can develop your strategies and here HR is playing the vital role. They link those policies, those broader long term needs of the firm with and its stakeholders to firm proper or to manage strategically their organizations. How they do it, setting that direction, crafting, corporate and business level plans, developing and implementing functional plans, measuring, evaluating, revising and refocusing all those plans and who is doing that, the people. So then that is the reason, one organization strategy is different from another organization strategies, otherwise they should have the same. Then how can one organization will be successful, the other can be other way around, not successful. Similarly, the strategic role is making sure that you can create fit between HR and business strategies, otherwise they can have two different directions. The main strategic role to create the fit between HR strategies and business strategy of the organization within a framework of micro and macro environment or external forces be kept or internal forces be kept. What about the second role, that is enabler or consultant role, enabling line managers to make things happen, who is doing that, human resource. That include training, your HR department is providing you training, assisting with problem diagnosis when they are doing the performance crazy. Developing solution with managers and being accessible and attuned to implies need and concern. They are dealing with the real people, they are dealing with living things. So they have to be attuned to their needs and concerns of the employee and here they are playing the role of enabler. What about monitoring and maintaining role, that compliance monitoring compliance is with legal regulation and effectiveness of HR activities, how they do that. Monitoring their morale of their employees and providing support during change are uncertain times. They have to use this word change very often, things are changing with speed, those who manage is also very important because we believe and we know that there is always resistance to change and this is natural. Whenever organizations want to create change, people resist it or any change even if you get to your home, if your parent decided okay they want to change the setting of your trying room or dining room, see lot of concern will arise from the kids, why? The reason is just for the sake, why are they doing this, it is a curiosity, fear is also there, new technology is coming, people might think that maybe they will get obsolete due to this, they don't need it, yeah there might be so many reasons. Basically what we have to do, there is a change process and what is that change process? They call it, defreeze it, make the adjustment and refreeze it, the three stage change process. What happens in this, you see, you make something, let's see, you have a freezer in your house, you make ice cream cubes or different things, they come in different shapes, you make ice cream or you add water, whatever it is, you make ice cream, you put it in the freezer and after a while when it is frozen, it comes in a special shape, if you don't like that shape then what will you do? We will defreeze it, we will let it melt, again a new shape, we will put it in the freezer, we will put it again, then refreeze it, you can have the new shape, this is the basic philosophy of real life, we use this for change management, whatever system you have, whatever technology you have, first of all you have to refreeze it, how do you have to teach them, you have to convince them, you have to even sometime manipulate it to make sure that people know why they want to, why you have to change, or if you see base you adjust it and then you fix it, you make the rule that this is the new way we should be working, for that if some kind of change is happening, the HR department will play their role there, what will they do? They provide support during change and uncertain times, similarly innovating the roles, improving productivity and quality of work life, how, adapting to an environment of uncertainty, energy conservation and international competition, whenever there is a hardship, you say then you see creativity comes out of it, and justifying the benefit and cost of any kind of program, they are conducting there, change and knowledge facilitator role, change we discussed earlier, facilitating organizations change and maintaining organization flexibility, focusing on future, guiding the flow of knowledge, information and learning through the organization, they have, you have specific training and development department within the HR department, you should be able to see the big picture, let's see the triad, HR triad, all managers responsible for leading people, employees here, responsibility for human resource management or customization viewing people inside and outside the organization as their customer, and if you consider them customer, then you have to believe it, unless your customers are satisfied, you cannot survive in the market, marketing may say the customer is the boss, and if you are able to satisfy your customer better than your competitors are doing, you are the survival, you are the winner, you are the successful, so agar apne yeh view kar liya, ke moh jo log hai, jo aap ke saath inside organization li kaam kare hain, or even your customer outside, you consider them the customer, to fir aapko utani effort karni padegi inside bhi apne human resources ke liye, jitni aap apne customer ko satisfy karne ke liye karne, clear, so it's me then you have to involve them for even designing a product or service, jo humara kon sep tam ne parata management by objective yeh participative management, ke aap unko bhi importance dehtein, unko involve kartein even apne, when you are designing your product or services, achieving sustainable competitive advantage through employees, this is the ad, this is the key, how can we do that, if you have employees who have the competency like, they are valuable for you, they are organized, they are rare, rare in much sense, unki ko fizik asi nahi hai ke dosi jaga pe nahi milte, unki ko shakal asi nahi hai, ke us main baaki jago pe asi log nahi hote nahi, in their competency, in their abilities, in their knowledge base, aur jiski kaaphi karna muskul ho, to istra ke agar humara sources aap ke paas hai, if you are able to maintain such type of people who have the characteristic like, they are valuable, they are rare, they are organized, and they are difficult to copy, you got it, you can have the competitive advantage in the market now, you will deliver better than other people can do, and it will be difficult for them to copy you now, so this is how you can achieve competitive advantage through your employees, and that is why we always say, it is the most important thing when we are talking about the managing the people, and again remember it is not simple the people, they are the valuable people, they are the rare people, they are the skilled people, that the learned people, the educated people, are people who deliver. There is a new concept, they talk about today's, in today's organization, high performance work system, again do not worry about these new things, because they are just to give you, to brief you, or to kind of make you convince that yes, this human resource management is important. What is this high performance work system? A spec specific combination of human resource practices, work structure, and process that maximizes implies knowledge, skill, commitment, and flexibility. Now, you have seen the previous slide, how you can take the competitive advantage, if you do all these combinations, so do not you think you have the unique setup, you have the rare type of system, it will be difficult to copy, and system compose of many interrelated parts, that complement one another, to reach the goals of an organization, even if it is a large or small organization. How can we develop high performance work system? This is the model, you have to link different strategies with the system design, which included the workflow system, the human resource practices, a human resource management practices, very important, because the workflow and technologies can be duplicated or applicated easily, or they can be arranged for the other people too, but they again, we all will be focusing on this HR practices here. And keeping in view, your principles of high involve improvements, of high involvements, or here we have a process called implement karenge, the outcomes will be beneficial for organization, not only for organization, but of course, for the implies. Let us try to understand the principles of high performing work system, the principles of the HPW, SPUsCO, there are four parameters here, knowledge development, shared information, performance reward linkages and social equalities. So, these are the principles through which you can create the good team, the good system, where you will be performing things. Most of these things you have already discussed in our sessions, but still, shared information, we have to facilitate each other, right time information, quick speed, knowledge development, same time, doing and learning, training and development continue processes. Or if it is linked with the reward, pay for performance concept, the more you will do, the better you will get, the better you will do, the more you will get, plus social equalities. If one person is here, second is here in the hierarchy, still they are both are important for the organizations, both should have a mutual respect, that can make a good harmonic systems, which can facilitate the performance in the right direction, because everybody will be owning it, the organization, they will be that the concept of organization citizenship will be there. And what that citizenship, organization citizenship concept say, that everybody will deliver more than what he or she is supposed to do, because when you are owning it, you do not just count hours or time or days, you just focus on delivery and delivery of something special, more and more and that will create a good competitive advantage for you, clear? Aghe chalte, complementary human resources, policies and practices, which can make this phenomena more important and more practical, they are training and development, staffing, compensation. Start with the staffing, give proper training and development, linked with the reward system, performance with reward and you can have it. Take the right person, what was staffing, starting with the planning, recruitment and placement, if you have right person for the right job, not only a person, but right person for the right job, having capabilities, abilities, knowledge and skill and proper motivations. And if you provide them, facilitate them with the training and development, because when we were discussing the human resource development HRD concept, we discussed there that the outcome of HRD, proper HRD is the training and development of the employees, career development of the employees and organization development as a whole. So, this training and development will augment it, will all augment the basic delivery of your employees and now the stage is set. So, if it is properly linked with the reward, so you can have the delivery, you should expect more than you are thinking that you will be getting from your employees. But then you have to make, you have to ensure that you have to create fit, all those things, they should fit each other. What you are training and development plan, they should be matching with the need of the employees. They should also match with the expectation or desire of the workforce. You should prepare your workforce, you should prepare your employees to have a fit. And we are talking about both fit, internal and external fit with all those forces affecting on you. Internal fit, the situation in which all the internal elements of the work system complement and reinforce one another. Competition should be there, pressure should be there. But for the main keeping in view, the main objective in your mind, Similarly, external fit, the situation in which the work system sports the organization's goals and strategies, the broader the big picture, keeping in view the macro factors. The economy, the rule regulations, the policies, the changes, the technology changes. So, then the system will work and you will be able to survive, not only survive, but it should be the leader in the market in whatever field you are working. Benefit of this high performance work system. They can have more involvement in the organization. They will own it, experience growth and satisfaction and become more valuable as contributed. Because when they are satisfied, they are feeling pride, they have the pride of delivering something and they are feeling proud of that. So, on keeping growth, on keeping development, on satisfaction, and they will become more valuable and they will contribute more for the organization. What about organization? Of course, the high productivity will be the outcome. Quality, you will be seen as a quality leader because you have the unique now setup system of high performance, flexibility and the most important customer satisfaction. If your customers are satisfied or if you are able to satisfy your customer better than your competitors are doing, you are the successful, you are the leader, you are the stayer in the market, you will grow, you will prosper. You see, this whole high performance work system which we are talking, where they are integrating all those different components of the organization including the most important one the human resources management, human resources. So, the outcome will be benefits for employees, benefit for the organization and of course, ultimately it is beneficial for the society. Now, let us see what are the expectation for HR professionals in the organization. They should understand the problems signed to them, they stay competent and how can do that, they do that through study and research. You are at the top because they say that when someone feel they have achieved their goals and they are at the top, that is the first day of their decline because now they do not have the thrust, they do not have the stress, they do not have the energy to again continue their efforts. We have achieved a position, we have achieved a competency. They should stay competent, how can they do that? They should maintain high standards of personal honesty and integrity, no doubt in it, very important for each profession or for each person for that sake. We should maintain the high standard for personal honesty and integrity, so that people should believe in us, people should come to you when they feel you have the high standard of personal honesty and integrity. And we, being muslim, we are going to listen to that prophet who was called Sadak or Amin and his enemies would also come to him and that was the reason, personal honesty and integrity. Consider the personal interest, welfare and dignity of all employees affected by recommendation and action, whatever action, whatever recommendation you will make, remember it is not only going to affect you, but of course all employees working in the organization because you are dealing with the human resource department. Ensure, organization maintain high regard for public interest and personal interest and dignity of the employees and this is very important again. You see it does not matter at which level you are, but they are all human beings. You see why I say then, they will start owning, otherwise then different story. What are the current challenges regarding to human resource management? That is related to one organization's ability to attract, develop, motivate and retain the talented people. But what about the broader spectrum? What are the challenges? We do not call anymore the people as manager, we call them the team leader. People should be ready, organization should be ready to response those challenges, number one, managing the team. Another one, the big one, again managing the diversity and you know that we have discussed these things so many times. Diversity is important, it is in a way good, the benefits are more than the cost, but still managing diversity is very important and challenge for your HR department or your organization. Managing globalization, previous lecture was about international business or global business. See the world is becoming a global village, very common, boundaries are now meaningless. You can have organization, different firms from a 100,000 or 1000 miles away working with you in your country. You can have people from different culture, different religions, different country coming and working with you in your organization. So you have different bases of the diversity. So managing the diversity and globalization is also becoming a challenge. So we have to be responsive, we have to response these issues, these challenges. But there is another one, managing the change. As the technology change, as the system change, as the competitive pressures are increasing, organizations are changing quickly. Reengineering, restructuring due to competitive pressure, due to change. So if we have to identify major challenges of today's HR management or human resource management, these are the four things. Managing the teams, managing diversity, managing globalization, managing the change. Of course we can have different other things like managing your economic resources, managing the technology and so many things. But now they are the more common. These are big one, coming in a big way. So this should be our concern now as a human resource professional, how to handle these challenges till the time that there are new challenges for you in the market. Let us talk a little bit about the ethics, the values, the norms. Remember these things vary from culture to culture, religion through religion because one thing can be, one thing can be ethical for you, it might not be ethical for another person. The thing which is ethical for them, it might not be ethical for us. But let us see in a broader spectrum, basic ethical concern about the problems related to human resource management. Using favoritism rather than ability or job performance for managerial decision regarding employment, promotion, pay, discipline, big way the ethical issues. And if you don't discriminate on these issues, you can have very good harmonic environment in your organization. Or, unfortunately, they can have always the stress, the chaos and the problems in their organization. So remember, as a HR professional, we have to avoid any favoritism when we are going for the selection of new employment. When we are talking about the promotions, when we are talking about the pay or it is a matter of discipline. What a strong ethical behavior, if we really want to survive in this competitive world. Because otherwise, it is a short term thing. You might have some progress, some achievement, but it will be for short time. For long run pay, you will be the loser. Then, human resource professional role in workplace ethics. Monitor, they ensure all individuals are treated fairly and ethically. Investigators, HR professional, investigate, complaints, bearing on ethical issues. And again, they are fair in those, do investigation routine. If they are wise, then again the problem. And they are also the spoke person. They are defending their company's action when confronted by regulatory agencies, media or anybody out from outside. What about code of ethics for HR professionals? Maintain the highest standards of professional and personal conduct. Encourage employers to make fair and equitable treatment of all employees, a primary concern should be there. Maintain loyalty to employers and pursue company's objective in ways consistent with the public interest. Make sure that you are faithful to your employer. But again, with the framework of the broader law, the broader spectrum, this may public interest is really here. You should accept it. Uphold all laws and regulations relating to employees' activities. That is your responsibility. You should make sure that your organization is implementing those laws, those regulations related to your employer's activity. Because they are looking at you. You are the implementer. Similarly, maintain the confidentiality of privileged information because you might have a lot of information with you. So, confidentiality should be maintained because otherwise, and what about the management? Code of ethics for human source management. Professional must regard the obligation to implement public objectives and protect the public interest as more important than blind loyalty towards employer preferences. You should be loyal to your employer, but keeping in view the public interest. Galatkaam, Najai's favor, even if your employer is saying, so code of ethics say no. You should regard the obligation to implement public objective and protect the public interest as more important, this is more important for you than blind loyalty to an employer's preferences. So, that was all about ethics things. If this is the case, if everybody know it, why are not the best HR practices used more often? If everybody know it is so important, why are all the human source activities and human source practices used more often? Why are they not used in the organization? What is the problem then? There are some reasons. Resistance change, that can be one reason. Employer, your organization, they are feeling threatened. They don't want to follow these practices. So, how can we overcome, teach them, convince them that this is the beneficial. That is the reason. These are the three basic reasons due to which the normal or common human source practices, they are not being used in the organization, especially in our country too. How can you gain support for best HR practices? First of all, link the use of HR practices to the solution of real business problems and to achieve tangible business goals. You have to link them. Whatever practices you are thinking is good or good for your organizations, link them with the real business problems, so that they should understand the importance. Demonstrate how the benefits outweigh the cost of using best HR practices. Give the figure. See the results, but the last one is more important. Speak the language of business people. Talk with them in money form. And talk about the opportunity class. Because the statistical figure, the people who are decision makers, they are not concerned about these things. For the business people mostly, the bottom line is what is the return? Let's talk quickly about the future trends, human source trend we are talking about. And we are seeing it now even, the workplace flexibility. Collaborative work in a virtual office now. Now people don't need to sit together. You can have a virtual concept, one person sitting here, another sitting in another country, third sitting in Japan, fourth sitting in state. Instead you will be working together. Global businesses, business require a global workforce now. The people have to expand, the business have to expand, they have to go out of their boundaries. Work as a society, working is to live, not living to work, concept is changing. Workforce development, concept learning is a just in time form, format. Learning organization and high skill utilization. Harden, next time you go, you can have the just in time learning system or that is a new trend. Definition of job, if they are becoming big and big, the broader. Strategic role of HR, you are not only facilitating anymore. You are not only the sport or functions levels things. Now you are becoming leaders. You are not just the partners because now you will be giving the direction. And people has realized those things that human resource are the more important things. The value of predicting, having a vision and a way to achieve is becoming the key. So that is what I thought I should discuss with you about in the last lecture about this human resource management. Let us quickly summarize it. The key is efficiency, effectiveness and competitiveness. That is the key, a bottom line we can say. How to achieve it? If you are able to manage and retain the learning, capable human resources who can deliver. And that is the whole philosophy of this subject that this is very important. The human resource management is important. And if we understand this thing, we should be able to have the effective, efficient and compactive results whatever it is production, service, product or whatever. But there for that we have to get different knowledge, different philosophies, different theories from different areas. But just don't carry away for those things. Observe them. Think it. That is what it is saying. Think globally but act locally. You have to see what environment you are working. What is your local culture? And then use all those things according to your own culture, your own situation. Then you will be able to be successful. Otherwise you will be just wasting your time. So for that purpose, think globally and act locally. And what is happening? I always say this knowledge and experience are available but often ignored. Whatever we have discussed in during the last 44 or 45 lectures, I believe most of the people know already those things. But I think we ignore them. We do not take them so serious that they are important. And my message will be don't ignore them. They are important. And yes, they are making difference. With this I have to end my today's lecture. Not only today's lecture but this whole session because today was our last lecture. I thank you for your attention. That is it for today. I have tried my level best to make this subject very simple. Interesting for you. I hope I was successful but you are the better judge. And your results will reflect how successful I was. But I will tell you one more time. Hard work, hard work, and hard work. And you are our future. Focus on your goals. Work hard. Believe on yourself. And sky will be the limit. With this start, thank you very much. Allah Hafiz.