Role of HR in Quality Initiatives.doc

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INSITITUTE OF MANAGEMENT, NIRMA UNIVERSITY

Human Resource Management

Research Assignment on

Role of HR in Quality Initiatives

Submitted to:

Prof. Sameer Pingle

Submitted by:

Deepesh Sharma

(111219)

(17/02/2012)


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Acknowledgement

This work of research in the field of Human Resource Management, on the topic of Role of HR in Quality

Initiatives was initiated and successfully accomplished under the able-guidance of Professor Sameer Pingle of

Institute of Management, Nirma University, Ahmedabad, who I would like to call as a pioneer in all the

dimensions of Human Resource Management philosophies and in its practical applications. Without such an

elegant guidance, this work could have never succeeded in motive for which it was designed.

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Declaration

I, hereby declare that the work presented here in this research paper is solely the labor of mine and I solely take

the responsibility of its genuineness and originality.

Date: 16/02/2012 Place: Ahmedabad.

Deepesh Sharma

(111219)

MBA (FT)-2011-13,

IMNU, Ahmedabad.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction...........................................03

2. Literature Review..............................................................................................04

3. Research Gap/s..................................................................................................07

4. Research Questions...........................................................................................08

5. Research Methodology..............................................................................06

6. Data presentation and Analysis.....08

7. Finding..10

8. Conclusion and Learning..11

9. Scope of future research...12

10.References.........................................................................................................09

11.Appendices13

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Introduction

Human resource is the only resource an organization have which no other organization can duplicate, and thus

it is the most important resource for any organization, making its management most critical. It is proven in

todays business world that the organization which has a good Human Resource Management has greater

chances not only to survive but to excel in the industry. For the very same reason, organizations are stressing

much on the development of their human resource department which in turn helps in development of all the

other departments and units of the organization. Today, various organizations are outsourcing the management

of their human resources through the companies which are providing such services as training and

development, recruitment etc.

Human Resource Management or HRM can be defined in short as the process of recruiting, developing,

managing and directing employees for achieving the goals of the organization. HRM constitutes all the

functions which are mutually exhaustive regarding employee includes hiring, compensation, performancemanagement, skill development, rewards, recognition, safety, wellness, benefits, employee motivation,

communication, administration and training1 which leads to the happiness of employee further leading to the

dedication and commitment of an employee towards his/her work and the organization.

Every organization is striving today for increasing the efficiency of its processes through initiating various

quality enhancing activities such as implementation of Six Sigma, Total Quality Management (TQM) etc.

These activities target on increasing the output with the same amount of input of labor, machine, raw material,

information and time by minimizing the wastes. Thus for implementing such quality enhancing activities, apartfrom the procedural knowledge and technical skills, employee also need to have awareness, motivation, ethics

and respect towards the work and the organization which should be imparted to them through the upper

management, i.e. properly managing the human resources for the optimum utilization of the same. HRM acts as

a tool for the upper management for the better utilizations of available resources so as to achieve better

efficiency.

Thus, the skills required for successful implementation of any quality enhancing philosophies, practices or even

to increase productivity through use of better tools and machines are categorized broadly into two main

divisions, the hard skills, which refers to the job skills and expertise required by the worker or an employee and

the soft skills, which are the behavioral and personal skills in general such as communication, ethics, attitude

towards work, teach approach etc. For improving both of these hard as well as soft skills, an organizations

Human Resource department plays vital role by providing platforms for skills development. Soft skills are

directly related to the culture and structure of organization and the trainings and learning imparted to employees

by the HR department where as Hard skills are dependent on the training and development programs provided

to employees on job skills. These can also be improved by working with an experienced worker, but the flow of

knowledge and communication barriers are also defined and designed by the HR department, which in turn

makes HR responsible of this also.

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Thus, HRM which was once considered to be a support function in any organization, especially in

manufacturing sector is now at the core and its role in any initiative taken for the betterment of organization,

including quality improvement initiatives such as Six Sigma, Total Quality Management, Kaizen etc cannot be

denied.

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Literature Review

According to Elmuti and Kathawala, Quality is a never ending process of continuous improvement. 2 From

the research - Oakland (1993), quality was defined as The totality of features and characteristics of goods and

services that bear on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs 2. After the era of industrial revolution, experts

believe that the present and future era is that of quality revolution where the position of any organization will be

defined by the successful implementation of quality initiatives. Several initiatives are now taken by almost all

the organizations for quality improvements of their products and services such as Six Sigma and Total Quality

Management(TQM) implementation.

Six sigma can be defined as process is not producing more than 3.4 defects out of one million opportunities.

Any flaw in quality undesirable as per customer satisfaction is known as Six Sigma defect.3 According to

Oakland(1989), Total Quality Management is an approach to improving the effectiveness and flexibility of

business as a whole. It is essentially a way of organizing and involving the whole organization; every

department, every activity, every single person at every level. For an organization to be truly effective, each

part of it must work properly together, recognizing that every person and every activity affects and in turn is

affected by others.4 To implement six sigma and to practically nullify the defects, operation people stress on the

improvement of standard operating procedures without focusing much on the soft skills, such as employee

motivation towards work, communication, team thinking, brainstorming etc, which is the major reason for the

failure of successful implementation of quality initiatives and thus a drawback of the Human Resource

Management.5

According to the work of David E. Bowen of Arizona State University and Edward E. Lawler III of University

of Southern California, the HR role for successful implementation of quality initiatives can be sub categorized

into following:

Selection of Employees:

Organizations used to recruit employees through various ability tests based on technical knowledge and

aptitude tests. But in present scenario, due to stress on quality improvement activities organizations have started

hiring employees based on skill such as team work skills, statistical analysis skills etc which are required in job.

Training and Development:

Apart from technical skills, HR is also conducting training sessions now days on problem solving skills,

problem analysis, statistical process control, quality measurement, team working, team leading etc.

Career Development:

Earlier, the career growth used to follow a linear hierarchical stream, but now it depends on the individuals

capability to deliver the task, thus motivating employees to serve the organization better.

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Performance Management:

Various Performance measurement systems used now days by the HR makes sure that the employee who is

delivering more gets better rewards so as to motivate him and others too. Also it helps recognize the employee

for the achievements thus making him or her motivated towards work.

Pay System Development:

Payment system used to be based on the position held by the employee in earlier times, but now HR has

developed new system according to which the payment depends on the quality of performance delivered by the

employee.

Perquisites:

In order to encourage employees and impart satisfaction, HR has evolved with certain perquisites as only salary

does not matter, like compensatory offs, recognition, rewards , bonus, incentives etc which are more on the

performance base side.

Labor Relations:

Relationship development with labor is one of the key field where HR is now focusing as it helps to get the

feedback and know about their problems and thus to rectify them.

Communication:

Two way communication in order to know about the employee expectations from the organization is important

and now days HR keeps proper communication with employees through various systems such as employee self

service portals through which the problems or any other issues of the employees can be conveniently taken by

the HR.6

Similarly, according to Chandra, R.P, The role of HR for the betterment of organizations operation can be

categorized into four main categories of Strategic, Functional, Relational and Agent of change.7 Adrian

Wilkinson, Mick Marchington & Barrie Dale in their research paper titled Manufacturing More

Effective TQM: Implications for the Management of Human Resources found that the quality initiatives such

as TQM has soft as well as hard aspects. The Hard aspects refer to the operation procedures, machine qualities,

skills etc where as soft aspects include the motivation level of employee, communication, employee

involvement, team thinking, awareness etc which should be developed and strategized by the human resource

department.8

An Australian survey conducted by Murphy and Southey in the year 2003 conducted that the strategic HR

practitioner role of the HR function has the potential to be a pro-active agent of change with the ability todevelop, plan and implement a wide variety of activities linked to firm performance. 9

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In particular, the research indicated that central to the success of the implementation of such practices were the

important practitioner dimensions of networking skills, HR group climate and the role of the HR group, and

organizational leadership. Regarding networking skills, practitioners who recognize the need for and possess

the ability to use a wide variety of networking skills are able to develop productive relations with key elements

within organizations. The researchers also suggested that HR practitioners recognizing the value of innovation

conducive climates are more likely to devote greater resources to creating and maintaining them and thus more

likely to be open to the adoption of new practices, to actively engage in adoption behaviors and successfully

adopt appropriate practices and philosophies. Importantly, Murphy and Southey also highlighted the

significance of organizational leadership. The evidence would suggest that while there continues to be difficulty

for the HR function to assert their influence in organizational decision-making, the issue of legitimacy and

justifying their role in the application process is critical to the success of quality initiatives.

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Research Gap

Quality Initiatives success depends on the technical skills of employee, labors and managerial skills of

managers. Many organizations have tried to implement the Six Sigma, TQM etc for the improvement of their

operations, but despite of having highly skilled workforce they have failed to successfully implement them. The

line managers use to focus on the hard aspects or the hard skills of qualitative initiatives such as technical skills

and ignore an important aspect of it, i.e. soft skills which are the part of Human Resource Management, such as

employee motivation and enhancing employee commitment towards work.

Thus with this research, the gap between the Managers focus on hard skills and the employees perception

about the factors affecting the successful implementation of quality initiatives is tried to be filled up.

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Research Question

Based on the research gap, following are the main research questions identified for the research work.

1. What are the reasons because of which organizations are not able to successfully implement the

Qualitative Initiatives in operations?

2. Why the companies finding it difficult to develop the culture of Quality improvements?

3. How the organizations can encourage the employees for quality initiatives successful implementation?

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Methodology

Sample:

The sampling technique that we are going to use for our research project purpose is Convenience sampling.This method is used to obtain large number of questionnaires getting completed quickly and economically. It is

a non-probabilistic sampling technique in which respondents are chosen in a haphazard manner as they are

conveniently available.

We are using this method as this a cost-effective and less time consuming than most other sampling methods.

We are not using the probabilistic method as there is not a proper sampling frame available. Getting

information on all the smokers in the country will be practically impossible. Hence we are using non-

probabilistic method to survey people that are conveniently available.

As the sample was considered from various different organizations in different sectors including metal sector,

manufacturing sector, IT sector and service sectors, it is well stratified in nature as well which has facilitated

keeping smaller size of sample.

Sample Size:

Sample size used by us will be based on convenience. So it is very hard to get a very large sample size although

it will resemble top the real world more accurately and with reduced biases and errors. But for our purpose, we

can get a small sample size and we can optimise result from it using appropriate test. Thus we have taken 20 as

our Sample Size.

Data:

Data used in the research is primary data, which was collected from individuals directly for the very purpose of

research. Certain incorrect and loose entries were removed from the data set so as to make the research results

better.

The instrument used was a structured questionnaire with a multiple choice closed end question, two closed end

grid type questions requiring relative ranking among various parameters, and other questions inquiring about

the name, nature of job and the name of organization.

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Data Presentation and Analysis

Data was recorded by 20 respondents. Following is the asked question wise analysis of their recorded answers.

1. The respondents perception about the importance of type of training imparted to the employees of the

organization seeking implementation of quality initiatives was recorded and the respondents were given

3 options to choose from:

1. Training on Hard Skills is more important.

2. That on soft skills.

3. Both are equally important.

Following result was obtained.

Out of 20 respondents, 18 responded as equally important, while 1 each favored hard skills training and soft

skill training.

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2. In the next question asked to the respondents, relative ranking was needed to be done in terms of what is

more important for the implementation of quality initiatives in between the hard skill development, soft

skill development, performance evaluation and reward and recognition, empowerment and quality of

machines and tools used by the workers and employees. The following responses were obtained.

1. Hard Skill Development: 25% of respondents ranked it first and 40% ranked it second, while 10% and

25% ranked it 3rd and 4th respectively. 0% ranked it at 5th rank.

2. Soft Skills Development: 37% of respondent ranked it at 1st position and 16% at 2nd position followed

by 26%, 5% and 16% respectively at 3rd, 4th and 5th positions.

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3. Performance Evaluation and Reward and Recognition: 35% ranked it at 1 st position followed by 35%

who ranked it 2nd. 20% and 10% respectively ranked it at 3rd and 4th position. 0% ranked it at 5th position.

4. Empowerment: 25% ranked it at 1st position followed by5% at 2nd position and 25% at 3rd. 40%

positioned it at 4th and 5% at 5th position respectively.

5. Quality of Machines and tools: 10%, 14%, 14% and 5% respectively positioned it at 1 st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th

positions while 57% of respondents ranked it at 5th position..

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3. In next question, responses regarding the key improvement areas were asked about and team work

practice, communication and job skill and expertise were ranked relatively. Following were obtained:

1. Team Work Practice: 35% of respondent showed that this is the area of greatest improvement. 30%

placed it next to best, i.e. at 2nd position.

2. Communication: 20% said that this is at 1st rank followed by 30% responses making it at 2nd

position. 25% each ranked it at 3rd and 4th position respectively.

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3. Job Skill and Expertise: 15% ranked it at 1st position and 30% at 2nd position. Followed by 35% and

205 respectively who ranked it at 3rd and 4th position.

4. Employee Motivation towards work: 35% of respondent ranked it 1st followed by 15%, 15% and

35% respectively who ranked it 2nd, 3rd and 4th.

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Findings:

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From the responses of the sample taken above, it can be seen that the employee perception about the

requirements for the successful implementation of quality initiatives is that they perceive training on soft skills

development more important than that of hard skills development programs. Also, according to employees

responses, it can be seen that the quality of the machines available and tools for working is not as much

important in implementing quality initiatives successfully as it is important to get fair performance evaluation

and reward and recognition for good jobs done.

From the next questions response, it can be sorted out that by the implementation of quality initiatives,

Employees Motivation level towards work gets increased the most and a team work approach develops. Apart

from this, the clarity and level of communication between vertical and horizontal level of hierarchy gets

increased leading to better working and job skill and expertise as a result, develops.

Thus, some points which can be seen are as follows:

1. Soft skill development is most essential for successful implementation of quality initiatives with hard

skill development.

2. Performance evaluation and Rewards and Recognition of employees plays a major role in the quality

initiatives.

3. Quality of machines and tools is not very much important.

4. Due to implementation of quality initiatives, motivation level of employee raises.

5. Communication enhances in the organization due to quality initiatives.

6. Job skills and expertise increases.

Conclusion and Learning

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From the findings it can be concluded that:

The quality initiatives is not only a responsibility of production and other individual departments

responsibility, but the Human Resource Department also has a say in it, without which this implementation may

not be able to succeed. It can be looked that due to implementation of quality initiatives success, the team

approach develops, communication enhances etc, it can also be looked upon as if the Human Resource

Department start developing communication, team thinking etc in other departments, automatically the standard

of working will improve and the implementation of quality initiatives will be easily realized.

Thus it can be concluded over here that for the success in implementation of quality initiatives, Human

Resource plays a vital role and they have to carry out certain HR roles such as Performance Evaluation, Reward

and Recognition, development of soft skills of employees etc in a peculiar way along with the enhancement of

job skills of employees.

Scope for Future Research

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The research was intended in knowing if there is any role of Human Resource Management in the

implementation of quality initiatives in the organizations. The roles considered were like performance

evaluation, reward and recognition, soft skills development training and programs etc. We took into account

here all these functions of the HR managers which are actually done by an HR manager only. Despite, there can

be ways by which the functionality of HR managers can be merged with that of production managers through

proper training programs. This is basically now in practice. But the research can be made regarding what is

more beneficial for an organization? To get line manager deliver the roles of an HR manager or to separate the

roles. Beneficial as in getting the desired result out of our actions.

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Nelson, L. (1999).An applied research project submitted to the National Fire Academy as part of the

Executive Fire Officer Program. (pg. 7). http://www.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/efo30794.pdf(09/01/2012)

2. http://www.isixsigma.com/new-to-six-sigma/getting-started/what-six-sigma/ (09/01/2012)

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%40sessionmgr115&vid=2&hid=122(09/01/2012)

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2202bb1e13b0%40sessionmgr113&vid=2&hid=122 (09/01/2012)

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Oriented Human Resource Management CEO Publication G 92-1 (204). Arizona State University,

Edward E. Lawler III, University of Southern California. (09/01/2012)

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%40sessionmgr113&vid=2&hid=122(09/01/2012)

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(1994). Manufacturing More Effective TQM: Implications for the Management of Human

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