Company overview: University of Melbourne

This report focuses on the human resource management of higher education providers in Australia. The organization or the university that has been studied in order to learn the different concepts of HRM is University of Melbourne. This is the university that serves them Australian students as well as other international students with the higher education. This report starts with the discussion about the organization’s structure and operations along with its framework. The deep understandings of the environmental factors that affect the HRM function of the organizations have been studied by implementing the Jackson and Schuler HRM model. This model is about all the external environment factors that affect the organizations human resource department functioning.

University of Melbourne is the university that serves the students of Australia and worldwide. The university was established in 1853. The university not only provides higher education to the students but also contributes in serving the society by engaging in research purposes. The ranking of the university is always consistent and it remains in top universities of the world. According to Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2015-16, the university is placed at the top in Australia and achieved 33^rd rank in the world. As far as the university’s vision is considered, it has been identified that the university wants to be on the top of all the universities and wants to serve the students with finest services. The mission of the University of Melbourne is to implement the strategies that can help the university to serve the society. In order to achieve this goal, the university has various strategies. One of the major strategies is Growing Esteem strategy (Hr.unimelb, 2017). The Growing Esteem strategy of 2015-2020 of the university suggests that the university wants to adjust its policies and elements according to the change in the environment by emerging in research and education work. The university wants to serve the increasing demand of research and education according to the global and national level environmental changes.

Human resource management can be defined as the management of the employees at the workplace. In every field, there is a need to manage human resources working at the place. As per the changes in the environment of the organization, changes also occur in the strategies of the HRM department to handle and manage the employees. HRM practices of the organization are affected by many factors that can be internal or external (Schuler and Jackson, 2014). The earlier models of HRM explain the internal factors such as business strategies and organizational structure as the factors that affect the HR practices. With the evolution in the HRM practices, changes in the models have also been observed. Strategic human resource management has been evolved from the old Human resource management. Strategic human resource management deals with linking of the HR practices with the overall organizational practices. Therefore, the new models of HRM such as Jackson and Schuler model of SHRM consider the external environment factors along with the internal factors of the organization (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang, 2014). This model suggests that there are many external factors that have their impact on the HRM practices of the organization. These factors are briefly described below:

Jackson and Schuler Model and factors of external environment affecting University of Melbourne

Formulating the human resource policies in the organization requires the assistance of the laws of that particular country in which the company is located. The organizations have to formulate the policies according to the framework given by the government related to that policy (Guest, 1987). This is because considering the laws and legislation of the government is mandatory for the organization. This is the reason there is difference in the HRM practices of the organization with different government or in different countries. Even the HRM practices vary from industry to industry. This is because government provide different framework to different industry and businesses. Every activity of HR department is interfered with the government policies and the framework and o this also affects the HR decision of the companies as well (Lapi?a, Maur?ne and Stari?eca, 2014). As far as the higher education industry of Australia is considered, it has been analyzed that Australian government has set up the minimum qualification standard for the teachers in the universities and the University of Melbourne focuses on this scheme to hire the employees or the teaching staff. According to the guidelines of the government regarding the employment policies, the organizations like the University of Melbourne have to provide the details of the employment on the contract that has been signed at the time of hiring an employee (Stone, 2013).

Another factor that is external in nature but has great impact on the functioning of the HR department of different universities or the organization of any other field is technology. It is the very important factors because adoption of the updated technology especially in the education sector is very much important (Bamberge, Biron and Meshoulam, 2014). Change in technology is considered as the important factor because adoption of the new technology by the organization helps it to grow because new technology eases out the organizational structure and the processes. Implementing new technological advancement at the workplace helps the organization to improve its workforce by providing them training. Adoption of the technology not only impact positively on the HR policies but also affects the same in negative way. The involvement of updated technology reduces the requirement of the labor in the organization. In case of University of Melbourne, the university gets benefitted by the adoption of the new technology (Hendry, 2012). As discussed, University of Melbourne is focused towards research and education so the adoption of the new technology allows the university to engage easily in the research processes and attract more number of students.

The characteristics of the sector or the industry also affect the HRM policies of the company. This factor is also associated with the interference of the government. Government frame different policies provide different framework for different industries according to their characteristics. Due to this reason, different industries have different HR policies. Some sectors or the industries provide more leverage to the employees in terms of pay scale while other provides leverage on the basis of employee satisfaction. It totally depends on the characteristics and the business the industry deals with (Machad and Davim, 2014). If comparison is made between different sector such as mining sector and education sector, it has been identified that mining sector companies require making the HR policies regarding security of the employees. On the other hand, in education sector, the organization does not need to focus on security section (Armstrong, 2016). . If University of Melbourne is considered, it is the organization in the higher education field and so should have the primary objective of making the policies regarding employee satisfaction. The policies related to employee satisfaction by the University of Melbourne are aid leaves policies, flexible working hour’s policies, healthy working environment policies etc. ( Aycan, Kanungo, Mendonca, Deller, Stahl and Kurshid, 2000)  

 Union refers to the team of the employees that have one or more representative. These representatives or the union leaders represent the views of whole team. The HRM practices and policies are also affected by the action of these unions in the organization. The organization of every sector should allow the employees to form their unions (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright, 2006). These unions should permit to share their views and demands at the time of any decision making process of the organization. Not only the decision making part but the human resource department should also consider the views of the union before framing nay f their policies. After all, these policies are for the employees only. The major concern of involving the unions is to make the compensation policies. This is because it has been observed that the organization with unionization deals with more formal process of compensation and performance evaluation than the organization without unions. Unionization tied all the employees together and this makes the employees strong enough to fight for their rights in the universities like The university of Melbourne, the teaching staff has the union and their representatives has been considered as the import at part of the decision making process. They share their views in the meetings in front of the directors and the issues have been discussed amongst them. The solutions of the issues are developed that benefits the organization as well as the union (Lundy and Cowling, 2004). .

Condition of the labor market depends on the availability of the labor in the market. This differs from industry to industry. Condition of the labor market involves the level of unemployment in the industry, diversity in the labor and the structure of the market. Level of unemployment refers to the relativeness between the supply and the demand of the labor in the industry. There is a relationship between the supply, demand and wages of the labor in the industry (Whitchurch and Gordan, 2009). If the availability of supply of labor in the industry increases, the wages provided to them decreases. On the other hand, if the demand increases with respect to labor supply, then the wages provided to the people also increases. The recruitment panel or the HR department of the organizations needs to analyze the market in order to take decision over the wages of the employees in the organization.

Culture is another factor of the external environment that affects the functioning of the HR department of the company. The managers at the higher level of the organization behave according to the local culture of the place where company is located. Therefore, the culture has its impact on the HR activities of the organization. Size of the organization and the market, the company is serving also affect the behavior of the people and the HR functioning of the organization. the companies that operates in almost entire world remains open to the culture of all those places where is operating while the companies that are functioning in the local market gets affected by local culture of the place. It is essential for the MNC’S to be open for the cultural acceptance of different places because its affects their business and the number of customers (Ibisworld, 2017). . Cultural values of the place can be shine in the attitude of the people as well as in the policies of the organization. For example, if the countries that celebrate Christmas have policies to provide off to the employees on that dates while the countries in which Christmas is not celebrated then the companies operating in that are would not provide leaves for the employees. This clearly suggests that culture and the tradition of the local place affect the functioning or the HR functioning of the company.

Recruitment and selection

Recruitment is the process that helps the organization to hire and select the correct candidates for the vacant position in different department of the organization. It is one of the major functions conducted by the HR department of the company (Storey, J., 2014). The main objective of this function is to attract the qualified and appropriate candidates in the organization and reject the inappropriate candidates out. The term recruitment is always used with another term called selection. There is a difference between both these terms. Recruitment process is limited to attracting the candidates that are relevant for the job and thus is considered as the positive process. On the other hand, selection is the process that deals with actual selection of the applicants by offering jobs and rejecting the candidates who are fund no applicable for the vacancy in the organization (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang, 2014). Effective recruitment and section is very much essential for an organization because if the HR department hire right person at right place than the cost of production the organization decreased the efficiency of the organization increases. Despite of being the internal function of the organization, it has been affected by various environmental factors such as government policies, unionization, culture etc. In case of University of Melbourne, the organization considers the policies of government at the time of recruitment such as policies related to the minimum qualification required for being and educator etc.

Training and development: training and development is very important function of HRM. Training refers to the process that deals with enhancement of the skills of the individual in terms of learning while development refers to the overall personality enhance of the person. Training is done in order to develop the person professionally (Lundy and Cowling, 2004). . on the other hand, development is done in order to develop the personal as well as professional skill of the individual. Development is long term process while training is done for particular period of time till the person s working for a particular project. Orientation is the type of training that has been given to the employee who is new to the organization this is to make the employee comfortable in the organization and to inform the employee about the processes that the organization follows in its working. Training and development is necessary for the employee as well as for the organization as a whole. The HR department of the organization has to identify the needs of training among different departments and then organize the training program for the employees. All the activities under the conduction of training programs are conducted by the HR department of the company (Paauwe, Guest and Wright, 2013). Cultural and legislations are the factors that affect this function. This is because legislation of the country provides the framework to the University of Melbourne to train the people and culture affect the training needs in the organization.

Rewards can be defined as the extra pay provided to the employees in order to praise their efforts. Rewards can be given in the form of commendation, incentives, other non-monetary benefits etc. this is the medium to motivate the employees to perform effectively. Providing rewards to the employees who are performing effectively helps to develop the competition in the organization. This competition motivates other employees of the company also to work effectively (Sharma and Khandekar, 2006). The policy of the organization to provide the rewards also develops the healthy working environment in the organization. Motivation to the employees not only affects the performance of the employees at individual level but also enhances the performance of the organization. HR department of the company focuses on evaluation g the performance often employees in equal interval of time so that rewards can be given to them according to their performance (Menon, 2015). The standards need to be set for the employees so as to provide them the benchmark to perform. All this is the duty of the HR personnel to make the records of the daily work of the employees and then assess their work monthly. This system should be transparent for the employees so the biasness cannot takes place in the company. The managers of each and every department are also involved in performance evaluation function but it mainly comes under the functions of the HR department. The University of Melbourne has the annual performance system that is called as performance development framework. This system is highly influenced by the industrial relation environment of the business. This is because in university of Melbourne, the organizational goals are aligned with the goals of the reward system (Analoui, 2007). .

 It is important for the HR department of the company to legally handle the relation of the employee and the company. This is to safeguard the rights of the employees as well as the organization. HR policies of the organization should involve all the rights of the employees that are stated by the respective government of the countries in which the company is operating. Employee relation can be maintained if the organization and the company do not try to implement any type of fraud practices with each other (Schuler and Jackson,1987). There are laws stated by the government regarding every fraud made by the organization or the company. Any illegal practice by any of the party can be subjected to punishment by the court of the respective government. Both the parties sign the contract with each other in which all the policies and condition are mentioned. Violation and breaching of the contract can be treated as legal issue and any of the part can file a case against another to charge compensation . Employee relation is the concept that is directly linked with an external factor termed as legislations and policies. This is because university of Melbourne is the educational organization that signed a contact with the employee including all the policies given by the government so that frauds can be reduced from both the sides (Jackson, Schuler and Jiang, 2014).

Conclusion

Higher education is the industry that is affected by many external environmental factors. Human resource department of university of Melbourne that is a very successful higher education provider get affected by the external factors such as legislations, culture, unionization etc. these are factors that are not related to the company but are related to the surrounding external environment of the organization (Storey, Wright. and Ulrich, 2009). Therefore, they also affect the functioning of these organizations. HRM of any organization has different function such as recruitment, selection, employee relations, training and development etc. these functions cannot be only controlled by the internal authorities of the organization but the external environment also influence their framework and operations.

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