What are the factors that affect the human resource management system?

Facing all kinds of special challenges

As we all know, due to the special historical reasons in China, the meaning of "human resource management" in the past is quite different from that now. Under the planned economy system, there is no so-called "human resource management", because the employees of enterprises are not the resources of enterprises, but the so-called "masters". In the past, there was only the word "personnel management", which was different from the meaning of "human resource management". With the transformation of China from a planned economy to a freely competitive market economy, the human resource management of enterprises is facing some special challenges.

Old management methods and old ways of thinking must be abandoned. For enterprise executives, it is urgent to look at human resource management from a strategic perspective, because in a highly competitive business society, the competition between enterprises is largely the flexible and efficient competition of employee management level.

Due to the rapid development of technology, the life cycle of IT products/services is shortened day by day, and the IT market is always in dynamic change. The human resource management of IT industry in China also faces some other challenges:

What is the best organizational structure? Because the market is in dynamic change, enterprises often need to develop new products/services quickly to cope with competition. This means that employees with different skills need to cooperate to complete different projects. In this case, is there an optimal human resource management organization model?

What are the optimal processes and KPIs (key performance indicators) under dynamic market conditions? The IT market requires enterprises to respond quickly, which will inevitably lead to "chaos" in human resource management. So, can this "chaos" be avoided? In this "chaotic" state, what is the KPI that can best measure employee performance and motivate employees?

I don't think there is a "standard solution" to the above challenges. In fact, the author even questioned the applicability of human resource management theories and methods of some western business schools to China enterprises. Because human resource management itself is the combination of art and science, which is also the unity of "Tao" and "technique" (method) that China people say. "Tao" is sometimes more practical than "technique". On the other hand, from another perspective, if we can use "unhappy families" to refer to enterprises with problems in human resource management, then as lev tolstoy said, "every unhappy family has its own misfortune", the confusion of these enterprises also has its different roots.

Based on the above understanding, the author tries to discuss IT from a new angle, hoping that this kind of discussion can help the supervisors and managers of IT industry in China to better cope with various challenges in human resource management.

Nine basic contents

The human resource management of modern enterprises includes the following main aspects:

Human resource management strategy. It includes the close relationship between human resource management and enterprise competitive advantage, the key mechanism of human resource management and organizational performance, and specific human resource management measures.

Performance evaluation and management. Performance evaluation is a complicated problem. In short, it includes performance strategy, the development and purpose of performance management, the significance of performance evaluation and management, the process, steps and implementation methods of management. Its core content is how to establish a set of systematic and quantitative indicators, comprehensively and fairly evaluate employees' work performance, and use this as a lever to promote and motivate employees' work enthusiasm and efficiency.

Organizational change. That is, it includes the necessity, plan and process of organizational change, as well as the successful elements of change.

Organize career development, planning and management.

In addition, human resource management also includes the following aspects:

The management of employee recruitment, that is, the details of specific processes and methods.

Staff training and development, including the analysis and definition of training needs. The setting of training objectives, the design and implementation of training courses, the evaluation method of training results, etc.

Knowledge management, that is, the process of knowledge management, how to use human resource management system to promote knowledge management, etc.

The relationship between human resource management and modern information technology, that is, e- human resource management.

Key competence of human resource supervisor. In addition to the ability of human resource management, there should also be the ability of leadership, management and knowledge management.

The Best Organizational Structure of IT Enterprises —— Project-oriented Enterprises

The above outlines the main contents of human resource management, so how can we establish the optimal human resource management organizational structure for IT enterprises in the rapidly changing market environment?

Sun Tzu's Art of War discusses the "soldier shape" as follows:

"The image of soldiers is water, the shape of water, avoiding high and downward; The shape of a soldier, avoiding reality is empty. Water flows because of the ground, and soldiers win because of the enemy. Therefore, the soldiers have no constant potential and the water is impermanent; Being able to win because of the change of the enemy is also called God. "

The main points of this are "water flows according to the ground, and soldiers win because of the enemy", "soldiers have no constant potential, and water is impermanent." In other words, just as water has no fixed form, so does the army, but it will change according to the changes of the enemy's situation. It can be called the "god" who can win the battle in time and accurately because of the change of enemy situation. From the perspective of coping with changes in the market competition environment, we can infer that:

Static personnel organization structure is only applicable to static market environment.

The optimal personnel organization structure should be flexible and dynamic, and can be adjusted in time due to market changes.

In addition, Sun Tzu's Art of War also profoundly discusses the relationship between "potential" and "man" and the responsibility of generals:

"Therefore, a good fighter seeks the situation without complaining about others, so he can choose others to benefit."

The point here is that "potential" comes first and "people" comes last. People who are good at using troops will try their best to find and create favorable situations and opportunities, and will not criticize their subordinates for perfection, but will be able to choose suitable talents to master and use according to different situations. So we might as well think:

Crucially, just as commanders should be able to see the "potential" in the war, enterprise executives should be able to grasp the "potential" in shopping malls, organize appropriate manpower in time, and seize business opportunities; Instead of passively accusing the subordinates of perfection.

Therefore, the organizational structure of personnel is only a means, not an end. It must be able to change because of the change of "potential", so that the right talents can seize the opportunity and play a role in the right position.

However, in a commercial IT enterprise full of contradictions and uncertainties, how to achieve the above goals?

In many IT enterprises, when new technologies and products enter the market rapidly, companies must organize different teams to develop and design new products, new services and new solutions in the form of different "new project teams". Under such circumstances, corporate executives often have many questions and puzzles. A big problem is how to manage human resources effectively. Is there an optimal organizational structure to solve this problem?

In fact, enterprise executives must change their way of thinking and consider "optimized organizational structure" from a dynamic perspective. They should keep in mind Sun Tzu's teaching that "soldiers are unpredictable and water is unpredictable". "water flows because of the ground, and soldiers win because of the enemy."

Enterprise executives must have the ability and imagination to realize that the organizational structure should be dynamic and reflect the changes of market forces. Organizational structure is like "flowing water", which flows on the ground constructed by market forces and is water flowing in different forms of "projects". So where does it flow? This requires the management to have a clear judgment on the market situation.

An ideal project-oriented enterprise should have the following characteristics:

The "static" department serves the "dynamic" project team.

The boundaries between departments are fictitious, and employees can work across these boundaries without unnecessary administrative restrictions.

Let all middle and senior managers receive change management training, so that the whole management can fully understand the process of organizational structure changing from one state to another.

In a word, a project-based enterprise means that most employees work in "projects" rather than "departments". At the same time, each project has a clear scope, completion time and required resources. This is very different from other enterprises (such as product manufacturing and restaurants or hotels) where most people do daily fixed work. Typical project-oriented enterprises include management consulting companies, civil engineering contracting companies, IT system integration and service companies, etc.

Challenges brought by double reporting

A project team does not necessarily belong to a single functional department. The project team members will come from different functional departments. This means that they have the responsibility of "double reporting", both to the project manager and to the boss of his department.

In project-oriented enterprises, "double reporting" is one of the biggest challenges faced by human resource management. On the one hand, enterprises rely on the completion of high-quality and high-profit projects to survive, and the project manager bears the greatest responsibility for this; On the other hand, project team members are only managed by the project manager during the project work, and their performance appraisal is still the responsibility of their team leaders.

In today's socio-economic situation in China, due to some social and cultural factors, the above challenges faced by human resource management have become more complicated. Compared with western culture, most orientals tend to belong to a certain group first. In western culture, everyone usually thinks of himself as an independent individual first. In MBA terms, this involves a complex "organizational behavior" problem.

Therefore, the challenge of mobilizing the enthusiasm of the project team belongs not only to the project manager, but to the entire management of the enterprise. In order to manage the human resources of project enterprises more effectively, special measures need to be taken:

The project manager must delegate sufficient authority. It is not only budget control and resource allocation, but also the power to evaluate the performance of each project member of the project team.

Need different kpis. Moreover, the percentage of "time on the project" in the annual working days should be an important assessment index, which will give employees the motivation to actively participate in the project.

Every employee should realize that he is a resource of the enterprise, and his value to the enterprise depends on how much he has contributed to the project.

Enterprises need a unique culture to encourage employees to cooperate in cross-departmental teams.

Facing the challenge of human resource management, just like a good commander is commanding an army, an enterprise director must be able to dispatch his army according to the rapidly changing market conditions. The truth that "there is no constant potential for soldiers, and the water is unpredictable" and "the water controls the flow according to the ground, and the soldiers win because of the enemy" should be of great inspiration to the human resource management of the IT industry. A good supervisor should have keen insight and imagination when dealing with the market, be able to see the "potential" and be able to "select people and use the potential". Organizational structure is a means, not an end, and should be viewed from a dynamic perspective.

In addition, for any theory and method of human resource management, we should fully consider the different development levels of different industries and regions in China, and it is still in the market transition period, which is the most important reality. From the perspective of "Tao" and "technology", I believe that the executives of China enterprises can learn a lot from their practical work experience and deal with specific industries, specific regions or specific age groups, which they can't learn in western business schools. On the other hand, the methodology or process of western business schools, such as recruitment process and quantitative KPI, can provide valuable tools and methods for China enterprises to better motivate and manage their employees.