HRM article summary

Human resource management is the systematic process of acquiring, developing, rewarding and maintaining an organization's people resources so as to maximize performance. Organizations and companies' human resource requirements change constantly to create a better work place. Although many entrepreneurs realize that people is the key to a successful business, they still struggle to develop an effective human resource function. The article focuses on describing the human resource management challenges facing entrepreneurial organizations and to identify lessons that can be learned from successful entrepreneurial organizations in creating their HR management.

Interviews were conducted with the founders and/or presidents of over 50 high performance US manufacturing and service entrepreneurial organizations. They were asked the question:"as an entrepreneur, what are the greatest challenges you face in the human resource management area?" The president of Cube Culture Corp., Greg Papp, answered the question by saying "most entrepreneurial organizations are successful because of the efforts and sacrifices of the people working there. It is critical to get the right people on board and to successfully embed them in the culture of the organization, which is no easy task and requires time, effort and energy."

Entrepreneurs in this study identified four overarching demands that their HR functions must meet for them to create and maintain success: 1) Hiring quality people, 2) Generating immediate performance and productivity, 3) Maintaining flexibility an 4) Overall HR cost containment. The article discussed challenges that were facing each of the above headings and carried out valuable lessons.

HR Challenge #1: Attracting a large pool of high quality job candidates
HR Challenge #2: Speed in the hiring process
HR Challenge #3: Taking time to properly orient and train personnel
HR Challenge #4: Properly coaching and providing feedback for new hires
HR Challenge #5: Developing workforce/management talent
HR Challenge #6: Clearly defining job responsibilities
HR Challenge #7 Demonstrating commitment to your workforce
HR Challenge #8: Fairness in salary and rewards
HR Challenge #9: Attractive wages and benefits
HR Challenge #10: Appropriate/effective HR administrative structure

Each of the challenges above came with a lesson that was learned from the studies which would benefit businesses/organizations greatly.

Lucy Liu
Linda Zheng
Nina Wong
Kevin Do
Sunny Brar