Analysing Job description with Unitary Perspective

Author: Iloka Benneth Chiemelie

Published 2nd, June 2015

A unitary perspective – is this the best way for analysing job description?

The concept of the unitary view is defined to focus primarily on common objectives and the possibilities for creating harmony in the business environment (Blyton and Turnbull, 2004; Burchill, 2008; Edwards, 2003). In cases where conflicts seem to arise, the view is based on the definition of numerous ways that will result in activities of deviants and troublemakers that originate from ignorance being eliminated. In this model, the concept of productivity as it relates to the enterprise is defined by the objectives that are used to shape the interests of all people associated with it (Rose, 2009; Williams and Adam-smith, 2006). Managerial style is normally used as the room for creating emphasis on team spirit, togetherness in the workplace and the need for leadership in place of power. For troublemakers, the best way of dealing with them is through sanctions and there is no definition on the emphasis for discipline in the workplace, and as such stronger and more stringent laws are needed to deal with this kind of people. Training and good communication is the main tool that is used to overcome ignorance.

While the old saying that “the business of every business is business” still prevails, there is a need to understand that for every business to conduct business, harmony must exist in the system. This is because harmony as it relates to the unitary perspective entails high level of emotional intelligence and a subsequent increase in the understanding of business environment between members in the system. These members will then be motivated because of the high level of harmony.

On that account, it can be argued that maintaining harmony is the unique approach for analysing job description. This is because it allows the employee and the employer to come together and form a common base for such analysis. By coming together to determine the right base for conducting the business process, the employee is given all necessary support in order to ensure that harmony is created in the system, and in return, the employ input all his best of capabilities in order to ensure that he or she pays back the company for the supports received. On that broad view, it can be seen that harmony in the system entails the members in the system doing whatever it takes to make everybody happy and the end product is a unique system where commitment is not lacking and the system is designed towards increased growth.

In any case, there is the need to ensure that the unitary approach is not given a very wide room as it can create other problems in the form of negligence. This is because when the employees are given wide room to exist, they might start neglecting their job description and this is not very good in tasks that require strictness. As such, it is important to ensure that the system is designed in such a way that the negligence influence is not allowed to exist.

The core objectives of HRM include staffing, performance and administration. Discuss

In every organization, the management of human resource is very important and it has direct influence on the performance of such organization. This is highlighted by the notion presented by David (1987), which stated that the management of human resource is all about understanding the company’s capability, enhancing its performance and improving competitiveness through the establishment of a competent, reliable and formidable human capital. It is the responsibility of the human resource department in the organization to manage the human capital at its disposal and the process is actually what is known as HRM. In the process of managing human capital, this department have a number of responsibilities to carry out, and like David (1991) highlighted, some of these responsibilities are staffing, performance and administration. They are as explained below.

Staffing – the HRM department has the responsibility of ensuring that the right staffs are provided in the organization. The staffing process can come in the form of recruitment (job by interview) or selection (job by choosing the staffs without interview). No matter the form of staffing adopted, the overall objective is to staff the right people; with the right skills, experience, talent and commitment to ensure enhanced performance in the department they work in and the overall increase in performance of the organization.

Performance - once the staff have been recruited or selected, the next stage is to ensure that they are undertaking their task description in a way that will eventually influence productivity in the organization positively. It is the job of the HRM department to ensure that such is the outcome, by providing what is expected of each staff in the job description; the benefits to be earned from improved performance and the consequences that might be faced by the employee as a result of low performance. In terms of improving the performance of employees, they also have the responsibility of training the employees with the right skills to ensure an improvement in their performance.

Administration – the HRM department also play administrative roles as noted by David (1991). Since they are responsible for staffing and payment of these staff, they undertake the administrative role of keeping the record of staffs, determining their due payment as per their performance, determining their promotion and benefits, and also assisting in other issues such as approval of leaves and leave allowances.

From all indication, it can be seen that the HRM department play an integral role in the success of organization as they are the link through which the right staffs are recruited for the right departments, and the recruited staffs are offered necessary training to improve their performance, which will yield a subsequent improvement in the overall performance of the company.

How has the ‘new international division of labour’ affected employment in both developed and developing countries?

With a subsequent increase in the level of internationalization of firms and the globalization of nations, there seems to be changes and development of new trends in all aspects of the business process, and the division of labour is one of those areas. This changes with respect to the division of labour comes in the form of a development of new international division of labour, and the impact in both developing and developed nations is what this section of the discussion aims to discuss.

International division of labour as described by Carol (2010) is one of the dynamic and complex processes involved in globalization and it has most of its impact on the employment relationship. There couldn’t be any doubt on the fact that globalization is associated with what Campbell et al referred to as “the rising phenomenon of interdependence in the labour market” (Campbell, 1997, p. 10). A form of labour that is being undertaken in a world filled with diminishing barriers to trade and the flow of capitals is increase becoming the order of the day as it is being transformed from a local into a global resource. However, such a transformation comes with certain influence on both the developed and developing nations, and the most argued cases on that are:

Social influence on employment – there are wide debates that have focused on the social issue associated with the new international divisions of labour, and most of these arguments have been based on morals to showcase concerns over the level of social inequalities that exist between the developed and developing nations in terms of the volume of employment opportunities for the labour, number of jobs available, wages, and the overall areas of workers’ rights in terms of level of security and job conditions (Allen and Hamnett, 1995). Campbell (1997) made know that employment lose and gain will be the outcome of such process, with some countries having to lose their employment opportunities as a result of higher wage package, and order countries being offered the opportunity to gain from such outcome as a result of lower wage packages. A classic case can be seen by the internationalization of firms from the USA to India and China (with most of their production processes moved to this new market) as a result of low labour packages that allow these firms to increase their financial performance.

Motivation strategy - another argument that has been raised in this area deals with the level of motivation of the workforce (Radice, 1995, Viatsos, 1989, Henderson, 1997, Campbell, 1997). As the job decreases in on country and increases in another, the country experiencing decrease in job will have high competition and people are more likely to be motivated but the country experiencing increase in job will have lower employment competition and people are less likely to be motivated and committed as they will focus on their own individual gains and will likely move to another job with higher pay.

It can be seen form the above discussion that the internationalization of labour has a high influence on both developing and developed nations. In any case, these influences can be mitigated by the increase in the level of globalization that now allows people to travel and work in order countries.

References

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