Since the early years of the 1990s, "HRM Systems" have been introduced in the country at the level of agencies, institutions and companies, which respond circumstantially to influences and models that are not their own and not exactly to our realities. In the Cuban case, the development of the HRM has to be complemented conceptually and methodologically to national and territorial employment strategies.
The approval of the General Bases for Business Improvement has allowed the process of continuous improvement to begin in a planned and organized manner, in all the companies in the country, which becomes an exceptional factor for us to introduce and develop Resource Management Human (GRH) with qualitatively superior approaches.
It is about bringing the low integration of the Personnel Area, in a second order role, with administrative and reductionist approaches, to multidisciplinary, interdepartmental, cross-functional, strategic approaches, leading players of high integration. To achieve this objective, it is required take a qualitative leap that must be overcome in stages.
Paraphrasing a quote from a consultant, recently published in the New Company Magazine, when trying to conceptualize the management models and the situation of the company in the world, it is pointed out that we are in an “inter-kingdom” situation, which can be applied to our situation in relation to HRM.
Because the traditional way of doing Personal is in crisis.
Because it is not clear how the HRM will replace the Personnel Administration.
It is inevitable to speak of two topics related to this problem. First, that the process of Business Improvement from its statement in the General Bases and in its Principles places emphasis on a new direction and organization of the company, and above all on its capacity to improve itself. It offers the possibility of developing new conceptions through the central objective of promoting the development "of the initiative, creativity and responsibility of the workers". It is then about interpreting correctly and taking it into action.
Nor can the Cuban company achieve its efficiency leaving aside social responsibility, since the economic results it achieves are in favor of the entire society, and this is precisely the element that distinguishes it from other international experiences.
The General Bases have been conceived as a methodological, conceptual and practical guide to carry out changes to the established models and transform them into actions that revolutionize the work of our company. However, in its HRM-related approaches, it is necessary to continue developing the stated principles, if we want to move towards the development of HRM with a strategic focus, including an organizational approach that goes beyond traditional functions.
The Work Force Management System has been defined as a “set of rules, procedures and forms of action that allow for the materialization of labor policy, and salary in its integration with the management of the entity, with the vision of man as fundamental resources for the fulfillment of its strategic objectives ”.
Although this definition represented an advance from the conceptual point of view, if we compare it with the traditional approach prevailing in our country, today it is insufficient.
Based on this definition (which is established in Resolution 12 "Regulations for the application of the Labor and Wage Policy in companies in Improvement") as well as the fact that it is defined by this own Resolution that "the company designs its own system ”, The Institute for Labor Studies and Research (IEIT) began working on a set of Methodological Recommendations that will help companies in this endeavor, the essential content of which is the general principles.
Based on this analysis, a group of actions to be prioritized by the companies were recommended, such as:
Plan personnel needs.
Carry out organizational studies that allow perfecting the structures and a good use of the faculties.
Design new positions and create high profile content.
Implement more efficient working methods.
Improve working conditions.
Develop performance, time and service standards for the calculation of templates and establishment of payment systems.
Establish recruitment channels and personnel selection.
Set directions for evaluating performance
Prepare training plans.
Develop easy-to-understand payment systems and establish ways to recognize workers
Prepare the collective agreement.
Establish information systems.
Establish audit actions or "Internal control".
However, all these actions can be carried out without achieving the integration process between them and with the entity's strategy, that is, the activity can continue to be carried out by traditional functions, in which managers do not see HR as something strategic. neither from the structural nor functional point of view.
To modify this way of executing the activity, it is necessary to overcome the conception of systems as a simple sum of the parts, which remain fragmented, violating the first law of systemic thought of interconnectivity, and considering any relationship between them to be good. It is essential to analyze and treat it in practice in all its complexity.
As some of the aspects that we consider can be overcome from the Business Improvement process itself, conceived from the beginning as a process of "continuous improvement" in those companies that have the necessary learning and change capacity, without waiting for formal corrections or approaches., are the following:
The conceptualization of the different subsystems allow the development of an HRM with integration only at the job level, which extraordinarily limits a systemic treatment of HR.
The different elements that make up the Work System and the elements related to the Work Force Management System (HRM) must be interconnected. If the Labor Organization and the Salary Organization, among others, are separated from the system, the effect can be neither systemic nor lasting, and there is no greater effectiveness in the use of HR.
The General Organization subsystem is an integrating system; It contains the main concepts that support the system-company and that influences and determines each and every one of the other component subsystems, since it establishes the operating model of the company. But it mainly emphasizes structural and functional problems, as well as strategy design and goal development. None of the 22 general characteristics of this subsystem refers to RH. It is essential to explain the importance of considering HR as part of the entity's strategic design process. Otherwise, it is not enough to understand or diagnose the situation of the HR, or later to design the management systems with the mission,scope and qualitatively new content of the areas that serve it.
As a measure to advance the process as a process of continuous improvement, it should not be limited to quantitative and technical-economic indicators. An obligatory measure, if the change strategy adopted by the entity is of Increasing Development, is the assessment of the proposed and achieved strategy of the HR.
Here we must remember a second important topic. The heterogeneity of situations that our company presents from all points of view, including the preparation of specialized personnel in the new functions of the functional areas, starting with the area that serves the HR functions, activities, processes or systems and that can receive Different denominations, should serve to apply specific solutions, but not to differentiate companies. This is framed by the circumstances and conditions in which the company has been operating and developing in the last ten years, which means that there is great potential not yet fully exploited in accordance with the high educational and cultural level of technical personnel.
One thing may seem clear, and that is that it is not possible to try to generalize schemes related to human resources systems (HRMS), nor that they all start at the same time and march at the same pace, on the same path, using the same procedures and techniques and reach the same goals at the same time. No attempt should be made to “authorize” or request requirements to approve the HRMS designed in the entities, as if they were fragmented elements, functions or traditional activities of personnel that contain centrally established, regulated and controlled policies. And yet, this does not mean that there are no process controls and monitoring of established policies.
If we accept that the entities are in a moment of their development, with specific conditions, in accordance with which they design their change strategy, which must be more than a change from above and that only the economic and technological elements are of interest. structural, and that also transcend the changes in the political, social, cultural and behavioral aspects of the entity, it is not necessary to authorize but to support the proposed development. In this way, the innovative and creative forces in the entity are released more easily.
This situation can only be modified as long as the philosophy and ideology regarding the Business Strategy, the Business Management and Organization, and not only the Human Resources Management, are clearly exposed, and are supported by all equally.
Without relying on the evil of many (but to underline the importance of abandoning pragmatism at all costs that does not help the necessary process of change) neither does the world go exactly at the pace and according to the conceptualizations and models of the books. It is necessary to remember what a representative of a developed country said at the World Conference on Personnel in Madrid in 1993 and who talks about how much it is necessary to change the mentality and the actions in practice, and I quote: “HR management is today more important than ever, but I can't entrust that mission to the people at Personal. Most of them prefer the traditional administrative role and what I need are sparring and change agents and team members to help us understand how to take advantage of our people… ”.
Radical evolution thanks to the accumulation of knowledge about planning, strategy, organization, culture, values, according to some authors, is above all conceptual, they are theories and models that have not had the possible development in capitalist societies, and that we need and we can develop. It is difficult to speak of HRM models in countries where tripartite agreements are no longer reached, where employment is a privilege and where having the active and effective participation of workers in the management and direction of the company is an illusion, based on supposedly harmonious working relationships. All this makes some speak of a “post human resource” approach.
The truth is that our company must move from the traditional functional approach, which does not help the establishment or systemic treatment of organizations, towards the organizational approach, and above all towards the strategic approach to HR, which enables real knowledge management and It enables effective HR management to be developed, in which workers interconnect not only with work activity but with the entire organization.
The current transformations require more than ever that reflection and action be an inseparable unit, that the one and the other be supported and supported within the company. This implies profound consequences not only within companies in shaping new work systems, but also in relations with other levels of management.
So the objective should be to help develop HRM from the perspective of each individual company, and to support progress towards strategic approaches, bearing in mind that the different approaches are not mutually exclusive, and that it is necessary to socialize the knowledge that allow the development of new methods and styles of leadership. The characterization of the stadiums in each case should help this, avoiding asking for unique requirements for all. We repeat that progress towards HRM is only possible to the extent that progress is made in the development of an organizational culture that supports the new direction and business organization.
In general, human resources continue to be identified with people, and they continue to be treated not as a main direction but as a secondary or support activity, a criterion similar to that of some authors recognized two decades ago, and when it is formally and structurally recognized, in practice, they are not counted as an area in the entity's main decisions. This is critical, especially at the grassroots level in entities.
In a recent event, a foreign colleague tried to explain, from the triangle of the Administration-Worker-Work relationship, that the HR deal with the Worker-Work relationship, leaving out the other relations, as if the administration were not part of or that the administrator's resources were not human but divine. It is evident that it is a neoclassical vision, in which new and traditional concepts are intertwined. Teaching and experiences tell us that you can design strategies, do DPO, and continue to conceive of HR as People-Resources manipulated by a specially prepared group. All this starting and having as a reference framework integration only at the job level.
An alert needs to be made at this point. What is pursued and applied in most of the known cases (thanks to the exceptions) is a technical orientation or preferably directed to the technical dimension of the organization, identified with values of a Production Culture (efficiency, plans, technical indicators -economic) or even a Quality Culture, to the detriment and not in conjunction with the social dimension. Thus, the already historical differentiation established between both dimensions is deepened; homework vs. social. The result can be little progress towards integration at the level of the entire organization and results at this level understood as a whole, as well as little progress in the creation of values of a Culture of Support, cooperation and innovation.
It is usual to do performance evaluation without considering values and relationships; stimulation, without considering motivation; the planning and determination of the workforce, without considering the needs; the development of personnel at the level of capabilities for a job, without comprehensive knowledge for other levels, etc. In a word, the technical orientation dominates the social one.
Human resource development management is not and cannot be just a technical problem technically solved. It is not possible to repeat the intentions of other times and other societies and other models of business management, as if this problem were alien to people as individuals and as part of a group, as if it were alien to the contradictions of policies and conditions social.
More than a problem of models, it is a problem of policies, of the proposed solutions and of how to do it in practice. The essential and central aspect of Human Resources Management is that its orientation must be predominantly social, inside and outside the entity, aimed at the individual and their insertion and development as part of a group.
From the definition of human resources considered not as persons or resources of an entity as any other resources, but as the capacities, potentials, knowledge, skills, abilities, experiences of people who also have values, motivations, needs, interests, aspirations It is clear that the personnel is not organized or administered as it was traditionally administered.
Our Institute for Labor Studies and Research has researched and experimented in the field of HR for the last 14 years, and is currently developing a research project on the status of HRM, the degree of its development in the company in Perfecting Business, and the relationships between the different levels of management (branch organizations, higher bodies of business management and companies) referring to RH.
As pre-conclusions of the first stage and confirmation of the previous ideas, we consider it important to mention some elements:
Direction by indications continues to predominate, a situation that does not favor a change in mentality and the methods and styles of leadership related to HRM activities, placing the company in permanent uncertainty between developing its strategy or waiting for indications from higher levels.
Insufficient elaboration of HR strategies, as well as insufficient participation of HR in the entity's strategy design process.
Own SGRH are applied and work is done by traditional functional areas, which causes a system to be confused with function.
There are overlaps between functions between levels of leadership. But while at a higher level, management functions are identified first for themselves, for their companies they are placed last. The faculties considered main by the higher levels are those of Decide, Approve and Direct, while for their companies they are marked in the last places.
Companies consider among the most important values those that have a social connotation, such as employee participation, management methods, and leadership. However, when designing performance evaluation indicators, priority is given to those related to the task, with the fulfillment of specific plans and objectives, well above the capacity for teamwork, innovation or the cultural values of the organization.
Our HRMS must be generators and promoters of Knowledge Management, a current paradigm to improve the effectiveness of organizations. In a society like ours, where knowledge is a high value, limiting it is limiting the own development of all workers and organizations. To limit it, is to continue treating organizations as a conglomerate of resources, without sensitivity and without differentiation towards people, as individuals who relate to each other and who are capable of directing, planning, controlling and executing all.
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