This article presents some key factors that are, at times, left aside by those who have under their direction the development of human resources in companies
Without trying to get into passion about a phrase often heard: "our people are the most important asset of our company" I will illustrate aspects of human resources perhaps neglected among some professionals in this area.
For this, it is necessary to refer in the first instance to another discipline, completely different in terms of its object of knowledge: Accounting.
The latest advances in accounting science have made it possible to redefine its object and, of course, the work of Accountants. The classical conception of the accountant, as the professional who prepared reports on the company's past, has been abandoned. Modernly, we are talking about Managerial Accounting. The accountant thus seen, is a professional in charge of managing a system for measuring and supplying operational and financial information, which guides management action, motivates behaviors, supports and creates the cultural values necessary to achieve the strategic objectives of an organization. This "new" accounting uses financial and non-financial measures
In this order of ideas, Managerial accounting from a specific perspective such as that of the Balanced Scorecard, manages information regarding areas such as customer performance, production processes, the financial area and growth and learning of the organization, in order to establish causal relationships between indicators in each of these areas. The final objective: to interpret from each of these perspectives, the mission and vision of the organization.
If an analysis of the perspective of customers in a company X, indicates that to increase their satisfaction and therefore their loyalty, it is necessary to improve the efficiency of some processes and even redesign some to reduce delivery time and from a financial perspective It is requested to reduce production costs, it will be necessary to think about the way in which the company's resources are currently being used: machines, physical space, money, etc.
At some point along the way, it will be necessary to have people's adherence to this process. The effectiveness of these initiatives will vary: If workers are trained to face new challenges (handling new machines, working in teams), if trust between them is high, and if the work is stimulating because it constantly poses challenges, the situation will be much more favorable.
The high-performance teams that eventually form would be fully committed to the success of the planned change. On the other hand, with a group of people used to being constantly supervised to obtain a barely acceptable performance and if dishonesty and waste are part of the organizational culture at all levels, could this transition be carried out smoothly?
In many cases, the state of active human resources is a serious restriction to proposals for improvement in the performance of processes. It is possible to intervene properly in these problems, with a solid background in human development.
The development
Development is a process that results from maturation, or a set of physical changes experienced in the functioning of the organism over time, and from learning, which is the set of human responses to external influences.
The formation
Training is the set of actions that seek that the human being from his position as an actor, does from his own criteria, basing himself on his potentialities. The design of training programs must be tied to the knowledge of the stages of human development.
Training
Training is the set of actions necessary for an individual to acquire a specific skill.
Psychology has a lot to do in business contexts. The responsibility of Psychologists, as citizens and professionals in the human sciences, exceeds the performance of traditional functions such as recruitment, application of psychotechnical tests and training. This responsibility is given by the need to maintain human resources as a high value asset. People are, in essence, as valuable to a company as to a society. In my view, a useful way to make an assessment of the state of human resources in an organization is to do it from three levels: MOTIVATION, MORAL DEVELOPMENT, and COMPETENCES.
Moral development Motivation Skills
For illustrative purposes: This diagram allows to visualize the state of the human resource, establish causal relationships and take actions to counteract deficiencies. For the evaluation of each of these areas, it is necessary to design valid and reliable instruments. The evaluation of levels of moral reasoning can be established according to Kohlberg's principles, behavior can be evaluated with indicators such as the frequency with which the norms are violated in a unit of time per area or worker. Competencies, (such as the ability to solve specific problems), by the number of times a person or work unit has voluntarily faced challenges, and the number of times they have overcome or solved those problems.
The level of motivation indicates that the person WANTS to fulfill the functions that they are in charge of, their state of competences, indicates that the person CAN fulfill them, and the level of moral development, the LIMITS that have been established, which allows them to recognize that MUST do, and MUST NOT do. This analysis is relevant for individuals and for strategic business units
MOTIVATION "It is a state of dissatisfaction of needs that generates the tendency to reach a high level of performance." It is the definition - comprehensive in my view - that Reeve proposes. The human resources professional should inquire about the way in which the work is covering essential needs and complex needs in workers (for a better understanding of the subject, it is suggested to review the cited work). In many cases, the status of the active human resource is a serious constraint
Moral development
It is the process that the individual lives when relating to those around him, and that allow him to reason and act according to a socially accepted way. There are morally favorable environments or atmospheres that encourage the individual to believe that values such as justice, respect, etc. they are necessary to live in community. In other types of environments, implementing regulations of this type is only done by external coercion. The social group marks the moral development of a person in a certain direction, depending on the prevailing norms and values.
In work environments it is common to observe how employees who come from environments in which punctuality, respect, honesty, etc. are valued, change, and embrace new values when changing jobs, and enter companies where it is common to lie, or appropriate what is foreign. According to Kohlberg, the pioneer Psychologist in the study of moral problems, human beings who reach high levels of moral development are autonomous, that is, they have assumed a personal commitment to non-negotiable principles such as respect and justice without the need for external coercion.: they feel comfortable behaving in this way. Hence, a person with a high level of moral development is valuable to their company and to society as a whole.
To ponder
What will be the average level of moral development of the workers of our companies? Do they follow the rules out of conviction or duress? Are many companies micro-companies that reflect the characteristics of Latin American society?
COMPETENCIES, They are the key skills that a worker needs to perform successfully in a specific role, they must be congruent with the requirements of the process in which he is involved, they allow to give that process the necessary support to maintain appropriate levels of efficiency and efficiency.
The value of human resources for an organization is also a function of the extent to which the competencies of its employees are aligned with the essential competencies that the company needs to develop or perfect in order to respond to the challenges that strategic planning poses.
To conclude:
The state of the moral atmosphere of an organization must be evaluated based on the values that the company has adopted as its own nature. At this level, the behavior of bosses is important, since their behavior is the pattern to be followed by employees. It is damaging that values are proclaimed that are never defended, or only for private convenience.
The securities must not be negotiable.
If the skill level of an employee is not in line with what they are supposed to do in the process in which they are involved, their motivation will be affected. If this happens, there is a greater probability of deterioration of the moral atmosphere. (In this state of affairs, the employee may be more inclined to reason in terms of: "Because I cannot do this task, I have to evade that responsibility in any way so as not to leave the company"). Note that the deterioration of some of the areas that reflect the value of human resources for the organization, impacts in some way on the state of the others.
The employee must receive information on how their performance is perceived by the organization. If he feels supported, he is aware of what is expected of him, and of the importance of his contribution to the performance of the process he supports, he will be committed to assuming the values of the organization for his personal life and will be willing to face ambitious challenges.
Bibliography
- Ansari, Bell, Klammer and Lawrence (1997). Cited by Mantilla (1999), in International Management Accounting Environment.REEVE, John Marshall. Motivation and Emotion. McGraw-Hill. Madrid, 1994 KOHLBERG, Lawrence. Psychology of Moral Development. Desclee de Brouwer. Bilbao, 1992
