As an academic and researcher, I considered it interesting to conduct a survey at an event held in the Lagunera Region at the end of 2014, taking advantage of the fact that this event brought together sixty-four heads of Human Resources departments from a similar number of companies of different lines of business., this in order to try to understand the scenarios that the personnel departments of these companies are currently facing. By heads of the human resources areas we understand positions at managerial level and middle management.
This article is based on the findings of that first survey. Among the turns of the heads of Human Resources departments that responded to this investigation, there are turns as different as maquiladora companies, the metal-mechanical sector of the automotive industry, construction, electronics, textiles, telecommunications, gas stations, mining and extraction, as well as trade, transportation and related service providers.
These HR managers were surveyed on the three main problems, in order of importance, which they face every day, and they gave us several answers, which we classified based on the frequency with which they were mentioned in the surveys..
In the first place, the most common problem was that organizations have problems of a bad work environment, which by frequency index represented 31% of mentions, followed by turnover and absenteeism problems, with a frequency index of 19 mentions. %, and as a third problem, with a 12% frequency of mention, having deficient or poorly designed administrative processes. These three problems together accounted for 62% of the problems mentioned, with which we can infer that the most common problems of human resources managers, regardless of the line of business in which they work, are these three situations.
The following problems in frequency of mention, arise from the problem of deficient administrative processes, such as issues related to inadequate recruitment and selection processes, as well as deficient training processes or not aligned to the requirements of the organization.
Analyzing these hard data a priori, we can obtain different assumptions, one of them is that the two problems that appear as the most common by frequency of mention indexes (bad work environment and turnover and absenteeism) can actually be symptoms, among other factors, of deficiencies in the design of administrative, recruitment and selection processes, as well as training.
In this first survey, superficially, I suggest some possible conclusions, the first, that regardless of the organization's turn, human resources departments face common problems, second, that having poorly designed administrative processes, as well as deficiencies in Personnel management processes, can lead to a bad work environment that prevents the development of human capital, and therefore interfering with the achievement of objectives and the good performance of the organization.
