As an organisation is a place where most people spend around 50 per cent of their daily time, HR personnel should be able to deal with different types of people. People from different walks of life such as diverse cultural backgrounds, ethnic groups, race, gender, caste and nationality work in an organisation. Hence, the HR department in any organisation must be very careful and cautious while dealing with people of different nature. The HR being a support function department, HR professionals must be able to address every issue of an employee including cultural, language and religious barriers, working environment, misconception and misunderstanding among other issues.
Besides, the HR must be capable of motivating, facilitating, counseling, coaching, analysing performances and must be able to take quick and efficient decisions. In some cases, it would be very difficult to study the behaviour of an employee. For example, an employee who shows very good performance during the probation period may show a different kind of behaviour afterwards. As human behaviour cannot be predicted and there is no mechanism as such to study the behaviour of an individual, HR professionals find it difficult to cope up with employee behaviour.
For this, there are some ways through which employee behaviour can be studied to some extent. Knowledge System Analysis (KSA) and Psychometric Test are methods that can be used during the process of hiring so that an employee’s behaviour can be assessed to some extent. Likewise, close observation of every employee is an important task HR professionals must conduct as this helps knowing the employees in person. Monkey Survey, which is available free of cost online, can be the best available tool for an HR department to study the behaviour of employee(s).
The HR department can organise various trainings like catholic social teachings, stress management trainings, art of living etc in order to refresh employees. Besides, it is the duty of the HR professionals to conduct individual counseling to know how employees are feeling, what are their problems, and their needs and desires. There is a theory which tells that people do not leave their job but they leave their bosses hence it is a challenge for HR personnel to analyse internal as well as external factors due to which employees change their jobs.
Starting a new job in an organisation is like getting married with the team one has to work with and the entire organisation. As everything becomes new in this case, it is the responsibility of an HR head to make a new employee feel comfortable. While hiring new employees, there may arise some conflicts such as old employee versus new employees, experienced versus educated, religions, cultures and many others. The behaviour of the employees in this regard cannot be changed but the HR specialists can certainly influence the ground situation to some extent. Another challenge for HR personnel is that, in many cases, personal issues are reflected at a workplace due to which one employee can demoralise the whole team.
For this, some NGOs have a unit called Staff Care which provides the employees with emotional, financial or any other kind of support depending on their needs. This unit is accountable to the employees and by establishing such units in an organisation, the HR personnel can create value to the employees and the organisation. It is also understood that one should have fun at work despite the pressures he or she has to bear. This depends on the culture within an organisation, the nature of business, plans and policies, and rules and regulations set by the organisation. It is true that human beings, by nature, are never satisfied with what they have or get and as human nature is dynamic, it is difficult for HR personnel to deal with and solve all the problems.
Hence, HR personnel can make people feel good at work so that they have peace of mind while at work which in turn ensures they do not show negative behaviour. To conclude, in order to make it easier for an HR department to handle a diverse set of employees, the department has to be very careful in hiring employees so as to lower down the chances of getting wrong people in an organisation. Similarly, if personal traits can be studied and HR personnel have the capability of handling negative ideas and approaches in a positive way, then it becomes easier to cope up with employee behaviour. Besides, HR personnel must be strict enough to say no and take actions against wrongdoers while, at the same time, they must be able to judge hardworking employees and appraise them accordingly.
