Challenges Facing 21st Century Human Resource Managers
employees compensation for time not worked during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan? Human resource managers must examine these issues and determine if it is fair or not to recognize and compensate one culture’s religious holidays and not another’s. Another challenge is that there are so many different religions and once you make an allowance for one, the same treatment may be expected by other groups.
Legislation continues to be an area where human resource managers must be aware of the changing laws and how they effect employee compensation. In recent years, since the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, many organizations have been faced with employees taking extended leave for stress-related conditions. In most cases, they employee claims that the job has caused their stress and their doctor has given some type of written documentation that they should take time off from work. In a lot of these cases, co-workers perform the duties and job assignments of the worker who is on leave. Some doctors or employers may feel that they do not want the risk of a lawsuit so they will accommodate the request for the stressed out employee to be off work. Some cases may be legitimate, but many of these cases have raised questions. Is it then fair that the co-workers must work extra hard to complete work assignments for another employee who is off work because they are feeling stressed? Should their compensation be the same? Are these types of situations lowering the morale of employees? These are all questions and issues that human resource managers need to be mindful of.
With an increasing number of women, African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians and other races in the world and in the workforce, the term “minority” seems obsolete. However, many agencies are still very “white-male” dominated at the top levels. Minorities have faced many difficulties as they have entered the workforce. These include the glass ceiling preventing few from emerging into senior management roles. Women, especially have faced difficulties with sexual harassment, childcare and now, finding eldercare. The female style of leadership may be what is needed most to run a global corporation in the twenty-first century (Naisbitt, 2000). The reason for this is that the dominant principle within future global organizations has shifted from management in order to control an enterprise to leadership in order to bring out the best in people and to be able to respond quickly to change. Human resource managers must realize that woman are emerging as dynamic leaders in organizations and in order to keep them, organizations may have to provide such benefits as: child care facilities, elder care, flexible hours, telecommuting, etc.
Characteristics of Age differences in the workforce need to be looked at by human resource managers. The major working [next page]