Human Resources Questions and Answers

7. What steps can HR professionals take to ensure that mergers and acquisitions are successful? How can HR help during the integration process?


First, once an acquisition takes place, there is frequently a lot of concern on behalf of all the company's staffs and personnel. Not only the company that is being acquired but also the company that is doing the acquisition. Mostly, workers loose their jobs, consolidation of positions, promotions, demotions, etc. occur.

Nevertheless, it is the responsibility of the Human Resources Department to ensure that every employee is treated properly. "HR must deliver high quality administrative and operational support to employees and managers" (Mathis and Jackson 2010) by making sure that treatment is equally spread across the board according to qualifications of each person.

Moreover, Human Resources has the ability of easing the pressure of employees by holding meetings and keeping every one abreast of the changes as they happen. Even when sometimes HR cannot reveal any type of information during mergers and acquisitions, it is their responsibility to ensure that all information is kept confidential.

Indeed, HR needs to maintain frequent communication, guidance, and loyalty to their employees during this transition. As well as the acquiring organization cannot make optimum human resource assessments without accessing to all the historical information of the employees.

9. As the HR manager for a multinational corporation, you want to identify HR competencies that are critical for global companies. Visit the website for the World Federation of People Management Association (www.wfpma.com) to research the topic and to identify differences in the body of knowledge in different parts of the world.

I found it very interesting that the Human Resource Competency Survey is a tool that allows companies to measure the critical competencies of its HR professionals. Besides, individual professionals perform self-assessments, and the professional's key customers also provide assessments. This survey not only measures participants on the dimensions of business knowledge but also personal credibility, HR functional capabilities, management of change, and culture management; by finding out whether or not a common core of competencies exists for human resource management around the world, and therefore whether it is possible to define an HR professional.

Reference:

Mathis, R., & Jackson, J. (2010). Human Resources Management. (13th ed.). South Western: Cengage Learning.

Human Resource Competency. Retrieved from http://www.wfpma.com/competencies-project

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1. Discuss several areas in which HR can affect organizational culture positively or negatively.

Human Resources has a insightful effect on an organization. The Human Resource department is responsible in several ways including but not limited to administrative, organizational and strategic. This can affect the organization in a positive or a negative way which can include payroll, how the building is set up, the hiring process and disciplinary actions concerning employees. HR must be empathetic to the employee but at the same time set forth rules and guidelines and make sure everyone is following the policies and procedures put in place.

4. Assume you are an HR director with a staff of seven people. A departmental objective is for all staff members to become professionally certified within a year. Using Internet resources of HR associations such as www.shrm.org and www.WorldatWork.org, develop a table that identifies four to six certifications that could be obtained by your staff members, and show the important details for each certification.

PHR- Professional in Human Resources