Environment Factors Of La Trobe University †MyAssignmenthelp.com

Question: Discuss about the Environment Factors Of La Trobe University. Answer: Introduction Strategic Human resource management (SHRM) is a systematic approach of managing the employees of an organization and directing them towards leading organizational success (Kramar 2014). It covers a broader area of recruitment, selection, induction, compensation, training, and motivating and employee relation within an organization. However, Jackson and Schuler (1995) stated that external environment factors have huge on the human resource management functions of an organization. This study will discuss the impact of external environment factors on the human resource function of higher education (HE) provider. The HE provider chosen for this study is La Trobe University of Australia, which is the most reputed university in Australia. The study will discuss the external environment factors of HRM as per the Jackson and Schuler HRM model. Furthermore, the study will demonstrate the impact of these factors on the HRM functions of La Trobe University. La Trobe University is an Australian public research university having multi-campus located at various places Melbourne, Sydney and Victoria. The university was established in the year 1964. It has become the third university in Victoria and Twelfth University in Australia. The university is considered as the largest metropolitan campus in Australia. La Trobe offers undergraduate and post graduate courses across its two colleges of arts, science, Social Science and Commerce (ASSC) and Health and Engineering (SHE). The university is particularly strong in the area of humanities and arts (Latrobe.edu.au 2018). Such strength of the university reflected in QS World University Rankings of 2014, where La Trobe was ranked in top 200 international universities for humanities and arts. The university was also ranked in top 100 universities under 50 in Times Higher Education World University Rankings (Latrobe.edu.au 2018). La Trobe is an extremely multicultural university having more than 8000 students from 110 countries studying in it annually. The largest campus of this university hosts around 25000 students. The University also offers accommodation facilities to the students for their studies. The mission of La Trobe is to encourage innovation, build alliance with industry and community partners and embrace research excellence. Furthermore, the vision of the university is address the major issues of contemporary time and promote positive changes through being inclusive, connected and excellent. Moreover, the university is targeted at provide outstanding student experience through research excellence. Jackson External Environment and Impacts on HRM Functions External environment of human resource management is comprised of all the external factors, which have huge influence on the human resource activities. External environmental scanning facilitates the human resource managers to become proactive to the environment, which is characterized by intense competition and change (Helfat and Martin 2015). Jackson and Schuler (1995) pointed out some significant external environment factors, which have huge influence on the human resource management activities of an organization. The most important external environment factors influencing the environment are like political environment, laws and regulations, social culture, unionization, labor market condition, industry characteristics and national culture. According to Jackson and Schuler (1995), political environment covers the influence of political institutions on the human resource management activities of an organization. Stable and supportive political environment is always helpful for the well-being of the employees in an organization. The laws and regulations of Government set workplace compliance standards, which keep the human resource manager under constant pressure for adhering with the law. Such regulations can have impact on every process of human resource management like hiring, compensation, training, termination and many more. Moreover, without adhering with such laws and regulations, the organizations can be claimed with extensive fines. On the other hand, Sheehan (2014) opined that the development and modernization of society have huge influence on the human resource management of an organization. Moreover, education rate and quality of life style decide the knowledge and skills level of people in the society, which in turn facilitate HR managers to hire knowledgeable employees. The pressure from the trade union of a country highly influences the HRM practice of an organization. Moreover, the hiring, training, compensation and industrial relation of an organization are set in consultation with the trade union. Furthermore, Deery and Jago (2015) opined that several dimensions of labor market condition have high level of influence on the human resource management practice of organization. Moreover, the unemployment rate and labor market structure influence the cost and wage level of the employees. The industry competition and nature of work of industry characteristics decide the effectiveness of human resource management in an organization. On the other hand, the unique values, norms and customs of national culture impacts on the behavior of human resource, which can affect them in dealing with global customers (Jain and Kaur 2014). Jackson and Schuler model can perfectly be used to analyze the factors of external operating environment of La Trobe University. Political environment includes the political institutions and their influences on the human resource management activities of an organization. According to Stone and Deadrick (2015), the political condition of Australia is highly stable and having less corruption rate among the political parties. Moreover, the political institutions of Australia are also supportive enough to the University for increasing the educational growth of the country. Hence, such environment supports the well-being of the employees in the university. On the other hand, Jackson and Schuler (1995) stated that Government laws and regulations decide the workplace compliance standard of an organization, which must be followed by the human resource managers for avoiding legal constraints. In case of La Trobe University, the minimum wage laws, Fair Work Act and workplace relation act of Au stralia highly influence its compensation package and termination policy (Nyberg et al. 2014). The Fair Work act ensures the safety and security of the employees through effective human resource management practices. Furthermore, the social condition of a country can also have huge influence on the human resource management activities of an organization. Tseng and Lee (2014) opined that the people in Australian society are highly inclined towards leading a modern and sophisticated life style. Everyone in Australia is targeted at choosing an effective profession for their career. On the other hand, Australia is having a highly diversified society, where multicultural people build the diverse nature of Australia society. In such situation, the HR managers of La Trobe University can hire diverse set of employees for adding new opportunities to the educational system. As per Jackson and Schuler (1995), the power of trade union in a country shapes the human resource management strategies to be adopted by an organization. Likewise, Australian Government allows high level of power trade union in shaping the human resource management practice and procedures of the organization. Hence, in case of La Trobe university, Trade Union is high responsible to safeguard the interests of the employees. Moreover, the human resource managers of this university are under huge pressure of trade union to fix the unlawful industrial action and wage crisis. Furthermore, the trade union also deals with the employers response of La Trobe University to gender equality in employment. Several dimensions of labor market condition like unemployment rate, labor diversity and labor market structure has high level of influence on the human resource management practice of an organization. Chuang, Jackson and Jiang (2016) pointed out that the wage of the employees increases with the drop of unemployment in a country. It automatically decreases the demand for employees and declines the investment of human resource departments. Conversely, Albrecht et al. (2015) stated that the wage rate, absenteeism rate and turnover rate of an organization decline with increasing unemployment rate. Likewise, the rising rate of unemployment highly influences the HR practice and procedures of the La Trobe University. Hence, the university can satisfy its employees with low wage rate. Furthermore, Australian labor market is having high level of diversity with increasing diversity in its overall population. Hence, the La Trobe University is likely to include diversity in its employment pract ice. On the other hand, Hollenbeck and Jamieson (2015) opined that the unique national culture of Australia also influence the HR practices of La Trobe University. Collaborative and innovative working culture of Australia has set teamwork working environment with the university. Human resource functions are the set of systematic activities for providing good working condition to the employees so that they like working environment. Typical human resource functions of La Trobe University are always concerned with hiring, motivating and maintaining the talented workforce in an organization. Such typical human resource functions are included planning, resourcing and retention, recruitment and selection, training and development, remuneration and rewards and employee relation. According to Sikora and Ferris (2014), human resource planning and resourcing is concerned with assessing proper human resource demand and sourcing most talented job candidates from the labor market. Employee retention is the tactics and ability of an organization to retain most talented employees for longer period of time towards getting long term organizational success. On the other hand, Cania (2014) opined that recruitment is concerned with sourcing pool of talented employees with desir ed skills, knowledge and experience for filling the job vacancies of an organization. Selection is concerned with choosing the right job candidate for the right position in an organization. The basic aim of recruitment selection in La Trobe University is to maintain a transparent and fair hiring process for assisting the HR managers in selecting best candidate for the vacant job position. Wright, Coff and Moliterno (2014) opined that training and development is a formal and ongoing effort made by an organization towards improving the performance and self-fulfillment opportunities of the employees through proper learning programs. In case of La Trobe University, it uses organized training and learning process for improving the skills and knowledge of the professors to provide more effective learning to the students. The trainings are always provided to the professors as per the changing academic courses offered by the university to the students. Furthermore, Gupta (2016) opined that remuneration and rewards determines the level of salary and benefits provided to the employees for attracting, engaging, motivating and retaining the employees for longer period. In case of La Trobe University, remuneration and reward are decided under the wage act and fair work act of the Australia. Moreover, the laws and regulations are concerned with protecting the interest of the employ ees in relation to their remuneration and rewards. Employee relation is concerned with the organizational efforts for managing the relationship between the employers and employees. In case of La Trobe University, employee relation programs ensure fair and consistent treatment to all the employees for making them loyal towards organizational success. As per Jackson and Schuler (1995), the external environment factors have direct impact on the typical human resource functions of La Trobe University. The political environment of a country has direct bearing on the human resource functions of an organization. The nature of work contracts and labor legislations are actually decided by the political institutions. Popaitoon and Siengthai (2014) pointed out that the stable and democratic political condition of Australia is always concerned about the well being of the employees in La Trobe University. The negotiated consensus and ideologies of Australian Government have set equal employment opportunity programs, which are to the adopted in all the organizations and institutions. Hence, the human resource managers of La Trobe University have perfectly incorporated employee diversity in their recruitment and selection program. On the other hand, Tran (2015) opined that the legal and regulatory laws enforce workplace compliance standard, which set the workplace rule and regulations to be implemented by human resource manager of an organization. The hiring, compensation, training, termination and many more HR activities of La Trobe University are strictly governed by the laws and regulations set by the Government. The compensation policy of the university is governed by the minimum wage act of Australia. Moreover, the minimum wage act of Australia has been increased to $672.70 a week (Aryee et al. 2016). Hence, the university has set the compensation structure of the employees as per this act. On other hand, the Fair Work Act of Australia has set diversity resourcing and fair working hours for the employees. Hence, the HR managers of La Trobe University has set 7.6 hours per day working hours for the employees to comply with Fair Work Ombudsmen. In this way, the laws and regulations of the external environme nt has instigated the HR managers of the university to implement fair working environment for long term retention of the employees. Jackson and Schuler (1995) pointed out that the social environment in which an organization operates, has huge influence on its human resource management. Australia society is an extremely multicultural society, where people from different cultural backgrounds and values live in collaboration with others. Such diversified social culture is highly reflected the human resource management practice of La Trobe University. Moreover, the HR managers can hire diverse people from the diversified society having different set of skills and knowledge. The diverse employee force also leads the HR management of the university to initiate diversity training programs for the employees towards understanding the values and norms of each other. On the other hand, people in Australia society give more priority to work-life-balance over the reward programs. Hence, the HR managers of La Trobe University have set fair working hours for the employees towards motivating them for more efficient work. Further more, Barrick et al. (2015) opined that trade union constitutes a major power block for the employees, which protects their interest through influencing human resource management function of an organization. Trade unions give voice to the organizational members for establishing human resource policies towards handing compensations and employee relation. In case of La Trobe University, the trade union has huge impact in setting the working hours for the employees. Apart from that, the trade union also conveys the voice of the employees to the employers of the university to raise employee compensation and benefits. Moreover, the trade union has high level of impact on retirement benefit planning of La Trobe University employees. Moreover, the union has convinced the employers for providing 17% contributed superannuation (Vomberg, Homburg and Bornemann 2015). Apart from that, the trade union also leads the HR managers of university towards implementing flexible working arrangement. Ployhart et al. (2014) pointed out that macroeconomic variables of the labor market have high level of impact in formulating the human resource functions of an organization. The unemployment level of a particular country has huge impact on the wage and benefit structure of an organization. The rising unemployment condition of Australia has increased the demand for job among the job candidates. In such situation, the absenteeism and turnover rates of employees in La Trobe University have been decreased. Moreover, Sezerel and Tonus (2014) stated that the HR managers of the university can retain the talented employees even with low benefit plan. Hence, the demand of employees is reduced at the university. Furthermore, the labor market of Australia is highly diversified. Such diversified labor market has high level of influence on the recruitment and selection function of La Trobe University. Moreover, the diversified labor market encourages the HR manager of the university to source div ersified employees having different culture, skills and talents. The selection of diverse employee set helps the university to deal properly with the international students. Industry characteristics often shape the human resource functions of an organization. Moreover, Tran (2015) stated that tough industry competition leads the organizations to be more competitive for gaining competitive advantage in the market. Moreover, La Trobe University can face issues in retaining the employees in such highly competitive industry. In case of La Trobe University, the HR managers are trying to gain such competitiveness through providing competitive compensation package, benefits and flexible working arrangement. Moreover, La Trobe University is facing tough competition from the Universities like Griffith, Deakin and many more. In such situation, HR managers of La Trobe University provide competitive compensation and benefits to the employees for retaining them for longer period and achieving the academic excellence. On the other hand, Hollenbeck and Jamieson (2015) opined that unique national culture of a country has high level of impact in shaping the human resourc e function of an organization. Likewise, the unique national culture of Australia has shaped the working environment and employee relation of La Trobe University. Moreover, the national culture of Australia is tightly integrated, which encourages the HR managers of this University to initiate teamwork working environment. Such working environment is highly responsible for collaborative employee relation among the employees of the university. Conclusion While concluding the study, it can be said that external environment factors have high level of impacts on human resource functions of La Trobe University. The stable political environment encourages the human resource managers of the university to initiate flexible working environment. The laws and regulations of Australia guide the HRM functions of the university in terms of setting compensation, working hours, retirement plan and employee relation. Moreover, the minimum wage act of Australia highly reflects on the compensation structure of the university. The HR managers can face legal complexities without adhering with the laws and regulations of the Government. On the other hand, social environment has also huge influence on the human resource functions of a university. Moreover, the diversified social culture of Australia reflects on the diversified workforce hiring process of La Trobe University. The diversified Australian society encourages the HR managers of the University t o hire diversified employees. The power of trade union has high level of influence on human resource function of a university. Likewise, the increasing power of trade union in Australia has forced the HR manager of the university to increase the flexibility of the workplace arrangement and other benefit plans. Furthermore, the diversified labor market of Australia has encouraged the HR manager of the university to hire increasing numbers of diversified employees. Increasing unemployment rate of Australia has allowed the HR managers of La Trobe University to retain the employees even at low salary package. However, the increasing industry competition forces the HR managers of the university to provide competitive compensation package to the employees. References Albrecht, S.L., Bakker, A.B., Gruman, J.A., Macey, W.H. and Saks, A.M., 2015. 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