Introduction
Globalisation in the line of work is driving companies toward a new view of quality as a
necessary tool to compete successfully in worldwide markets. Today, developing quality
across the entire firm can be an important function of the Human Resource
Management (HRM) Department. The proponents of Total Quality management (TQM)
define quality in terms of customer requirements of “fitness for use” (Juran, 1988), and
the “TQM organisation” as being committed to continuously improving customer
satisfaction. Those employees without direct contact with external customers are
encouraged to view their colleagues as customers, linked via a chain of internal
customer relationships to the External customer. Organisations are urged to move away
from supervisory approaches to quality control, and all employees, from top
management to the shop floor, are to develop commitment to continuous improvement
as an integral part of their daily work (Oakland, 1993). There is a need to develop a
“quality culture” (Dale and Cooper, 1992; Glover, 1993; Hill, 1991).
Schuler and Harris (1992) argue that TQM promises to empower front-line employees
giving them more responsibility and information and so undermines middle managers’
traditional role in implementing and monitoring the instructions of top management.
Instead, middle managers are to perform the key function of providing leadership and
support for front-line employees, which requires new skills and attitudes on their part.
For employees, TQM means taking on greater responsibilities, often for the same pay
and there is a fear that TQM may involve job losses. Sensitivity to quality starts with
senior management training followed by the training of middle-and lower- level
managers. To be successful, a TQM system must be wholeheartedly accepted by top
management, who, in turn must convey their commitment to all organisational
members. HRM can play a vital role in implementing and maintaining a total quality
management process. HR managers are responsible for recruiting high-quality
employees, the continual training and development of those employees, and the
creating and maintenance of reward systems.
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Managing Human Resources for Quality
Organisational culture
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“Selection is the mutual process by which the individual and the organisation become
matched to form the employment relationship” (Petrick, 1995). The selection process is
simple as it decides what the job involves and what abilities are necessary and use
indicators to established selection techniques. However when apply to TQM; an entirely
new dimension is introduced. People who will be suitable to operate in a quality
environment may require additional characteristics such as attitude, values personality
type and analytical ability.
Gaining competent employees at all levels of the organization is more than a matter of
training; it stems from changes in recruitment and selection philosophy (Ashkenas et al.,
1995). Although Ashkenas et al. (1995) don't describe specific recruiting approaches
that aid in achieving this cohesive culture, they state the importance of thoroughly
screening applicants, sometimes with the help of customers, based on skills and
personality traits that match the technical and cultural needs of the organization.
Successful recruitment and selection of employees with the proper knowledge, skills,
abilities, and attitudes compatible with a TQM philosophy can be a driving force
supporting continued program effectiveness. In recruiting for all departments and for all
organizational levels, the HR department can identify people who will promote the TQM
philosophy. Candidate qualities to target in recruiting include a willingness to receive
new training and to expand job roles, to try new ideas and problem-solving techniques,
to work patiently in teams within and across departments, and to be enough of a team
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player to be evaluated and rewarded on a team basis. Acquiring high quality talent and
skills is critical to the success of the organization. As the market becomes more
competitive and the needed skills grow diverse, employers need to be selective in their
decisions because poor decisions can produce long term effects
According to Armstrong (2001) the overall aim of the recruitment and selection process
should be to obtain at minimum cost the number and quality of employees required to
satisfy the human resource needs of the company. The three stages of recruitment and
selection are:
Defining requirements
Attracting candidates
Selecting candidates
Thus, an organisation which is willing to recruit employees with a quality frame of mind
should search for employees with characteristics needed. And the recruitment and
selection process should be based on quality and involves several steps as mentioned
above.
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1. Defining requirements
Job Description
The job description will help to attract the right person to apply for job and for a quality
oriented organisation the potential recruits should the skills that will be indicated what is
needed in term of quality from them and what their work will consist of doing.
Job specification
• competences/competencies
• qualifications and training — the professional, technical or academic
qualifications
• Experience
• Organizational fit — the corporate culture that should be based on quality.
2. Attracting candidates.
• Internal recruitment
• External recruitment
Internal recruitment is a situation where the company can give its own employees
promotion or give them the change to switch to another job. For a firm aiming at quality,
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internal recruitment will be suitable if there are experienced person with the right skills
and will already have the company culture of quality.
External recruitment is a situation where the company recruit’s a new person for the
post.
3. Selecting Candidates
Aptitude Tests
Aptitude tests are job-specific tests that are designed to predict the potential an
individual has to perform tasks within a job. The company can use this test to predict
who can work for them by giving them a test based on quality to perform.
Attainment Tests
Attainment tests measure abilities or skills that have already been acquired by training
or experience. The organisation can use attainment test to know who already have the
skills and ability to perform a task without defects.
Assessment Centres
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Employees require training in order to manage the enlargement of their work role
following delegation of responsibilities for quality and they also require some non-
technical skills to be able to participate in quality improvement activities. Moreover they
also require a broader range of skills to in order to flexibly respond to changing
customer and market requirements. Such training is important not only to ensure
successful adoption of quality practice but also to ensure the achievement of broader
quality mission of improved firm competitiveness. Training therefore should contribute
towards the effectiveness of the quality management system.
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Developing the strategic training plan for quality is critical to the success of any TQM
implementation. A strategic training plan addresses these key areas: quality awareness,
executive education, management training, technical training, resources, budgeting, and
staffing.
Quality Awareness
This addresses the foundation and principles of quality: the definition of quality; the
quality processes of improvement, planning, and control (the Juran Trilogy); customer
focus; measurement and data collection; reward and recognition; teamwork; and
introduction to quality tools. Quality awareness training is critical to the success of any
TQM implementation. The training should start at the top of the organisation as the
introductory component of the executive education.
Executive Education
If quality awareness is the beginning of the training journey for the executive team then
where does the journey end? It doesn’t! Quality training is a systematic process that is
continuously evolved and integrated into the organisation’s professional development
process. Executive education includes the primary subject matter of a TQM system.
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Management Training.
Management-level employees are usually the first candidates for quality training.
Individuals from these levels usually make up the first group of employees to “break the
ice” in learning and using quality management concepts and techniques. On the other
hand the executives are trained in broad strategy and concepts, in preparation for their
leadership roles. Management training focuses on both the technical and human side
of quality. Management’s quality knowledge must go beyond the strategic quality plan to
include quality improvement tools. Additionally, they must be trained to be sensitive to
the organisational culture.
Technical Training.
This type of quality training consists of a wide variety of tools and techniques that
enhance the employees’ ability to collect and analyse data and present the resulting
information for decision making. Because concern for quality has permeated virtually
every industry and organisation, these tools and techniques vary greatly in type and
application. There are, however, a core group of them that are applicable in most
industries.
Resources.
Every quality training program needs resources. There must be a purposeful effort to
identify the staffing and materials funding necessary to achieve quality training goals.
Organisations have begun to understand the value of an organised and focused quality
training program. They also realise that there has to be a resource commitment made
that is visible and actionable by those responsible for carrying out the training.
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Budgeting.
Training for quality requires a dedicated financial commitment. These finances can be
centralised or decentralised. However, they need to be committed specifically to the
strategy and tactics that support training for quality. Identifying and budgeting for what is
to be achieved, rather than letting the amount of money available drive how much
training will be done, gives the executives a different perspective on training for quality
and budgeting. It allows them to make return-on-investment decisions that can
dramatically change the organisation’s view of the value of training for quality.
Staffing
The personnel requirements necessary to support training for quality have changed
significantly over the past decade. Formerly, there was dedicated staffing for all aspects
of training for quality, from development of materials to delivery. Now these
departments have tended to grow and have become targets to consolidate the
corporate training function.
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Employee Involvement
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Motivation
To optimize the action of human resources in a company and to effectively make these
the most important of its resources, their qualities need to be maximised and their
defects minimised. This requires the company to invest in human beings, by offering
training and seek to motivate them.
Motivation has been defined as “getting results through people” or “getting the best out
of people”. The second definition is slightly preferable since “the best” which people
can offer is not necessarily synonymous with “the results” which we might initially want
from them (Everard and Morris, 1990). Motivation should be based on the perception of
the individual and the reactions of employees to the company’s needs (Lammermeyr.U,
1990), for example, that of producing quality.
Poor quality is frequently a function of motivation. Poorly motivated people tend not to
be focused on the work and, therefore make more mistakes. In the most extreme cases
of low motivation, employees may actually feel hostility for the organisation and
intentionally carry out acts of sabotage that may directly affect quality.
According to Crosby (1979), quality is not only a problem of motivating people and
having them participate, but it is also linked to the style of management and the existing
organisational environment. To successfully motivate employees, managers also need
to be fully committed to production with quality, because we can only motivate others if
we ourselves are motivated. This justifies the participation of managers in the effort to
achieve quality.
The idea of enriching job is that of incorporating new tasks with greater complexity and
of giving more responsibility to work posts in an attempt to do away with the
consequences of monotonous work. The aim of the organisation of work is to see to it
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that the worker is more attentive to and accepts more responsibility for what he is
producing, so that there will be fewer defects and greater compliance.
Motivation theories
Herzberg’s two factor theory
Hygiene factors Motivators
Dissatisfaction Satisfaction
• company policy • feeling of recognition,
• quality of supervision • achievement,
• relationship with the boss • responsibility,
• the relationship with peers • job enrichment
• status, salary • advancement
• job security • growth
Frederick Herzberg proposed the two factor theory in order to explain the behaviour of
people at work. These are the hygiene and motivator factors. Motivational factors
result from the satisfaction obtained in performing the work in the light of the possibility
of using the full potential that people are capable of.
The hygiene factors are located in the environment and cover the conditions within
which employees perform their work. For Herzberg, hygiene acts by removing dangers
to the health from people’s environment, and thus they perform a mainly preventive
function. Therefore, promoting hygiene factors will serve to remove impediments to
positive attitudes at work.
When hygiene and motivational factors are related, it is possible to understand that the
former necessarily need to be secured so that feelings or dissatisfaction at work can be
reduced to the minimum possible extent. However, motivational satisfaction will only
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Managing Human Resources for Quality
appear from the moment everyone feels he or she is working towards their self-
realisation. Herzberg concluded that the opposite of job satisfaction is not
dissatisfaction but lack of satisfaction.
Maslow believed that human beings are motivated to seek satisfaction of the lower
levels of needs first and once that level of need is satisfied it is no longer a motivator;
and that person is then motivated by the next level up the hierarchy. However,
Maslow’s hierarchy of needs had various shortcomings. He proposed that human
needs may be ordered in a hierarchy and that a lower order need must normally be
satisfied before a higher order need is pursued.
To follow through Maslow’s ideas, management must therefore motivate the workforce
by establishing the level at which unfulfilled needs are operating and gear their incentive
schemes to that point.
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Performance Appraisal
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Additionally, the Human Resource Manager should provide a good and constructive
appraisal meeting where the appraisee’s do most of the talking and the appraiser listens
actively to what they say. Also, the whole period is reviewed and not only the isolated
events.
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It assumes that a person will be motivated to work if rewards and penalties are tied
directly to his or her performance, thus the awards are contingent upon effective
performance. Top management could guide employees’ behaviour (Palmer, 2001) via
rewarding and recognising outstanding employee behaviour (Pasuraman, 1986).
According to Philip Crosby, the purpose of recognition is to ensure credit is given where
due to raise motivation and commitment. It is non-financial appreciation to those who
meet their quality goals or perform outstandingly.
Rewards and recognition is one of the key levers that any organisation can use to
encourage appropriate behaviour, recognise excellence, and emphasise both positive
as well as undesirable practices for individual and team basis. The organisation should
employ various forms of reward and recognition including interesting and varied job
content, symbolic actions, performance-based share options, and a significant
percentage of variable pay components linked to individual staff and teamwork
contributions and company’s financial performance.
When the rewards are dependent on only one or two limited targets, all efforts are
directed at those, even at the expense of others. If short-term profitability is the sole
criterion for bonus distribution or promotion, it is likely that investment for longer-term
growth areas will be substantially reduced. Similarly, strong emphasis on reward for
output may result in lower quality. However, the fear of not being rewarded, or even
being criticized for performance that is less than desirable may cause some to withhold
information that is unfavourable but nevertheless should be flowing into the system to
improve quality.
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Many firms are continuing to try to blend TQM with their old established pay-for-
performance systems. Deming (1986) is adamantly opposed to pay systems like merit
pay or pay for performance. He believes that pay-for-performance encourages
individual employees to meet their own personal or professional goals at the expense of
the organisation. Individual competition may increase, while the cooperation and
teamwork necessary for TQM to succeed may decline.
The three models of quality awards provide a universal framework for evaluating
aspects of quality management practices in an organisation. They provide the
organisations with a means to measure their position against a set of universal criteria,
and to identify their strengths, and weaknesses in the areas of quality practices and
business results.
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Employee Relations
Globalisation is one of the factors affecting the employee relations, otherwise known as
the industrial relations. Strategic management is important because changes in
employee relations has resulted to increased bargaining power of the employees,
flexibility in working time as well as changing job functions and this has occurred due to
the increase in competition, product processes changes due to consumer awareness
combined with the increasing essence in quality, productivity and skills. An integration of
all these factors has had impact on the practices and policies of the management. While
managing change in the firm, the employee involvement in making sure the change is
effected is very important while the management has to ensure that the skills processed
by the employees are compatible with those required in the market to meet the
customer needs.
With the increased importance of the employee relations, the human resources is has
shifted its focus to quality, innovation and reduction of the cost. The importance of
human resource management (HRM) is reflected in the personnel management in the
firms. Employee relations (ER) is better viewed as a long term goal rather than short
term because it deals with the way the HRM treats the people in long term view. In
successful companies like General Motors it's noted that how the workers are treated is
a key item feature in the long term beside other factors like the corporate culture and
the objectives.
Today in most industries, the HRM is recognised since it's of big concern to the
company since it's not meant to only ensure that the employees comply with the laid
down policies but also win commitment of the workers, this therefore makes the ER a
worthy investment. HRM strategies are affected or influenced by the decisions made in
relation to the structure, strategy and considering the external factors like the legal
system, labour market position and the influence of trade unions.
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Conflicts (whether they are negative or positive) will arise in organisations whenever
interests collide -- and when these differences affect the relationship between
interdependent people, they must be constructively managed (Hellriegel, Slocum and
Woodman). Effective conflict management is perhaps the key "human" factor in quality
improvement. The basics of conflict management include improving communication,
teamwork, and a systematic approach to solving the disagreement. Thus, a good
management and prevention and good employee relations at in an organisation will
make conflict management and less conflict to arise and this will impact on the quality.
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leaders, also urges a partnership at workplace level (Marchington, 1995). Such views
presumably envisage a form of enterprise unionism committed to the enhancement of
productivity and quality, based on a firm acceptance of the common interests of
management and employees.
Teamwork
Empowerment alone is not enough, because many people cannot manage everything
on their own, organisations must foster a team environment with dynamism and flexible
boundaries in which employees can overcome the liabilities inherent in hierarchical,
individual-focused management systems. Teams can also overcome the dysfunctions of
individual members. A team can discipline a problem team member far better than a
supervisor can. It is far more difficult to dispute the combined judgement of a number of
equals than it is a supervisor’s.
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Employee Retention
Selecting and retaining great staff is the key for business success. Talented people who
continue to develop skills and increase their value to your organization and to your
customers are your most important resource. Here's how to select and retain these
people and create an environment in which they continue to thrive.
Communication
Feedback Systems
It is important that the members of quality teams understand that not every one of their
ideas with respect to implementing a quality program will be accepted by management.
It is important, however, that a system is put in place that allows feedback to be
communicated by participants, and lets them know that while their ideas might not
always be accepted, they will be considered and weighed significantly in the decision
making process. Employees must know why their hard work is being accepted or
rejected and that their suggestions are not only important but vital to the quality process
improvement plan.
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Two-Way Communication
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CONCLUSION
Thus it can be concluded that quality can no longer be viewed as the responsibility of
one department only. It is a companywide activity that permeates all departments, at all
levels. The key element of any quality and productivity improvement program is the
employee. Consequently, HRM in a TQM program is essential. Because of its
fundamental employee orientation, HRM should seek the responsibility for implementing
TQM programmes rather than risk losing their influence over the key element of TQM
that is the Internal Customers (Employees). Thus, managing HR for quality is very
important not only for the organisation to perform better in terms of increased customer
satisfaction, but also for the internal customers to feel satisfied too.
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