STAFF FUTUREHuman resource management in projects is

STAFF FUTURE

Human resource management in projects is of crucial importance. The success or failure of a project largely hinges on the way the human resource management department functions, coupled up with the programs and strategies enacted to manage employees in the project. Facts have it that project durations differ, like one project may run for a week while others run for over a decade, but regardless of the duration, all projects aimed at delivering what was initially promised. Failure to deliver means the project is a failure and was just as good as not being run.

For our case, project A is expected to run till 2025, and with the current employees, the dilemma is the human resource management plan. Is there need to recruit more employees or does using the current pool of employees till the end of the project advisable. The most viable option may be to use the current pool of employees to the end of the project but in various, unavoidable circumstances recruitment of new employees may be inevitable especially in instances where new skills and expertise that is missing in the current pool of employees is required.

The first significant reason behind settling for using the current pool of employees until the end of the project is workplace culture. Staff are a replaceable resource, but the quality of experience and dedication among the employees is an essential ingredient to project success. Workplace culture is developed only when employees get to interact over a more extended period working together and with a high turnover of employees in the form of newer recruitments, developing and maintaining a workplace culture may be hard.

Loyalty is also created when the employees who started the project are retained to completion. The impact loyalty creates is that a positive relationship between the project management team and the employees is established which goes a long way into ensuring that the employees are satisfied. With satisfaction, morale is boosted among the employees hence the quality of deliverables raised, conflict resolution becomes an easy task to handles, and it is more likely that these employees may go beyond what is required from them with the aim of aiding the project, something that may be unfamiliarly experienced with recruited new employees.

Retaining employees also improves their experience with the approach of project management the organisation utilises and this is invaluable. These employees compared to recruited ones are always in a better position to advertise the organisation hence increase its marketability, unlike newer contracted employees. The quality of projects delivered by these teams is always of high quality hence endear the project organisation to its clients.

The other issue at stake is identifying top talent that can be maintained by the shareholders. There are various strategies that can be applied, first would be important to do away with the traditional aspects of identifying top talents which solely relied on the manager’s instincts and deductions from observations.

Leadership would be the foundation for selecting top talents based on three vital leadership aspects which are foundations of leadership, emergence and lastly effectiveness. With foundation, one would observe how employees manage their careers, example how they handle work-related issues like conflicts and social interaction. With leadership emergence, the employees may be categorised based on how they stand out as compared to their peers. Those that are naturally viewed as leaders and exert a massive influence on their peers may always prove to be top talents as compared to others. Lastly under aspects of leadership when identifying top talent is leadership effectiveness. Under leadership effectiveness, especially for the project team, the focus may be on team leaders. Like the leaders who always drive their teams to success always stand out and these leaders also have to depict some sense of maintaining these high performing teams and this is primarily based on their leadership skills.

In accordance with Harvard Business Review, the other strategy that may be applied in the move to identify top talent is to use three distinguished markers which are a drive, social skills and ability. On ability, the employees with the capability of strategically thinking and adapting to the organizations changing environments are considered top talents and may prove crucial if maintained by the organisation. Emotional intelligence is what defines social skills, and top talents in an organisation are the employees able to carry themselves with integrity and dignity apart from effectively managing others. Lastly, is a drive which is the will and desire to work extra hard as compared to one’s peers and driven by the desire to achieve. Behaviorally, the drive can be manifested through the willingness of an employee to take additional roles, sacrifices made and eagerness to take newer responsibilities. Incorporating the two distinct aspects of identifying top talents in an organisation may prove useful.

What happens with the other employees once top talents have been identified and projects have been completed primarily rests with the stakeholders of the project, but productive advice is that the contracts with these employees have to be maintained in a manner that is cheaper and easily managed by the organisation. The reason behind such a decision is that, even though these employees may not be top talents, they have the experience and expertise of running a project based on the experience gained and may prove beneficial to the organisation in future. These employees may be easier to incorporate in future projects as compared to newer recruits.