Personnel Management Master Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Personnel Management Master - Assignment Example However, this relation seems to be replaced by commercials ones in the application of flexibilities at work. Employers may resort to flexibility strategies due to a series of factors such as increasing competition, market uncertainties, technological change, government policies and labour supply factors (Blyton: 1996). Flexibility at work place is characterised by dynamism and adaptability in contrast to negative rigidity that have been the case with companies in the past. The reason why employers have been opting for flexibility at work does not favour employees in terms of bargaining for their rights in the work force. This is because, the prevailing labour market characterised by high level of unemployment put employers in the driving seat in this endeavour to decide who to hire, how and under what terms. The following are types of flexibilities used by employers:- Functional flexibility: In this type of flexibility, the organisation, segment its labour force into 'core' and 'peripheral' groups. The core work force is permanently employed and is particularly employed in the firm's continuous activities and enjoys greater and generous pay pack and career development including promotion. As a payback, they provide functional flexibilities that go beyond their job description to serve the company and accept multi-skilled roles in carrying out their assigned tasks (Bain & Gareth, p3). Numerical f Numerical flexibility: In this case, the firm strategise on the number of employees it want to employee for particular tasks and in what terms in order to maximise the output and reduce labour cost. It mainly does this by dividing the peripheral workforce into three groups; the first peripheral group may consist of firm workers who carry out routine, low-skill tasks and their employment is more susceptible to fluctuation in product demand compared to core workforce. The second peripheral workforce mainly drawn form external labour market provides specialised skills which are only required by firm on temporary basis. The third group comprises of workers located in the secondary external labour market who are mainly low-skilled and carry out poorly paid functions like cleaning or garbage collection and catering (Bain & Gareth, p2). Financial flexibility: This is where the employer engages in a performance-related pay system so as to reward employees in the core workforce who meet the targeted output. It is also used to secure long-term commitment from staff to the firm and thereby countering the problem of retention brought about by other flexibilities. Temporal flexibility: In this approach, a firm will make decision on how and when to employ temporary workforce. This is done by the firm strategising on the optimal time of the season and day when their services is needed. This involves among other thing peak times and elimination of non-productive prospective workforce like mothers and socially committed individuals. This flexibility is very important to the organisations as it is used to cover for sick leaves and maternal leaves of core and permanent employees. Locational flexibility: This is the strategic locationing of the firm operations or sourcing the service from outside its premises in order to gain the technological advantage. It also involves restructuring the whole supply chain logistics. Manufacturing firms may close some of its plants and consolidate its operation in one