There were a number of concepts discussed throughout the course of Principles of HRM that resonated with the author. There are a multitude of reasons that caused that resonance and include factors such as prior ignorance; recognition of importance to The company; acceptance that the mining industry still has a long way to go and new ideas for discussion and implementation.
The mining industry is a highly cyclical industry marked by a boom and bust' cycle. This places enormous pressure on mining companies to attract and retain good people when times are good and retain only the best when times are bad. Coupled to this is the perception amongst school leavers that mining is a dinosaur resulting in the best and the brightest entering some of the trendier' professions such as banking and IT. These two factors require an ever-increasing emphasis on attracting and retaining the right people for the job. Internally, mining companies have been seen as very poor at Human Resource Management (HRM), however the author believes that this is slowly changing. Managers are starting to recognize that the human capital in a company is at least as important as the other resources.
This essay discusses the relevance of HRM to the mining industry with reference to best practice.
The ten points that were deemed the most important by the author are discussed in detail in this essay. The ten points are not assembled in any order, as there was no ranking system associated with the relative importance of the points.
1. The Art of Job Sculpting.
Keeping people working for your company can be difficult, however it can be costly to replace them. Research suggest that recruiting a front line employee may cost as much as one and a half times their annual benefit, whilst recruiting an executive will cost more than twice their annual benefits (Fisher et al). .
One way of keeping people happy at work, thus keeping them, is employing job sculpting.