HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

 

What is the importance of Human resource?

Behind production of every product or service there is an human mind, effort and man hours (working hours). No product or service can be produced without help of human being. Human being is fundamental resource for making or construction of anything. Every organisation desire is to have skilled and competent people to make their organisation competent and best.

Among the five Ms of management, i.e., men, money, machines, materials, and methods, HRM deals about the first M, which is men. It is believed that in the five Ms, "men" is  not so easy to manage. "every man is different from other" and they are totally different from the other Ms in the sense that men possess the power to manipulate the other Ms. Whereas, the other Ms are either lifeless or abstract and as such, do not have the power to think and decide what is good for them.

Why Is Human Resource Management Important to All Managers?

Why are these concepts and techniques important to all managers? ' Perhaps it's easier to answer this by listing some of the personnel mistakes you don't want to make while managing. For example, you don't want to:

1. Hire the wrong person for the job.
2. Experience high turnover
3. Have your people not doing their best
4. Waste time with useless interviews
5. Have your company taken to court because of discriminatory actions
6. Have your company cited under federal occupational safety laws for unsafe practices
7. Have some employees think their salaries are unfair and inequitable relative to others in the organization
8. Allow a lack of training to undermine your department's effectiveness
9. Commit any unfair labor practices

5 basic (Managerial) function of Human Resource Management

PLANNING - HR

Planning is the first and basic function of the management and  everything depends upon planning as it is a process of thinking about things before they happen and to make preparations in-advance to deal with them. Poor planning results in failure and effects overall system. Therefore HR Mangers should be aware of when is right time to do things, when things should be done and when things should not be done in order to achieve goals and objectives of the organization.

• Establishing goals and objectives to be achieved  through the employees so as to achieve the organizational mission set by the top-level management.

• Developing rules and procedures which has to be followed by the employees in order to avoid any sort of discrimination among the employees in any of their functions, to enable fair and transparent treatment among employees, to avoid conflict starting from recruitment to the separation of employees, inculcate discipline among the employees, to drive performance of employees and ultimately to avoid conflict and contravenes with statutes and employment laws of the land, ultimately for smooth running of the organization.

• Determining plans and forecasting techniques as a part of Human resource planning to avoid any shortfall of workforce so as to avoid impact on the output of the organisation, to draw the estimation of workforce exactly needed for the organisation and to plan for attracting talented candidates.

• HR outsourcing: as that of make or buy decision in operations management, human resource manager should be able to make decisions with regard to HR activities which are to be executed by the management itself or to be outsourced when there is advantage of expertise to bring in and cost-saving for organization. The following are the most outsourced HR activities; legal advice and support, employee payroll, pensions, training and development, recruitment, employee assistance, compensation and benefits, outplacement is, human resource information systems, employee relations, policy-making, strategic partnerships, appraisal of employees and resource planning.
  

Most small to medium-sized business owners know the frustration of spending more time than they want on non-revenue generating activities from payroll to human resource management to benefits and compensation.The answer for many businesses maybe to outsource part of their HR functions to third party providers so that they can focus on their core business and also has following benefits-

1. Save money and reduce operating costs
2. Allow the company to focus on its core business
3. Reduce the number of HR staff and related staff expenses
4. Allow HR staff to focus more on strategy
5. Avoid the costs of major investment in technology
6. Improve metrics/measurement

ORGANIZING - HR

HR managers should be well aware of organizing everything related to human resource and organisation as organizing is the process of making and arranging everything in the proper manner in order to avoid any confusion and conflicts.

• Giving each member a specific tasks to finish overall objectives of the job given to an employee is the duty of the Human Resource Manager, besides it also to the duty of Human resource manager to define task clearly before entrusting job to an employee. HR managers should keep in mind that task entrusted to employees should be matched with their skill set and abilities and It is also lookout of HR managers to give training to employees in the area or subject which is going to be entrusted to employees, otherwise the task entrusted to employees gets failed and defeated.
  

• Establishing departments and divisions according to the nature of jobs and works in order to improve the efficiency, expertise and speedup the work. Establishment of separate divisions and departments would give easy and effective control over employees by the management which would give better results and improve overall performance of the organisation.

• Delegating authority to the members for a good cause and to make employees more responsible towards their job and organisation is a part of employee development. Delegating authority to employees makes them to be more responsible towards organisation as there is a principle called authority equals to responsibility,vice versa when you load an employee with responsibilities, he should be given authority so as to fulfill the responsibilities casted upon employee. Authority without responsibility and responsibility without authority defeats its purpose. Therefore when employees feels responsible and accepts responsibilities, it is a good sign as it makes employees to be engaged in the job.
  

• Establishing channels of authority and communication is the primary responsibility of any human resource manager which would enable managers to effectively communicate desired goals and objectives of the organisation. Having effective communication will avoid conflicts, make staff to understand what exactly they are expected to and also enable the manager to get the things done in time.

• Creating a system to coordinate the works of the members so as to make the employees to work properly and not to cause any conflict in the allocation of the work to the employees. Improper and discriminating allotment of the work we will make one or the other employee feel overburden, burnout and can create conflicts among employees among members which is not good for the organisational health.and building teams will create teamwork which creates synergy among team that will bring out the best out of them.
  

STAFFING - HR

Staffing is one of the key functions of human resource management as staffing is the process of employing right people, providing suitable training and placing them in the right job by paying them accordingly and satisfactorily.

• Determining the type of people to be hired should be emphasised as they are the fundamental resource and investment for any organisation. Every organisation wants right people with them but they come at a price. Employee compensation is a key factor in primary motivating factor to attract talented and retain them in the organisation for a long period of time.

• Compensating the employees is one of the core functions of the human resource management. Among all the motivating factors money is the very important primary motivating factor for any employee. Providing right compensation for the work done by the employee will not only make  employee feel happy, it will also make the organisation in complaisance with employment laws of the land, if not it is unjustified and amounts to exploitation of employees which is against law.

• Setting performance standards, measuring and evaluating the employees: A performance appraisal is meant to help employees realise their strengths and shortcomings and receive a compensation accordingly. The very purpose of appraising the performance of employees is to evaluate and compensate accordingly. Unless organisation sets performance standards to its employees, it cannot compare and measure employees actual performance with the standard performance. HR managers take performance gaps of employees for making decisions on employees with regard to rewarding them with bonus, profit-sharing, stock options and payment of incentives or not. These employee performance gaps will not only be considered for making decisions with regard to compensation but it is also considered for making decisions with regard to initiate corrective actions on said employees, promoting them to higher levels and if any employees performance gaps are high, such employees will be demoted, suspended or sometimes may be discharges from job.
  

• Counselling the employees as a Human Resource manager, for understanding and helping people who have technical, personal and emotional or adjustment problems with an objective to reduce them, so that performance of employees are maintained at expected level or even improved upon.
  

• Recruiting prospective employees and selecting the best ones from them is one of the primary functions of human resource management. Recruiting is the process of inviting the people who were willing to join the organisation and selecting best out of them is the crucial process in which various selection tests are conducted. Having best people in the organisation will make that organisation is best in all the ways which would create employer brand that will help to attract talented people and also make them to retain in the organisation long period of time.

• HR Metrics: Application of formulas for measuring and calculating core HR issues so as to draw exact HR results and current scenario of organisation. The very purpose of HR metrics is to indicate current position and performance of the organisation.

Core HR issues where HR metrics can be applied are Time to fill an employee, Cost per hire of an employee, Employee absenteeism rate, Employee training others, Turnover cost, Turnover rate, annual Turnover of an employee, Workers compensation cost for an employee, Revenue per employee, Return on Investment (ROI) and Yield ratio.

Annual employee turnover rate       =                         No of employees left                          X 100

                                                                                       beginning + ending No of employee in a year / 2

Absence Rate

[(Number of days absent in month) ÷ (Average number of employees during mo.) × (number of workdays)] × 100

Cost per Hire

(Advertising + Agency Fees + Employee Referrals + Travel cost of applicants and staff + Relocation costs + Recruiter pay and benefits) ÷ Number of Hires

Health Care Costs per Employee

Total cost of health care ÷ Total Employees

HR Expense Factor

HR expense ÷ Total operating expense

Human Capital ROI

Revenue − (Operating Expense − [Compensation cost + Benefit cost]) ÷ (Compensation cost + Benefit cost)

Human Capital Value Added

Revenue − (Operating Expense − ([Compensation cost + Benefit Cost]) ÷ Total Number of FTE

Revenue Factor

Revenue ÷ Total Number of FTE

Time to fill

Total days elapsed to fill requisitions ÷ Number hired

Training Investment Factor

Total training cost ÷ Headcount

Turnover Costs

Cost to terminate + Cost per hire + Vacancy Cost + Learning curve loss

Turnover Rate

[Number of separations during month ÷ Average number of employees during month] × 100

Workers’ Compensation Cost per Employee

Total WC cost for Year ÷ Average number of employees

DIRECTING - HR

Directing is a knowledge, discipline and formal way of communicating to others that what you are expecting from them to do for you or to an organization. Unless a HR manager has capability of directing, he / she can't be said as full-fledged HR manager. when a HR manager has right directing capabilities, it is gives clarity for employees what they are expected to perform, removes confusion in employees and gives clarity of what results are expected by the management from employees.

• Getting work done through subordinates so as to meet the organisation's goals and objectives. Indeed getting work done to others is an art which every Human resource manager should possess, for which employee motivation by the Human Resource Management influences and matters a lot.

• Ensuring effective two-way communication for the exchange of information with the subordinates in order to effectively communicate the goals and objectives of the organisation as it plays key role in understanding what the Human Resource manager or organisation is expecting from employees to perform. Miscommunication between employees block the progress and even would lead to conflicts which eventually affects the overall performance of the organisation.

• Motivating subordinates to strive for better performance by way of providing employee recognition, rewards, intrinsic benefits, paid vacations, increments in salary, gifts, any social security benefits to employees and their family members is one of the functions of Human Resource Management.

• Maintaining the group morale by way of fair treatment among employees, being ethical and generous towards employees, management being loyal to its employees and giving priority to employee concerns. It is the responsibility of human Resource Manager to guide always to its employees, otherwise lack of guidance often kills the morale of employees. Training and development programmers not only improve the skills of employees but also boost their morale, thereby making them happy and leading to longer tenures. Apart from breaking the monotony in the workplace, training programmers offer employees a learning platform where they are able to master new skills and become more marketable.
  

CONTROLLING - HR

HR managers should have the knowledge of controlling all HR related matters, as they should be able to think and decide what should be done and what should not be done and which should be done and which should not be done while dealing with employees.

• Establishment of standard performance so as to measure the actual performance of the employees by conducting performance evaluation for appraisals

• Measurement of actual performance with the established performance standards of employees for finding out gaps in employee performance.

• Comparison of actual performance with the standard one to find the deviation for initiation of corrective actions, if there are any deviations. Corrective actions include giving proper and suitable training to such employees or withholding of increments in payments until performance gaps are none. Demotion of employee, suspension and discharge from job is initiated when serious deviations are identified. 

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT NOTES PDF

MARKETING MANAGEMENT (MBA)

What is Marketing Management – Introduction

In considering how the individual selling unit in the marketing system operates, we will investigate the question- What is marketing management? Some readers will be students who intend to be in marketing management, others already are marketing managers, and still others may be in related activities that bear on managers management in either a managerial or a regulative capacity.

To meet all their needs our main objective is to develop a structure, a “theory”, of managerial marketing around which they can organize their reading and experience in order to arrive at a better understanding of it.

This understanding can serve two objectives. First, it will help them obtain new insights from the experiences they will be acquiring on the job in the future. Inevitably they will develop from experience some such structure to serve this crucial need anyway, so they can profit from new experience and new knowledge. To acquire such a structure from experience alone, however, is a slow and often uncertain process. Formal education can help them to speed this up so they grow in marketing skill much faster.

Second, understanding of marketing management will permit a better grasp of the role of marketing in economic development, which many countries are so earnestly seeking. This structure is culture- free and can be applied to any environment. In general, study of marketing management leads to a better evaluation of marketing activity in terms of its performance in meeting the consumer’s needs.

What is Marketing Management – Definition: Provided by Institute of Marketing Management and Philip Kotler

Traditionally, markets were viewed as a place for exchange of goods and services between sellers and buyers to the mutual benefit of both. Today, marketing is exchange of values between the seller and the buyer. Value implies worth related to the goods and services being exchanged. The buyer will be ready to pay for the goods if they have some value for him.

Marketing is the business function that controls the level and composition of demand in the market. It deals with creating and maintaining demand for goods and services of the organization.

Marketing management is “planning, organizing, controlling and implementing of marketing programmers, policies, strategies and tactics designed to create and satisfy the demand for the firms’ product offerings or services as a means of generating an acceptable profit.”

According to Philip Kotler,

 “Marketing Management is the art and science of choosing target markets and building profitable relationship with them. Marketing management is a process involving analysis, planning, implementing and control and it covers goods, services, ideas and the goal is to produce satisfaction to the parties involved”.

Marketing Management Involves:

1. The setting of marketing goals and objectives,

2. Developing the marketing plan,

3. Organizing the marketing function,

4. Putting the marketing plan into action and

5. Controlling the marketing programmer.

Marketing Management is both a science as well as an art. Those responsible for marketing should have good understanding of the various concepts and practices in marketing, communication, and analytical skills and ability to maintain effective relationship with customers, which will enable them to plan and execute marketing plans.

What is Marketing Management – Features: Managerial Process, Consumer Centric, Research Analysis, Planning and Development and a Few Others

1. Managerial Process:

Marketing management is a managerial process involving planning, organizing, decision making, forecasting, directing, coordinating and controlling. Stanley Vance defines management as the process of decision making and controlling. Every aspect of marketing, starting with identifying the consumer’s need and wants, identifying the targeted customer, product planning, development, pricing, promotion, distribution process requires planning, decision making, coordination and controlling.

2. Consumer Centric :

All marketing activities are consumer centric. The consumers are the king. Marketing activities are based on the premise of “make what the market wants”. The principal objective of marketing is to create new customers and to retain current customer. Marketing management performs the task of converting the potential customers into actual customer.

This is possible through satisfaction of customer’s needs and wants by delivering them, appropriate goods and services according to their needs and wants, at right time and through convenient channel.\

3. Research Analysis:

The basis function of marketing is identification of consumer’s needs and wants .This requires continuous and systematic collection of data, analysis and reporting of data relevant to marketing activities. This helps the management to understand consumer’s needs, wants, preferences and behavior of the consumer towards firm’s marketing mix strategies. This helps in forecasting and planning future course of action.

4. Planning and Development:

Marketing involves planning and development of goods and services. Organizations make a continuous endeavor towards planning, development and innovation of product and services so as to meet the changing demand, taste and preferences of the consumers.

5. Building Marketing Framework:

Marketing activities are not just selling and distribution of ownership of goods and services from the producer to the ultimate consumer. But it involves a series of activities like research analysis, production, development and innovation, advertisement and promotion pricing decision, selling and distribution, customer relationship and after sales service.

All these functional areas of marketing must be effectively planned, organised and built effectively to achieve best results. Marketing structure depends upon the size of the enterprise, geographical coverage of the operation, number of product lines, nature of product, size of customers.

6. Organizational Objectives:

All marketing activities are based on overall organisational objectives. The marketer bridges the gap between overall organisational objectives of achieving high profit and maximization of sales and consumer’s interest of satisfying needs.

7. Promotional and Communication Process:

The ultimate objective of a firm is to maximize sales volume and profit. This can be achieved through promotion and communication about the goods and services. This function of marketing management enables the firm to provide information about the product to the customers.

8. Controlling of Activities:

Marketing management performs the function of controlling of marketing activities. Marketing management evaluates the effectiveness of marketing activities, to judge the efficiency of marketing personnel and the plans. This process involves measuring the actual performance with the standard and identifying the deviations and taking corrective actions.

FOR READING NOTES PDF 

FOR MORE INFORMATION CLICK BELOW LINK

https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/marketing-management/what-is-marketing-management/31788

ADVERTISING AND BRAND MANAGEMENT

 

Brand management is a function of marketing that uses techniques to increase the perceived value of a product line or brand over time. ... Developing a strategic plan to maintain brand equity or gain brand value requires a comprehensive understanding of the brand, its target market, and the company's overall vision.

“A brand that captures your mind gains behavior”

“A brand that captures your heart gains commitment”

                                                        

What is brand management? 

In marketing jargon, brand management is an “umbrella term that describes all the facets of design, placement, marketing, advertising, and distribution that foster identifying and developing a brand personality.”¹ Brand management encompasses more than just the aesthetics of a brand. It involves the management of an organization’s brand identity, or “all elements that a company creates to portray the right image to its consumer.”² This includes packaging, press releases and public relations, customer service, event management, retail experience, how executive leadership styles are expressed in the news, or any “touch points” with customers throughout a brand experience.

ROLE OF ADVERTISING IN BRAND POSITIONING

• Creates Awareness

Creating awareness of the product or services such as brand name and price is one of the major roles of advertising. The awareness of the product or services can be created by highlighting the unique features of the brand. Nowadays, due to intense competition, awareness is extremely required.

• Persuasion

Through persuasive messages, the marketers try to provide reasons regarding the superiority of their products as compared to competitors available in the market. Persuasion can be done through creative advertising messages, product demonstration at trade fairs, offering free gifts, premium offers and organizing contests.

• Reminder

If target customers already have a positive approach towards a firm’s product or service, then a reminder objective may be necessary because the satisfied customers can be targets for competitors’ appeals.  They should keep on reminding them about their presence in the market. For example, ‘Raymond – the complete man’ campaign is designed to remind the customers.

• Brand Image

Advertising helps in building a good image of the brand in the minds of the target audience. There are several factors, such as the character of the personality that endorses the brand, the content of the advertising message, nature, and type of packaging and the type of programmers or events sponsored, that can help to develop the brand image in the minds of the target audience.  

• Brand Loyalty

Advertising helps in developing brand loyalty, which results in repeat purchases and favorable recommendations to others by existing customers. Sales promotion, effective personal selling, timely and efficient direct marketing, and other techniques also help to develop brand loyalty. 

ADVERTISING AND BRAND MANAGEMENT  NOTES PDF 

Retail Marketing

 

What is Retail Marketing?

Retail marketing involves every element from the interior to exterior promotions and offers, product placements in-store advertisement, strategic placement as well as the behavior of store representatives.

Definition of Retail Marketing

A retail marketing include set of activities where a retailer buys products from a wholesaler or manufacturer to sells them to ends users (consumers). In simple words, a retailer is an intermediary which makes products available to consumers using different channels, for example, brick-and-mortar retail store, shopping malls, shopping website, automatic vending machines, kiosks etc.

Store Retailing  Vs Non Store Retailing

A retail store means a place where the business is operated, usually by the owner; however, sometimes operated and owned by the manufacturer or by anyone other than a retailer within which the merchandise is primarily sold to end users.

On the other side, non-store retailing involves selling merchandise outside the boundaries of a retail facility. This generic term tends to describe retailing that takes place outside from stores and shops. The retailing takes place through television, internet, video, automatic vending machines direct marketing and direct selling.

Retail Marketing Strategies

Retailers are always in search of different marketing strategies to attract more customer, increase awareness and sales growth. In the first place it should select target market and then select combination of right marketing mix can lead a retail business to higher ROI. Keep in mind the following elements that need close consideration when drafting a retail marketing strategy.

Targeting and Retail Positioning

In retail business defining the target markets should be the first priority before position itself these markets. The main objective of Retail positioning is to achieve competitive advantage by differentiating itself from its competitors. Differentiation allows customer to prefer a retail store than other stores

In the retail positioning strategy, retail branding for example brand name, brand logo, technological advancement and retail customer experience play a vital role to outpace the competition.

Retail Store Location (Place)

Retail store location has a huge impact on overall sales performance of the product. Todays’ customer is more empowered and having many alternative for example online shopping. The best retail strategy is to focus on your target market, level of competition, disposable income, traffic conditions and parking facilities when deciding to open a store in a city, specific area of the city or even an online store.

Price Strategies

Pricing is the key to retail marketing strategy. The price should include not only the cost of the product but also overhead costs as well. Following are the pricing strategies used by majority retailer keep in mind the overall business objectives.

• Psychological pricing: Many retailers set prices with odd numbers that are perceived by customers to be lower than they actually are. Suppose $4.99 is related to spending 4 dollars instead of 5 dollar.
• Competitive pricing: Retailers set the price based upon what is charged by competitors in the market.
• High/low pricing: Prices are initially set higher; however, later on, the prices are lowered when the product life cycle reaches decline stage.
• Every Day Low Prices (EDPL): Every Day Low Prices strategy is used by many retail stores to attract consumer by offering lower prices on regular basis without waiting for sales event for example black Friday.

Product

Merchandise is of two types, durable or hard goods like electronic appliances and sporting products and soft goods such as household items, clothing, and cosmetics. Some retailers have a combination of both hard and soft products like departmental stores or a retail chain whereas, other small retailers may sell only one type of goods like a boutique of clothes.

Promotional Strategies

Retailers can adopt both in-side and out-store advertisement strategies. But in-store advertisement strategies can influence more retail customer than out-store advertisement. Strategic placement of marketing messages can increase the sale of targeted brands and products. Retailers can use promotional strategies for different objectives for example introducing new products, increasing sales, increase brand equity and corporate image.

Trained Employees

In any retail marketing, trained staff can easily influence customers’ decision making process. If the staff know how to deal customer at personal level if can positively affect the retail store in the long-run.

Retail Marketing Examples

Walmart: Walmart is the giant of retail consumer market; however, despite the constantly rising of cost of goods and thinner profit margins. Walmart has still managed to cater all type of income groups.

Amazon: Amazon is a big player in both the e-commerce world and physical retail and holds a strategy to deliver products to customers even faster and compete more effectively with other online and brick-and-mortar outlets.

How Does the Retail Supply Chain Works?

The retail supply chain comprises of manufacturers, wholesalers, retailers and the end user (consumer). Both manufacturers and wholesalers are directly connected and retailer is connected with the wholesaler.

• Manufacturers: These business produce goods, using raw materials, labor, and machinery.
• Wholesalers: Purchasing of finished goods from manufacturers and selling them to retailers in bulk quantities.
• Retailers: Retailers sell products in individual units or small quantities to consumers at a price including profits theoretically at manufacturer Suggested Retail price (MSRP).
• Consumer: These are the end-users who buy goods from retailers’ outlets for their use.

Retail Marketing Notes PDF