Trends in the Workplace (Coursework Sample)

Trends in the Workplace Student’s name Instructor’s name Course Date Trends in the Workplace The human resource industry consists of five major functional areas, which include staffing, employee development, employee relations, safety and employee rewards. Each of these areas has a crucial role in every organization. To begin with, staffing involves screening, recruitment and determining personnel needs of an organization. This function is crucial owing to the fact that it enables an organization to determine the best talents for an organization. Through it, an organization is able to advertise for vacancies, review applications, and choose the best talents (Noe,2013). Another functional area for the human resource is employee development, which is the training and constant improvement of the available workforce. In such an area, the human resource develops soft skills such as communication and leadership in addition to technical skills such as computer skills and machine operation (Noe,2013). This area is crucial to an organization owing to that fact that it ensures the staff improves its capacity to operate efficiently. The third functional area in human resource is employee relations. This could be elucidated as the practices aimed at managing and regulating organizational relationships such as staff and the management, management and groups, and management versus the management. This functional area has a role of reviewing conflicts, which provides a peaceful working environment (Noe,2013). Another functional area in the human resource industry is safety, which performs a role of providing a safe working environment in an organization. Some of the safety areas watched by the human resource department include health requirements, occupational safety, and other safety related risks. The last important functional area of human resource is Rewards and benefits. This functional area deals with both direct and indirect compensations. Therefore, it has a role of ensuring employees are compensated according to the labor standards of both an organization and regulatory agencies. The federal government has laws that protect employees against unfair and savage employers. They protect employees against discrimination based on disability, age, and sex. For instance, the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 protect employees from discrimination based on disability (Johnson, and Everhart, 2011). It protects employees in the hiring, discharge, promotion, referral, fringe benefits, and other aspects of employment. Another law that protects employees against unfair employers is the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (Johnson, and Everhart, 2011). It is under the equal Pay Act of 1963, which ensures all employees receive equal compensation if they share similar job positions. The third federal law that protects employees from discrimination from employers is the Employment Act of 1967 (Johnson, and Everhart, 2011). This law discourages favoritism and discrimination based on age. In particular, it is unlawful to harass, favor, or discriminate employees because of their age. This disability law is specific to Xplico.Inc where I work because the human resource department aligned its policies to meet legal requirements. For instance, the department encourages the disabled to apply for vacancies in every job advert. Furthermore, promotions at are made based on merit by giving disabled employees an equal chance when promotions emerge. The sex law applies where I work owing to the fact that job positions of the same level have standard compensation packages regardless of the employee that occupies the position. Furthermore, Xplico also protects employees from gender discrimination and sexual harassment in the work place. The human resource policies are clear that the human resource department should not use age as a basis for favor or discrimination in any circumstance. Therefore, Xplico.Inc provides an effective environment for its employees. Among the significant trends affecting organizations today are the aging workforce, diversity, and skills deficiencies in the workplace. Age affects the productivity of workers either positively or negatively depending on job responsibilities of different occupations. As an evidence of this, physical responsibilities require young and energetic employees while white-collar jobs call for experience (Noe, 2013). It is critical that older workers rarely have injuries, but have severe injuries when accidents occur. On the contrary, younger employees are prone to minor injuries, but they always recover fast from such injuries. This was an emerging trend with my previous employer where old laborers retired from injuries. As a result, the human resource department developed a policy to promote older laborers into managerial positions in order to reduce severe cases of injuries. Diversity is another significant trend, which could result into positive outcomes and opportunities. According to Noe (2013), diversity is a source for employees to have open minds and hearts, which empowers workers. It also provides a source of competitive advantage owing to the ability to reach different markets. Diversifying sales agents at Xplico has enabled the organization to tap into markets where one race would fail. This contributed heavily to the revenue earned by Xplico. Additionally, deficiencies in the workplace are a significant trend in the human resource industry because it results in low productivity, poor product quality, workplace accidents, and costly errors. Some of the reasons for deficiencies in the work place include illiteracy and the constantly changing technology. As Xplico expanded, a need to analyze market behavior arose. Howev...