Compose a 2750 words essay on Employee Development. Needs to be plagiarism free!Download file to see previous pages... Dickens (1994) contends that the business case for managing diversity offers a wa

Compose a 2750 words essay on Employee Development. Needs to be plagiarism free!

Dickens (1994) contends that the business case for managing diversity offers a way to operate equal opportunities as a strategic issue, a core value linked to organisational competitiveness. In order to improve quality and remain competitive a number of organisations have started offering qualification levels required for better acceptability in the industry. For example, McDonald's has been given the authorisation to award their own qualifications equivalent to GCSEs, A levels and degrees, in subjects like fast-food restaurant management (BBC, 2008). Network Rail and Flybe are the other companies which have been granted such permission by Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA), to confer degrees and diplomas for preparing the workforce for a competitive tomorrow (Woolcock and Elliott, 2008). These are some of the pointers towards the increasing realisation that acquiring and upgrading the skills is not only very important for competitive strength of the company, but it is equally crucial for the individual to remain relevant to the industry. This study is therefore an effort to analyse the HR scenario in general and how UK is preparing the human resources for a better and competitive tomorrow.

HR-The Core Component

Irrespective of the nature and specialisation of company, it can be said for sure that, 'people' form the core of its activities and therefore, the behaviour and character of these very 'people' will affect the overall character of the organisation. The performance level of this workforce depends upon the types of motivations provided by the organisation. It is therefore quite logical to say that Human Resource Management is a very crucial and an integral part of any organization. Today, in view of the competition, profit margins have become quite thin, which sometimes forces the management towards taking cost-cutting initiatives, that includes outsourcing, retrenchments, relocation of employees, pressure on employee benefits etc. The HR scene in UK too is affected by the phenomenon of outsourcing and availability of skilled workforce at cheaper rates from places like India, China, Philippines, Malaysia etc. This cheaper yet quality workforce has also resulted in widespread apprehensions amongst the UK workforce, because companies are now increasingly finding it more convenient to pass on the work to their offshore counterparts, with lesser costs of production of goods and services. There are some apprehensions on the desired results of outsourcing, but the trend has not seen a slowdown since the time it started off. Hindle (2005) cites a survey conducted by the Yankee group on 2004, which came out with a finding that 'only 48 percent of key decision makers agreed that HR outsourcing had delivered the promised return on investment they expected'. Notwithstanding such doubts about the success of outsourcing, there are reports suggesting that UK is bound to see radical changes on the IT horizon in particular. (Telegraph, 2006). Such studies point out that '40 percent of the UK IT services sector by revenue, and 60 percent by staff numbers' will be delivered offshore by 2020.