2.- The management of people in organizations.
As we have already pointed out, we will consider Corporate Social Responsibility, understood as business orientation, a consequence of the rise of an institutional and social movement that is characterized by seeking to establish legitimate external controls when acting in business or by favoring the implementation of the social sensitivity in companies through the voluntary assumption of control over their ability to influence.
At present, the acceptance of these controls by companies is, as we have already pointed out but we must emphasize because it is very important, of a voluntary and optional nature; but it is possible to observe how its importance is becoming more and more evident and becoming a basic requisite, as happened at the time with organizational movements such as Total Quality or Management by Competencies.
In this way, something that in its beginning is strictly voluntary, although without ceasing to be so, can be increasingly converted into a primary element of competitiveness; not only because society and public bodies demand it, but also because it becomes a factor of differentiation as well as that favors the improvement of a healthy work environment, which should result in a notorious increase in business.
In a world dominated by knowledge and by the importance of the human factor, in a "knowledge and talent society" where organizations are configured as natural spaces for generating information and content, created by people who embody the brand and corporate image, these can not remain alien to the social repercussions, both internal and external, of their activities.
Therefore, to the already classic economic and human capitals, new orientations of creation of value are united, represented by the other new capitals such as social, intellectual or moral.
A decisive part, absolutely essential in the achievement of the business as well as in the achievement of the result, is what is technically known as the Human Capital.
Evolution of the old concept of personnel and together with the consideration of people as human resources, the organizational human capital is composed of people.
If we made a historical tour with some detail, we would note that the interest in the importance of people in the production process was born around the 1930s, when the personnel management units were created with the objective of making a control exhaustive on the activities carried out by the workers as to counteract the union influence.
The subsequent forties supposed the logical development of the tools of the function, completing in the following decade with a wide range of recognized studies and works related to the constitution of groups within the organizations as well as the influence that improved relations through the incentive of group techniques.
These are the initial moments of the importance that training, learning or training will pay.
The sixties assist in the introduction of new developments in employee management through ideas such as change management and the analysis of organizational human behavior through the so-called Organizational Development (ODA).
The ensuing decade observes with some misgivings the introduction of innovative remuneration systems and, possibly due to the influence of the energy crisis and the consequent reduction in revenues and the drastic adjustment of margins, earnings premiums and incentive policies.
To complete and shore up the so-called Directorate-for-Objectives (DPO), variable remuneration and results-based models, both organizational change management and quality procedures, as well as the boom and encouragement of teamwork and participation, appear. announcing in this way the great business challenges that from the function already denominated of Human Resources and not of personnel, will allow the alignment of this with the strategy of the company and its conversion in a department of support to the business.
These nineties settle the transition from personnel management to Human Resources giving way, at the beginning of this century, to the incorporation of technology through integrated management systems or ERP, employee portals or all those virtual wonders provided by the Internet network for the management of people in organizations.
The present century, this and our 21st century, offers us a set of novel challenges that the Human Resources units and departments or those that still maintain the name of Personnel, can not ignore.
2.1 Challenges in The management of people in organizations.
We consider that the most important challenges are:
• The already assumed transcendental importance that people assume for organizations.
• As a result of the increase in knowledge and the need to use technology and information, the educational and educational levels of the population as a whole have suffered a remarkable increase, much more remarkable in the area of their incorporation and integration into the world of work through the training executed within the companies themselves.
• Managing scarcity has become a skill of human resources managers, given that the lack of talent must be added the greater volatility of the same and the lesser reluctance to change jobs and organization in the workplace. the news Fidelity to the letter has given way to a constant search to find the most suitable places to work.
• As a consequence, organizations and companies have been forced to devise ever more ingenious and subtle formulas to favor the retention of valuable employees.
Linking workers to organizations has become more of an obligation than a mere business concession.
• On the other hand, new actors have broken in as a compact contingent in the labor and business market. This is the specific case of female employment, which has not only led to a quantitative change, but also a qualitative one, leading companies to undergo deep transformation and adaptation processes.
• In this way, the aspect of retribution has not remained alien to these transformations. Not only because it is necessary to bid in labor markets beyond the price to be able to compete between companies for talent, but also because new formulas of compensation and compensation such as the "emotional salary" have had to be devised.
• The new roles that are requested in modern organizations mean that the old management style has imposed behaviors such as leadership, shared management or the promotion of participation. A new model of internal relationship is already taking place in our organizations and characterized by replacing forms of relationship based on taxation with others characterized by negotiation, collaboration and the search for an agreement.
• New social needs are appearing at the same time, which companies can not remain oblivious to. The reduction or compensation of work schedules, the irruption of the necessary flexible hours or the reconciliation of work with personal and family life, the rise of equality policies or the promotion of participation, among others that we will deal with in detail later , are changing the labor landscape day by day.
• New ways of understanding work itself, from teleworking to co-management, outsourcing, subcontracting or entrepreneurship. At the same time and internally, new ways of exerting influence are opening up, from innovative concepts such as empowerment to revisions of classics such as accompaniment or tutoring, now called mentoring or coaching.
• The fact of taking into account the set of social demands that, in the case of companies and as we have pointed out, affect the interest in the ethical and responsible behavior of the same. To do this, companies react by setting ethical and behavioral codes, as well as assuming the guidelines of good corporate governance.
• The assimilation, for some time now, of a new way of understanding professional development and which we have called "Management by Competence". Beyond the mere employment of knowledge is the conjunction of skills, behaviors and attitudes, all coming together in the novel approach to competencies.
• The irruption of the generalization in the use of new technologies is decisive. Internet is already a daily and inescapable relationship both for its management and such a work tool as for its use as a management tool for people in organizations.
All of the above entails not only the redesign of the Human Resources function but also its transformation, as we will see later, detailing all the aspects that this change implies.
All the images in this CSR Guide have been taken of the pixabay.com Platform under