Global Hr, Diversity, Risk Management and Social Responsibility

7-1 Final Project Milestone Three: Global HR, Diversity, Risk Management, and Social Responsibility

OL 600- Strategic Human Resource Management

Southern New Hampshire University

Jason Mitchell

Dr. Kathy Rocker, Instructor

September 02, 2018

Global HR, Diversity, Risk Management and Social Responsibility

Human Resources within a company are a department that has a variety of different responsibilities and requires that they have a wide variety of knowledge to be an effective department. “To be successful in their profession, Human Resources (HR) professionals need to know how to foster a diverse and inclusive workplace; manage the risks and threats that threatens their company when it comes to the safety and security of their employees; contribute to the well-being and betterment of the community and comply with applicable city, state, and federal laws and regulations.  According to the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM), Human Resources have a variety of competencies that they need in order to effectively run and function as a department. One of these specific competencies is the Workplace Technical competency within the HR knowledge domain. This area covers many different areas in HR that includes: Diversity & Inclusion, Risk Management, Corporate & Social Responsibility, HR in the Global Context and United States Employment Laws and Regulations (SHRM, 2017).

Diversity and Inclusion

According to data that was released from the Pew Research Center it shows how the US Labor Force has had Millennials or Generation Y surpassed Generation X as the largest generation working in America; and that for the first time in history, some workplaces have four generations working alongside each other – the Silent Generation, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y. It is much more common now than ever before to see a younger person leading someone who is older than them. This type of scenario can cause generational tensions in the working environment. While the older employee may feel some form of anger or disgust towards the inexperienced younger supervisor, the younger supervisor may be feeling uncertain as to how best to handle the situation and what they can offer someone who is older than them and that has more experience at their job. Therefore, it is very crucial for companies to develop different strategies that are appropriate for managing a diverse working environment.

One of the most important things to do is to build collaborative relationships with one another. The younger supervisor must learn how to listen to their older, more experienced employee and acknowledge them for their many years of service and all of the hard work they have put into their job. By working as a team, the older employee is more likely to feel that they are valued and respected by the younger leader, and although the younger leader has the ultimate decision by hearing out the older employees and taking into account their opinion and different experiences, they can all learn how to work together for the betterment of the company. Also, by creating opportunities for cross-generation mentoring the older generations can teach the younger ones on how to interact with clients and customers and the younger leaders can assist the older generation about the many different changes that is occurring in the workplace.  

Risk Management

“Risk Management is the identification, assessment and prioritization of risks, and the application of resources to minimize, monitor, and control the probability and impact of those risks accordingly.” (SHRM, 2017). It is important for a company to implement proactive risk management policies in order to mitigate risks and prevent incidents. There are many ways that a company can be proactive with its risk management policies. Some of these, according to the SHRM are: the requirement of conducting drug testing and providing treatment of substance abuse to maintain a drug-free environment; have an emergency and disaster preparation and response program in place for natural disasters, communicable diseases, severe weather, and terrorism; legal and regulatory compliance auditing and investigation techniques; quality assurance techniques and methods; and policies that address security concerns that will aid in the prevention of workplace violence, theft, fraud, corporate espionage, sabotage, kidnapping and ransom, among others (SHRM, 2017).

Risks are inevitable and companies have a moral and legal obligation to attend to the safety and well-being of the people they serve, their employees and those who come into contact with during their daily operations. Having a good risk management system means that a company knows and understands the risks involved. Basically, risk management has two purposes; one figure out what can go wrong within a company and two figure out what policies are best to avoid things from going wrong or policies that say what needs to be done in case something does go wrong (Noe et al., 2017).  These policies should be reviewed and updated frequently to modify within a changing environment. These policies should be made available to all company employees at any given time and they should be reviewed by the departments periodically to make sure all employees are up to date on the current procedures.

Corporate Social Responsibility

“Corporate Social Responsibility represents a company’s commitment to operate in an ethical and sustainable manner by engaging in different activities that promote and support philanthropy, transparency, sustainability and ethically sound governance practices.” (SHRM, 2017). One of HR responsibilities is to make sure that the company is being socially and ethically responsible in all aspects and that each of their employees understands both the need and responsibilities that they have on an individual level to be responsible in these ways.  There are a few ways that an HR company can encourage employees and the company as a whole socially responsible. Some of these ways include: “Approaches to community inclusion and engagement, Creating shared value, “Developing CSR-related volunteer, organizational philosophies and policies. (SHRM, 2017).