About Expert


Key Topics
Conducting Study
The first challenge that I have been struggling with is time management for the research work. It is hard to invest time in research and working in the company at the same time. Second major challenge at the personal level is conducting a bias free research towards the chosen topic (Vitae.ac.uk, 2015). I have read many research papers for the literature review and I was convinced by the perception of various authors. Hence, it has become challenging to include that secondary research into my study. I have to be cautious not to change my findings as per the previously done research. Last but not the least, I am not informed about conducting research and this is the first time I have spent multiple weeks understanding research, literature reviews, and other aspects. Hence, I am still building my confidence towards the research that I have been working on. I am expecting to meet my own expectations by the end of this research.
On the professional front, I am working in a job profile that doesn’t offer too much into research field. Hence, the topic that I picked interests me, but not exactly my area of expertise. I have to incorporate the study in the company culture and policies later. Hence, it is a major challenge for me to complete the study with concrete results that I can present while proposing the changes. This research requires participation of employees from the company. I need to be proactive in addressing their questions. I am expecting the questions from the participants regarding the intent of the study, use of data and regarding the information they are providing. Hence, I need a comprehensive write up that explains everything to the participants. Moreover, the research will be conducted within the organization and everybody is busy with their work and projects. Hence, it requires extra effort to get the response from the participants.
This is the research project motivated by my profile in the company I am working with. I am responsible for the activities related to HR management, hence I picked the research topic related to performance and efficiency improvement within the company. The research topic is “The Impact Of Human Resource Management Practices On Turnover, Productivity, And Corporate Financial Performance”. Using high performance work practices in a workplace can result in significant improvement in the productivity and financials of a company. Focus of the literature review is to assess the impact of employee recruitment, training process on the personal development and consequently on the firm’s productivity. Topic is also concerned with motivation of employees and reducing the shrinking of the workforce.
I have been working as an HR professional where I need to filter out the qualified employees from a bunch of people. Hence, it is my responsibility to improve the HR process for hiring and retaining employees. The chosen topic is directly related to the corporate performance and turnover. The topic seems excited to me because it tries to address a few mainstream issues in the field of Human resource practices. For example, it is quite challenging to find that whether someone should be hired from outside to fill a vacancy or is it better to promote someone within the company? Secondly, I have taken a responsibility to make company more non-structured in terms of job role. Currently, people are given a task and entire schedule is defined. There is no space left of innovation. I am planning to introduce a non-structured approach where people can utilize their skills in different domain. People will have freedom to take initiatives on their own that will be aligned towards the goal of the organization.
The non structured approach doesn’t mean that employees will not be assigned unique roles or responsibilities. It implies that employees will be capable of working in a cross functional teams. Dynamic roles and demanding job cannot rely on the team members who can only work on one single thing. Members working in cross functional teams understand different viewpoints to a problem. Hence, this approach can be utilised for creating teams that can work on a project involving different aspects of a business. Another important part of unstructured approach is job rotation. It is usually the case that single role within an organization kills innovation for an employee and work become monotonous. Hence, switching roles after one year or so for different projects can boost the confidence of an employee. Also, it brings some challenges about learning new things. Last but not the least is quality circles. It is a special team usually short in size that is created to solve some business specific problems. The team is not limited to one single project, but work on varied problems. Hence, offer great working environment for the team members. These approach promotes challenging work and provide employees a chance to enhance their skills.
The practical challenge in implementing these changes are quite evident. Company is big and it might be difficult to incorporate the changes at that level. It might start from a small team only and that too if my results are convincing. Moreover, I don’t have the end to end responsibility of implementing the changes. My role is limited to research. On the personal level, I have to convince myself about the study backed with some appropriate data. By the end of study, I should be able to evaluate the effectiveness of the study (Waldenu.edu, 2010).
Last but not the least, managers and a few people might not be completely honest about the survey or questionnaire. Meeting deadlines and completing tasks is what all team leads and managers aim at. Hence, survey that is focuses on non-structured approach might receive higher level of criticism from the leads. Moreover, cross functional teams some time get into conflicts because of multiple point of views. As a result a few employees might not be in the favour or working in a cross functional team. Secondly, job rotation can also be unsettling for someone who wants to stick to one particular role and like monotonous job. Furthermore, a manger might not want any employee to switch role even for a transient period of time due to scheduled deadlines. Project managers are second potential set of people who opposes the unstructured approach. Last but not the least, quality circles can expensive for the companies due to additional human resource and money invested in a team that doesn’t work on one particular project. Management tends to overlook the other benefits that are offered by quality circle. Hence, quality circles are sometimes overshadowed by the cost factor.
Strategies to address challenges
The research has all sort of challenges varying from personal to professional. Hence, I have to be proactive to address these issues. The first issue is the personal biasness towards the study. To address this issue, I have spent time reading lots of articles and journals that are backed by the practical results. Now, I can understand the result and their importance. I am no longer biased about the study that I have been doing. Many papers negated the hypothesis that I have considered. On the other hand, there are few studies that have supported the hypothesis as well. Hence, I am open to whatever result is generated at the end of the research project.
To handle the issue of time management, I have kept a few hours schedule for the research project where I spent time to find the right information about the project. Also, the practical issue related to the availability of respondents for the survey will be addressed with the help of personal interaction. Respondents will only be spending a few minutes to answer questions. Moreover, no personal information is collected, hence it is highly probable that everyone will be honest about their responses. Last but not the least is the apprehension that managers might oppose the non-structured approach within the company due to tight deadlines. I will be meeting them in person to find their view about the study and approach. It will provide me a great deal of information into the study.
Vitae.ac.uk, (2015). Overcoming challenges common to doctoral researchers — Vitae Website. [online] Available at: https://www.vitae.ac.uk/doing-research/doing-a-doctorate/starting-a-doctorate/overcoming-challenges-common-to-doctoral-researchers [Accessed 14 Dec. 2015].
Waldenu.edu, (2010). 7 Research Challenges (And how to overcome them) | Articles | Walden University. [online] Available at: https://www.waldenu.edu/about/newsroom/publications/articles/2010/01-research-challenges [Accessed 14 Dec. 2015].