Please enable JavaScript.
Coggle requires JavaScript to display documents.
ARTICLE 2: Line managers’ views on adopting human resource roles: the case…
ARTICLE 2: Line managers’ views on adopting human resource roles: the case of Hilton (UK) hotels.
INTRODUCTION
The different levels of management in terms of
strategic and first-line perspectives are examined.
The literature review addresses the role of line
managers from both HRM and HRD perspectives.
Explores line managers’ views on understanding their role, including their involvement in, and commitment to, HR activities – and identifies enablers of and barriers to devolving HR to line managers.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Other researchers including Heraty and Morley (1995) investigated views from both line managers and HRM specialists, providing opportunities for comparative views to emerge.
Much of the reviewed research covered in this article
focuses on line managers as an homogenous group. Exceptions are Guest and King (2004) and Whitaker and Marchington (2003) who focused their research on senior managers and MacNeil (2001) who identifified fifirst-line managers as the participants of her research.
The literature reveals a clear responsibility for line managers in both HRM and HRD, therefore HR roles, but recognises that to secure involvement clear delineation of tasks, support, training and trust are crucial for effective devolvement of HRM and HRD to line managers.
FINDING AND ANALYSIS
Line manager's roles in HR
First-line managers indicated greater involvement in dealing with a membership of Esprit club than strategic level managers.
Overall, the strategic managers indicate a slightly greater level of involvement in HR activities than the first-line managers.
Strategic level managers involvement more in budgeting and forecasting, employee retention, disciplinary and grievance, performance appraisals than tactical level managers.
Enabling HR activities
Line managers’ lack of willingness to undertake training and development and perceived senior managers’ perceptions of HR.
Barriers to HR activities
The two main barriers to supporting line managers with their HR role.
Heavy workloads
Short-term job pressures
DISCUSSION
The empirical findings reveal that there are indeed a number of key points of divergence in the positions of the strategic and first-line managers on line managers’ adoption of HR in Hilton’s UK hotels.
The first key differential in opinion lies in the finding that a higher
the proportion of strategic managers report involvement in HR activities than first-line managers, despite the operational and teamwork emphasis of their jobs in particular.
The second key defferential, the personal level of responsibility for team members and the responsibility for HR in teams is perceived to be higher amongst the strategic level manager respondents than first-line level respondents.
Third, the questionnaire results indicate that only the strategic managers consider that HRD is viewed as important within Hilton (McCracken and Wallace, 2000), underlining the need for a greater understanding of the Esprit concept.
Fourth, although there is strong evidence of support for line managers in their HRM and HRD activities generally, there is less evidence that first-line managers feel they have senior level, organisational support for their HR activities.
Fifth, the strategic managers rate their working relationships with HR specialists in their hotels higher than the first-line managers do, although the overall rating is high.
Last, a high majority of First-line managers see heavy workloads and short-term job pressures as hindrances to involvement, in HR roles, in keeping with Mc Govern et al.’s (1997) and Tsui’s (1987) finding, while short-term job pressures are seen as the main barrier to HR activities by strategic managers and not to the same extent as the first-line managers.