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Current Challenges in managing people

What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
Chris Hendry (1995) identified three common connotations of HRM:
1)      Human resources are most important asset
2)      Matching employment practices to business strategy
3)      HRM as a philosophy of management

Challenges in managing people:
I have been working in the university for more than 6 years and are engaged in biomedical related scientific research. The challenges in managing scientists / researchers is huge, because you work with a group of scientists with superior intelligence. Years of project management experience I have come to the following conclusions:
1)      Not everyone thinks that cooperation is a must. Very arrogant scholars feel that working with others will slow down his work, and they tend to lone wolf.
2)      Everyone wants to be the commander-in-chief or to have influence. Indeed, each researcher is an expert in a field of study, and they have knowledge and solid research results. However, most of the time, the project does not need to go into the academic results but combines different voices to promote government policy.
3)      Researchers have short term memories (i.e gold fish) while they tend to remember anything I messed up (i.e elephant). This is a very magical phenomenon. They overthrow the results of yesterday's discussion or forget what they have said every day.

How can HRM help managers in managing people:
As I mentioned before, Chris Hendry identified three connotations of HRM, such as matching employment practices to business strategy and a management philosophy. The university HR department provides workshops and courses for us to develop soft skills in managing people. For instance, team building or ice-breaking opportunities for new staff. This helps lone wolf to understand “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”. Second, HR could help to deal with researchers with unwanted behaviors, who have issues with management team or peers. The HRM help us to develop positive working relationships by administrative measures (i.e appraisal, key performance indicator) to silent the troublemaker.

My biggest strength as a Human Resource Manager:
I have not worked on human resources, but I think project management needs similar qualities. The biggest strength should be discovering the qualities of each individual and give them a chance to play. Most scholars are very good at winning. They are eager to have the opportunity to show their strengths, longing for applause and cheers. I will try to split the work steps, assign them to different researchers according to the nature of the work, and let them be the people in charge. For example, we need to purchase an expensive, complicated device. I will ask the person who knows the most about the research field to decide what model and brand should I buy. Then I will ask the researcher who will use the most to decide where the machine should be placed. Then I will ask the researcher who used the machine to draft the purchase proposal also the training handbook.

My biggest challenge as a Human Resource Manager:
Timeliness and staff turnover rate. It takes at least three months to a year to get a deeper understanding of the work style of each employee. The more cooperation projects we have completed together, the more we can get through the run-in period. However, many project regulations must be completed and submitted within 2 years. This means that I can't assign work according to the talent of the researchers but according to the nature of the position of them.



References:
Hendry, C. (1995). Human Resource Management: Strategic Approach to Employment. NY: Routledge.
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