Human Resource management role and importance of values ethical, moral, philosophical, spiritual and scientific

Excerpts from the presentation of Prof. N.S.Ramaswamy at International Conference on ‘Innovation and Strategies‘, Christ University, Bengaluru.

(Prof. N.S.Ramaswamy: Former Director of IIM-B. Padma Bhushan, National Professor in Management, Director, CARTMAN.)

In every human endeavour in every sector and in every field of activity, there is a Management component as an integral part of the activity-though, words, deed, actions, transactions, policies, decisions and relationships. A Management function had existed from the dawn of civilization. But it has been made a subject for studies and practice only during last 100 years, ad that too, in business and industrial sectors during the Industrial Era which developed under the capitalist system.

It is the Management function which determines, or discriminates between what is good and bad for the doer and his/her family, society, community, religion, nation, mankind, animal species and planet. It is lack of ethical and moral component that is afflicting the three entities in the planet, consisting of mankind, animals, and Nature’s endowments. At present, Management, as taught in Business Schools and practiced in every area of activity, is governed by social science disciplines, such as Politics, Economics, Sociology, Psychology, Logic, Law, Productivity Techniques, Mathematics, Statistics, Information Technology, Accounting etc. These disciplines do not have a discriminating or humanistic component. Therefore, in order to make Management Science to become an instrument for the welfare of Man, Animal and Nature, it is essential to introduce ethical, moral, philosophical and spiritual values, such as honesty, truth, integrity, non-violence, selflessness, service consciousness, compassion towards animals, respect for Nature, sympathy, empathy, courtesy, politeness, forgiveness, concern for others, culture, aesthetics, art, yoga, meditation, fasting, silence, prayer, surrender to the divine, equanimity, balance,serenity, calmness, quietitude, fairness, justice, etc. Further, Management function should avoid, abjure, eliminate or suppress anger, arrogance,egoism, avarice, jealousy, envy, hatred, prejudice, lust, passion, vindictiveness, boastfulness, cynicism, negative tendencies and instincts which are lying dormant in Man.

Typically, fostering positive virtues and suppressing negative tendencies are part of and are largely common for all religions. Unfortunately, secular education and transactions in public life kept religion away. Therefore, fostering desirable qualities and avoiding negative tendencies ought to be taken over by Management function inherent in every human activity.

This is the only way by which plunder and pillage of Mother Earth, desertification global warming, extinction of forest, cruelty to animals, exploitation of consumers, fraud, scams, criminality, violence, sensuous behavior, break up families, terrorism, inter-religious and international conflicts and confrontation etc. can be avoided. This means that Management Science has to adopt these noble and worthy ideals and virtues into the Education System and practies in organisations in all kinds. The philosophical concept of Hinduism, incorporating theory of karma and reincarnation, law of cause and effect etc. are additional inputs, which would preempt deviant behaviour among mankind. Good begets good and bad results in failure and sorrow in this birth or in subsequent births. The Theology part of all religions, that is concept of God and His relationship with man, theory of creation, heaven and hell, punishment and reward by God etc. can be left out of the new version of Management proposed here. A reorientation of Management in Government, Business, Education and all human endeavours would be the strategy and innovation for materialistic progress, peace and harmony, elimination of conflicts, suppression of violence and passions, elimination of hatred, etc.

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Individual Quality leads to Organisational Quality

Quality in subsystems leads to organisational quality. This is how Total Quality Management works. But how quality is maintained in subsytems? If we divide the whole organisation in a structured and systematic form, we get a number of subsystems. While dividing those subsystems further, we will end up in a single person- the head who is responsible for all the activities in that subsystem.

Quality in a subsystem is the collective effort of adopting or creating and maintaining quality in all the resources involved in the subsystem. But non-living resources like machines, materials, environment etc. cannot create quality by its own. So the only resource that can adopt or create and maintain quality is the Human Resources.

The human resources(HRs) in a subsystem can be classified into three –

1. The head of the subsystem(Head of Department)

2. The direct HRs who are the employees and are responsible for the work in that subsystem(eg. the workers in a production department who operate the machines)

3. The indirect HRs who are employees of other subsystems in the organisation; but who supports the functions of another subsystem in the same organisation. (eg. an employee in purchasing department of an organisation contacts the production department. Here the employee of purchasing department is an indirect HR in a production department).

It is the quality of the above three HR catagories leads to the quality in the subsystem. But we cannot expect quality from everyone- Either the employees are unaware of the importance of quality or they are too lazy to adopt quality. This scenario can again be divided into two.

1. Head of the department is not adopting quality: Here it is very difficult to implement quality in that department or subsystem (chances of implementing quality is less than 1%).

2. The direct HRs or indirect HRs are not adopting quality: Here implementing quality in the subsystem is not so difficult, eventhough there are some resistances.

Now take the second case where there is more than 99% to implement quality. Here the head of the department needs to give proper awareness about quality, its importance in an organisation and how it makes one’s life(both personal and work) easy. This has to be done through proper and on going trainings. The next step is how to implement quality if the employees are not willing or are too lazy to adopt it. Here comes the standardisation of work for our rescue. Make the daily work, especially the routine ones, into a standardised form by dividing the job into simpler and structured parts which includes quality too. Make a job flow which contains the quality works. By implementing this structured format, the workers may not realise that they are following quality practices.

Allow the workers to make mistakes and learn from those mistakes. But do not make the same mistake twice. It is good to record the mistakes and the actions taken and should be circulated to all in that subsystem to aviod them in future.

The second case described above is possible only when the head of the department is willing to create or adopt and maintain quality. A person cannot adopt quality into the work without adopting quality into his/ her mind first.

The importance of quality should be realised and must be adopted into a person’s day-to-day personal life. Only when that person do so, he/she is able to replicate or adopt the same into work life also.

Therefore quality of a subsystem starts from the quality of life the head of the department is observing. Without quality in personal life, a person cannot implement or maintain quality in an organisation. Thus quality in individual life leads to quality in subsystems and hence leads to organisational quality.

Total Quality Management (TQM) starts from quality in individual life.

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