In Somalia, we have been suffering over two decades from lack of proper administration and particularly lack of Human Resource laws that would have protected the rights of employees, managers and the owners. Despite the devastating days we had, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.
It ages back to 1972 when the Labor ministry of Somalia developed the “Somali Labor Law” with the help of United Nations Development Program. Though, the then president, Siyad Bare didn’t approve it, it has been active till 1990s. Since then, I don’t believe if we had effective labor laws.
Human Resource performs different types of duties in countless areas and it is important for business success.
Large and small corporations need to have Human Resources Department to maintain control of workforce, enhance them to strengthen the business operations.
HR department is responsible for developing the company’s strategy and protects its image by having well trained, motivated and satisfied employees.
Here are few points on “why do we need proper HR practices in Somalia?”
Strategic Administration
HR enhances the company’s bottom line with its knowledge of how human capital affects organizational success.
Leaders with expertise in HR strategic management participate in business decision-making that inspires current HR planning and forecasting for future staff needs based on corporate demand.
Our people tend to be entrepreneurs and creative but the question is: why our entities fail in the first year? Why are we not surviving in this competitive market? We perhaps have strategic management problems; let’s make it simple by calling it less effective strategic human resource management.
When we don’t have a linkage between the company’s strategy and the HR strategy, we won’t expect success in that business.
Compensation and Benefits
The HR department is responsible for developing realistic compensation structures which will lead to competitive compensation that is more attractive than other business in the market.
The compensation and benefits that the HR department takes care of include: Salaries/wages, Bonus, Incentives, leaves, pension plans, etc. the compensation scheme is subject for update after a while based on the company’s specific policy.
By providing attractive benefits to employees, the management is able to decrease the turnover and hiring replacements; the management will also be able to retain the talents as the employees tend to be happy, motivated and satisfied.
Have you ever met a hardworking talent who never had a vacation for five years or more? That is happening because of lack of effective human resource management practices in our country.
Environment, health and safety
The management has to provide proper, healthy working environment and safe working conditions. Currently, there is lack or little health and safety laws given by the government but having an effective environment, health and safety practices in our organization are inevitable.
Environment, health and safety specialists of the HR department should work on engaging employees in promoting awareness and safe handling of dangerous tools and equipment.
When managers are asked about: what is the biggest problem they have with employees regarding the safety, they answered that employees tend to abandon or overlook the safety guidelines of the organization.
Recruitment and Selection
Recruitment and selection, also known as Hiring or Staffing is one of the crucial roles of the HR department of an organization. HR Recruiters or hiring managers handle the employment processes from screening resumes to taking tests and interviews.
Usually, they come up with proper strategic plans and tools that will best match the organizational workforce demands.
They are supposed to maintain appropriate records of the recruitment and selection processes to ensure consistency and application of the expected strategies and procedures.
We are having trouble in this stage, as business is overtaking and turnover increasing day by day, thus; organizations are failing in six months or so, while some managers are going abroad to find labor from neighboring countries to south east Asia.
When asked or criticized about their decision, they all give similar answers like, “we are not finding suitable employees” or “we could not find applicants with this or that skill” which is either way an HR problem that needs prompt solution.
Training and Development
Human resource department’s experts of training and development manage employee orientation and placement which is essential step in having health employer-employee relationship.
Different types of training’s are given to new employees based on the job demand and training need analysis.
It is worth to mention that Training and Development experts support the company’s fair employment practices by development opportunities to all staff.
HR department needs to ensure that all the training’s are relevant and realistic to avoid unnecessary training costs.
One important step that managers overlook in training’s is the importance of training evaluation after the training is completed.
Motivation and Satisfaction of employees
To achieve the organization’s short term and long term goals, the Human resource department has to maintain well trained, highly motivated and satisfied workforce by having fair labor practices and giving employees sense of belongings through worker participation in management and employee empowerment.
Some of the techniques and strategies that managers could use include: having positive working environment, reward and recognition and develop the skills, confidence and communication of workforce.
Compliance issues
The HR department helps the organization by having legal experts who are supposed to minimize the organization’s exposure and liability related to allegations of poor human resource practices.
Fortunately or unfortunately, we don’t have labor laws or strong legal codes to be scared of as managers, but sooner or later, the government should strengthen the labor laws and legal codes related to employment and employees, so should the managers get ready for that through strong HR policies that are aligned with the national labor laws and codes.
Nevertheless, if companies want to be successful in their business, strong HR department is obligatory by all means.
Conclusion
You might be shocked and asking yourself “who is doing those functions now?” “Are we ready to implement human resource management practices in Somalia?” how long it is going to take to have effective and efficient HR practices in Somalia?”
Well, I will leave the answers to you and all the HR Practitioners, professionals and scholars!, but in the meantime, I challenge you to start or develop Human resource management practices in your current organization and see employees as Human Capital or the first capital of the organization.
By: ABDIRAZAK MUHAAJIN, Lecturer in Human Resource Management
E-mail: muhaajin@gmail.com
