A manager who kindly agreed to have an interview and answer some questions concerning his job is Geremy Krapek. The interview was conducted in person, which brings more advantages since I could see the reaction of the interviewee on the questions I asked. Besides, eye contact plays a great role in communication. John works as a human resource manager in the company entitled Perficient, Inc. The company works in the personal services industry and takes the ninety-fifth place in the list of America’s Best Small Companies according to Forbes. Perficient, Inc. offers information technology consulting services to large enterprise companies and has a primary focus on the US. The company is involved in planning, constructing and providing business-driven expertise solutions. Due to the fact that the role of Perficient Inc. is very responsible, Geremy Krapek plays an important role in the company’s performance.
Job Description and Responsibilities
As a human resource manager, Geremy deals with the issues of recruiting, training and developing of employees. In addition, he is responsible for administering salaries, benefits, compensations and pensions to the staff. Among many other areas of Geremy’s responsibility, one can find employee and industrial relations, compliance, employment law, grievance and disciplinary issues, and so forth. Krapek’s obligations also comprise planning and developing HR strategies, preparing job advertisements and job descriptions, providing help with specific knowledge of the vacancies to advertising managers, maintaining staff records and administering payroll procedures. This job requires much attentiveness, responsibility, skills, knowledge, special personal traits and, of course, being good at psychology since a manager must sort out applicants with necessary skills and promising career opportunities (Martocchio, 2008). As one can see, Geremy’s work is very valuable for the company since he is the specialist who chooses and trains the staff for the company, which is the main resource for any organization.
Management Approach the Manager Follows
According to Geremy, it is usual for human resource managers to follow human behavior approach. The reason is that this approach stands for both the current and recently developed methods and theories of the pertinent social sciences in terms of the human behavior issue. The approach covers not only personal features of an individual, but also the specifics of cross-cultural communication. Though human behavior approach is a classical one for HR management, Krapek prefers utilizing contingency approach, which is also known as situational approach. He believes this approach is very effective since it integrates all management approaches. The HR manager of Perficient Inc. says that acting in accordance with a situation and being able to use any of management approaches if necessary is a key to success.
Changes Experienced After Being a Manager
According to Geremy Krapek’s answer, his life changed a lot after becoming a manager. Being a HR manager, Geremy learned about human psychology and behavior in the workplace more. He states that this job gave him much important knowledge, experience and skills that can be utilized not only in the office but also in personal life. Working as a manager, Geremy has become more confident about his abilities and decisions he makes. He says that, earlier, making decisions was a challengeable task for him since it is a very responsible activity. However, now, he is able to make quality decisions quickly. Developing and improving his leadership skills helps him much both in his professional life and in relationships with other people.
Ethical Challenges and Handling Methods
Answering my questions, the HR manager of Perficient Inc. said that working with people means constant dealing with various ethical challenges that occur in the workplace. Some of the most important ethical issues are harassment and discrimination. These phenomena sometimes occur between employees, and Geremy is responsible for coping with such problems. In order to cope with them properly and reinstate healthy working atmosphere, the specialist establishes certain rules and norms of appropriate behavior at the workplace. He states that his situational management approach helps him a lot. He also mentions that the company, Perficient, Inc., is multicultural in its staff. Thus, another problem is the lack of cultural awareness; on this basis, many arguments and ethical issues occur between employees. As a responsible person for employees, Geremy learns about the cultures that are present in the company and holds trainings in order to share his knowledge with the staff.
Managerial Decision Making Methods
The interviewee tells that he uses two important managerial decision-making techniques – a cost-benefit analysis and pros-and-cons method. The cost-benefit method allows considering both costs of the decision made and its benefits. The manager states that it is a rather good approach since following it one can see if the issue really costs spent time and whether it will bring any significant benefits. The pros-and-cons method is rather easy and simple (Martocchio, 2008); that is why Geremy Krapek willingly uses it as well. He chooses the alternative that has most pros and least cons. This method does not require any calculations or special actions; therefore, it is very easy and rather effective.
Strategic Planning Tasks/Processes
Talking about strategic planning tasks and processes, Geremy mentions six steps: staffing, basic workplace policies, benefits and compensation, retention, training and development, worker safety and regulatory issues. He states that staffing is needed in order to decide how many people a manager needs to hire. Development of basic workplace policies helps to reach the strategic plan’s goal. Establishing benefits and compensation is a good way to make employees work better and faster. Retention includes training and assessment, which is very important for the company’s success and good workability of the staff. Worker safety and regulatory issues are very significant points in strategic planning tasks and should be followed strictly, because health and well-being of the employees depend on them.
Analysis and Recommendations
As one can see, Geremy Krapek, a HR manager in Perficient Inc., gave rather full answers for my questions. He explained the specifics of his work and shared some secrets of his success. Generally, his answers overlap with the information we learnt in our classes. For instance, he tells that the most widespread managerial approach for human resource managers is human behavior approach, though he uses contingency or situational approach. I support this decision and believe that it is very effective. My only recommendation for Geremy is to be more confident. As I could see from his answers and the way he behaved during the interview, he still needs more confidence, which will obviously bring him even more success.
Lessons Learned
I am very satisfied with conducting this interview since it was rather interesting, and I learned some good tips and secrets of being a decent human resource manager. Primarily, I would like to highlight Geremy’s managerial approach. Acting according to the situation is a very good decision since it allows finding individual approach for each situation and avoiding clich?s. Besides, I also learned the necessary steps and components of strategic planning, which is extremely important in HR management. To sum up, I can state that this interview was very informative and educative. It helped me to know about the specifics of managerial work from experienced manager. I will certainly use the approach Geremy presented in his interview in my work life and career.