Economic sciences/5. Workforce management

 

Postgraduate Yezhelyi Y.

Higher educational establishment of Central Union of Consumer Societies of Ukraine «Poltava university of economy and trade», Ukraine

Functional responsibilities of personnel departments of consumer cooperation organizations in Ukraine

 

Cooperation in Ukraine is a system of cooperatives, consumer societies, district, regional and state associations, unions with their inherent organizational and management functions, separate collective and cooperative property, independent authorities, which operate according to the principles of cooperative self-administration. The economic and social activities of consumer cooperatives provide for appropriate and specific organizational forms of governance, which crystallize from the birth of consumer cooperation all the way to the present and reflect the internal organizational structure of the system. The transition to a market orientation requires a different attitude towards human resource management as one of the most complex human activities, the specifics of which significantly affect the state of the labor market and vocational training.

In its activities, personnel departments are guided by The main provision of the personnel department at district level organizations of consumer cooperatives. However in practice this provision has not been revised for a long period of time and has not been augmented with new features as well as it has not been approved.

Traditionally, personnel departments perform functions of accounting personnel and a mediator between management and unions: these establishments enter into labor agreements, draw up personal files, conduct the registration and implementation processes of decisions concerning personnel that are made by heads and executives and compile the job descriptions. Functions of personnel departments in enterprises and organizations of the system are often displayed in hiring and firing people, organization of training and retraining processes, the studying of staff movement and fluctuation, conducting a variety of documents and compiling statistical reports, store and work books concerning staff. It means that personnel departments continue to be only secondary authority bodies of the collection and processing of personnel data, without having access to human resource management, development of the wage system, or to the regulation of staff professional promotion.

A reorganization of personnel departments in the system is needed, as well as their transformation into the departments of human resources social development, respectively changing their orientation. The following functions should obtain the main role: planning and forecasting staff quantity, professional development, adaptation, training, social protection, occupational health and safety assessment of labor and fair wages.

The results of practical studies of enterprises and organizations of consumer cooperation system in Ukraine and their analysis allow to define the main challenges in dealing with personnel. Those are the relatively low level of executive and labor discipline, lack of qualified personnel, lack of professional skills among separate executives, poor morale, low motivation level of workers and lack of initiative in solving production problems, the transition of skilled workers into commercial structures and the presence of confrontation between management and staff. All this testifies to the fact that there is a need to improve the human resource management system.

The level of working with personnel does not meet modern requirements. Significant miscalculations exist in the processes of personnel selection and arrangement, the level of labor and executive discipline remains poor and so does the responsibility for the entrusted affairs and the consequences of completed work. Formalism is not eradicated in the process of personnel reserve formation and not enough attention is given to improving their level of training and continuous updating of professional knowledge in terms of market reforms.

Surveys and interviews conducted with leaders of cooperative organizations and heads of personnel departments have revealed the importance of functional differentiation of certain employees who work in such departments. This differentiation consists of the following levels:

high – the formation of a stable team; organization of personnel evaluation, strengthening discipline and reducing staff fluctuation which rises significantly in the present conditions;

medium – organization of training, organization of professional advancement and adaptation, arrangement and staff development, reserve, performance evaluation and certification of personnel;

low – assessment of the future staff requirements, organization of vocational guidance, assessment of the staff material incentives development system.

The analysis of personnel departments of organizations and enterprises of Consumer Cooperatives in Ukraine suggests that the problems of personnel management in the near future will always be in the spotlight as it can not be separated from the organization's management system as a whole by the fact that it includes not only its own functional units but all of the linear managers and heads of all departments, organizations and enterprises of the system which perform technical, industrial, economic and other controls so that their effective work with the staff depends on the effective functioning of organizations and enterprises of the nowadays Ukrainian consumer cooperatives system.

Sources

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2.                     Шимановська-Діанич Л.М. Управління персоналом. Опорний конспект лекцій для студентів кооперативних вузів спеціальностей: 7.0502.01 Менеджмент організацій, 7.050206 Менеджмент зовнішньоекономічної діяльності. Ч.II. / Л.М. Шимановська-Діанич. – Полтава: ПУСКУ, 2001. – 78 с.

3.                     Petrova I. Strategies of human resource management in the context of organizational changes // 4-th International Scientific Conference BUSINESS AND MANEGEMENT; 14-th International Scientific Conference enterprise management: diagnosis, strategy, efficiency. Conference proceedings. – Vilnys: Technica. 2006, Р. 50–53.