Line managers' role in the deployment of human resource intiatives

Abstract

The shortage of skilled workers in Malaysia, as implied in the Tenth Malaysian Plan, demands Human Resource (HR) initiatives to be implemented more effectively at the workplace. This calls for more involvement of Line Managers (LMs) in HR, as well as employee’s Continuous Professional Development (CPD) initiatives. This paper contributes to the existing knowledge by relating LM’s roles in HR roles and employee’s CPD. The study also aims to identify factors that promote LMs’ involvement in the HR roles. Based on literature, three significant factors are found to promote LMs’ involvement in HR initiatives, which are ‘desire’, ‘self-efficacy’ and ‘support’. Four key HR roles are relevant, which are; Strategic Partner, Administrative Expert, Employee Champion and Change Agent.. The main rationale employees leave their jobs is due to discontent on how their competences are developed, usually due to the poor quality of their relationship with their direct manager, or LM. Therefore, even if HR practices were believed to be effective, the HR system might still not be effective because LMs do not know how to implement HRs practices successfully on the work floor. So, LM’s roles in HR initiatives are eminent to ensure that proper goal of HR initiatives is reached. Quantitative approach, using questionnaire is adapted to identify factors that promotes LM’s role in HR initiatives, LM’s HR roles, and its relationship, as well as its relationship with employee’s CPD. The research methodology that would be used to study the relationship between the factors and LMs’ HR role, as well as LMs’ HR role with employee CPD is Pearson Momen’s Correlation Coefficient. Therefore, the outcome of this research is; (1) the LM’s participation in HR role is higher when the promoting factors are higher, and (2) the more the LMs participated in HR roles, the more they participated in employees’ CPD.