With this larger requirement as a sign of the valuing and protection of labor comes the need for what is often identified at “integrative” services in an organization (Lawrence and Lorsch,1967). Someone must ensure that labor is being protected and that the interests of those profiting from ownership and management of the organization or community are integrated with and balanced off by the interests of those doing labor in the organization. What about job security, fair wages and a nontoxic work environment?
The Expanding Role of HRD
In contemporary organizations the protective integration is engaged typically through a human resources development (HRD) department and takes the form of managing and monitoring equitable hiring and promotion practices, as well as employee training and development, new employee orientation and retirement planning (HRD oversees the so-called “employee life cycle”). HRD often assumes responsibility for administration of compensation plans (including profit-sharing) and health care plans (Including employee assistance programs). The protective, integrative services of HRD might also include policy enforcement (regarding such matters as equitable and nondiscriminatory treatment of employees and prevention of harassment). I have consulted with many organizations where members of the human resources department are primarily playing the role of “policy police” (often to the detriment of the more positive roles they are asked to play).
Other integrative functions are served by the mid-level managers of the organization, as well as by those providing such diverse services as inhouse employee communications, coordination of volunteer community services, and support for non-work-related activities (such as company celebrations, recreational activities, and special interest groups). I recently worked with one high tech organization that surveyed its employees only to find that they were most interested in receiving instruction in wood working! Increasingly, we find that workplace “wellness” and the creation of high morale and high productivity work environments are being promoting—with organizations vying to be identified as “the best place to work.”
Concerns about quality of interpersonal relations in the workplace and meaningfulness of work are being added to the traditional list of employee interests (such as the forementioned concerns about job security, fair wages, and nonhazardous work environments) (Bergquist, 1993).With governments in many societies requiring that traditional employee interests are being honored in organizations, we are finding that the often undesired role of HR as policy police is becoming that much more prevalent. HRD personnel no longer formulate equitable policies. They now are in the business primarily of ensuring that government-dictated policies are being enforced.
We find that there is generally a tendency for the percent of integrative services to expand significantly as compared to the percent of direct services being provided in an organization (as well as a community) as it grows in size and age (Lawrence and Lorsch, 1967; Bergquist, 1993). Direct services would include production of goods and delivery of services to customers or citizens, while integrative (indirect) services include all forms of management as well as operations needed for coordination of direct services and those I have already identified as required for the protection of employee interests. We find that large organizations (such as IBM) and large metropolitan regions (such as New York City) operate with a particularly high percent of integrative services. This often means that large organizations must dominate and control the sector in which they are operating (usually through monopolies). Large cities become dependent on (and must ultimately control) outside resources. Even in the mid-19th Century, Anonymous observed that cities such as New York and Philadelphia “are built up out of the spoils of the farmer and planter.” (Anonymous, 1849, vol II, p. 103).
