Hi Laksmi,
Apologize for delay in responding to your query..was travelling in the last two days..
Please don't address me as "Sir"..as here we all are students who are learning from each other..
Coming to your point..let us explain as what's the relation between the two HR & TQM..
HR Interventions for TQM
TQM is primarily an organizational strategy considered as a change programme to achieve excellence and therefore HR has an important role to play in designing the interventions to prepare the people and the organizations for the desired change.
Development of Total Quality People
The first pillar of TQM is internal customer satisfaction. People involved in each process have to treat those next in the process as their customer. In addition to the external customer, every activity in the factory has an internal customer. The service to the internal customer is the one which will help gear up the organization to deliver finally the required service to the customer. For example if Marketing dept. deals with external customer, it's commitments are to be backed up by other departments for whom the marketing dept. itself becomes a customer. Therefore, all the departments and the people are to be oriented towards achieving total quality and the attitude of " Help us to help you better " must be developed on the philosophy of internal customers.
Here lies the importance of HR in developing total quality people i.e. people with positive attitude, values in consonance with organizational mission and change the mindset so that the foundation becomes very strong.
The HR effort should be to bring in/foster real spirit of TQM i.e. spirit of reciprocity in interactions and not merely the mechanics of it. The HR initiative in TQM activity should be oriented to demonstrate the
efficacy of Win-Win relationships as contrasted to Win-Lose or Lose-Lose relationships and thereby enabling effective spirit of team work.
Training
HR has also to undertake intensive training of personnel in understanding the application of TQM methods & its tools. In Japan, this part of applying TQM methods & tools are very much wide spread & people at all levels starting from top to bottom are very much conversant with this and apply in all spheres of their activity. HR initiatives in this context have to
address in training of personnel in becoming "data minded than opinion minded". The mindset of " What is wrong" than " Who is wrong" to be generated & built up. Though it is a formidable task(to break this mindset), HR has to trigger this thinking in an organization to realise thought revolution of TQM dimension.
Employee Involvement
Further, HR has to initiate employee involvement in TQM activity. Ultimately, quality is physically produced by the operator on the shop floor. It is therefore very important that he understands the quality requirements of his job. This is possible provided his involvement in the job is very high and he is a very committed and empowered worker. It is in this context that Japanese have introduced Quality Circles which have generated high level of commitment of workers and finally helped Japan to become as world leader in the business. Quality circles are based on the fundamental principles of collaboration,
involvement & empowerment. HR has to facilitate the culture of team work either in the form of Quality Circles, Quality Teams, Task force, CFT, Suggestion schemes or any such others innovative employee involvement schemes for TQM activity.
Finally HR has to create TQM mindset by focusing following three main orientations:-
1) The customer orientation
2) The process orientation
3) The people orientation.
This can be made possible through an integrated & dedicated approach flowing from corporate value system built around the principle of " Do things right, the first time and every time"
Hope this helps...
Cheers,
Rajat