Social Development Of Personnel As Quality Of Life Improving Factor

Abstract

The article defines the importance of social development of personnel in the conditions of an innovative economy as a decisive factor for the stability and improvement of the quality of life of both employees and the entire population of the country. It is shown that social development of personnel in the organization contributes to development and improvement of social and labor relations, enables the realization of the personnel’s potential and the cooperation between employers, workers and government agencies in compliance with the "tripartism" principle. The authors systemized and structured factors that influence the social development of personnel: policy in the sphere of labor remuneration and social guarantees, the existence of government social programs, financial resources of the organization, a general strategy and personnel policy of an organization. The authors considered technologies in this sphere aimed at solving various social questions of employees, taking into account peculiarities of the social policy of the organization, and proposed using methods, tools and techniques that take into account specifics of the considered issues, belonging to a social group and a set of valuable human and economic factors. To assess the effectiveness of social development of personnel, the evaluation method cam be used based on determining the level of satisfaction of employees' needs. To achieve effective social development of personnel, the authors point to the need for assessing the impact of organization’s social programs and activities, and to achieve sustainable development in the long term – the use of modeling, forecasting prospects for social innovation.

Keywords: Quality of lifepersonnel managementsocial development of personnelsocial policy of the organizationtechnologies of social development of personnel

Introduction

Over the past three decades, globalization/regionalization, migration and reverse migration (also called "brain circulation"), the dominance of emerging markets, the demand for people with global thinking, and the world war for talents have led to fundamental changes in the nature, scope, and meaning of human resource management in the global context (Tung, 2016). Today, the field of human resource management (HR) is experiencing numerous pressures from the outside. Shifts in the economy, globalization, internal diversity, and information technology have created new requirements to organizations and pushed this field in some entirely new directions. However, these challenges also create numerous opportunities for HR and organizations in general (Stone & Deadrick, 2015).

Issues on increasing the effectiveness of the use of productive forces are not just relevant, but are put in a number of priority tasks in the modern social policy, both at the state and organizational level. Professional and social development of personnel should be satisfied not only by the management of the organization, but also by efforts of employees themselves. It should promote self-assertion and achievement of higher incomes depending on the employees’ efforts and taking into account the growth of their personal potential. This requires form the employer to pay attention to the personnel structure and invest in the development of human capital (Konchakova & Chugunova, 2017).

One of the main tasks of any state is to improve the quality of life of the population. The main factor influencing the solution of this task is the formation and development of human capital. This requires mutual activity of social institutions in many different areas of management and social life related to the social development of personnel. These include organizations in the fields of education, health care, culture, and economic and political structures of the state.

The scientific and theoretical basis for social development of personnel that has been formed to date is primarily aimed at providing social guarantees to workers and socially vulnerable categories of the population. In conditions of limited financial resources, the volume of this assistance is quite low. Therefore, in order to improve the quality of life and the mechanisms of social development, the following measures should be implemented:

• Development of psychological and pedagogical technologies to form the basis for the development of human capital in family and marriage relations with the aim of its further use in socio-economic and socio-labor relations in the society;

• Creation of favorable conditions, including social ones, for the formation of the human capital in organizations;

• Active participation of all socially vulnerable groups in economic relations through the implementation of various social mechanisms based on the individualization of social work.

Tools of social development of personnel in modern Russia are not used effectively enough. However, their full use in the formation and development of human resources in our society would allow:

• To strengthen the "tripartism" principle and the social component in social and labor relations of social partnership subjects;

• To improve the efficiency of employment services in the process of active participation of all socially vulnerable groups in economic relations.

Problem Statement

Nowadays, the business effectiveness depends not only on economic factors, but also on a well-developed social policy and, in particular, on the social development of personnel. The long-term strategy of any state involves creating conditions for the development of human potential and ensuring a sustainable growth in the level and quality of life of employees and the entire population of the country. This is one of the main tasks of the state social policy. At the same time, the state must provide every citizen with the opportunity to realize the own labor potential, and thus ensuring the employees’ well-being and the well-being of their families. This could reduce the social burden of the state and enable it to fully fulfill social obligations to the society. In these circumstances, and because of the limited state financial resources, a large burden in addressing these issues falls on organizations.

Currently, not all employers see an obvious need to implement a strategy for the social development of personnel. On the one hand, this relates to the global economic crisis, and on the other hand, it is determined by the lack of clear effectiveness criteria for HR policies in Russian organizations and an effective methodological and practical tool for organizing the social development of personnel.

It is worth noting that all scientific works in the field of the social development of personnel are very scattered. The existing publications do not sufficiently disclose organizational issues of the social development of personnel in the specific departments of modern organizations. Based on these contradictions, the research problem was formed, which consists in the theoretical justification and development of recommendations for the organization of social development of personnel. To solve this problem, the following tasks were set in this article:

• To justify the need for social development of personnel in order to form the organization's human resources potential;

• To determine the relation between the state social policy and the social development of the organization's personnel;

• To formulate the concept of social development of personnel in an innovative economy;

• To analyze factors affecting the social development of personnel;

• To offer methodological tools for the organization of social development of personnel;

• To formulate recommendations for determining the effectiveness of social development of the organization's personnel.

The solution of these tasks will allow the relevant departments of the organization to optimize their activities for social development of personnel.

Research Questions

Taking into account a gap in the scientific literature, the authors pose the following questions for this study:

• To what extent does the use of social development tools and the concept of corporate social responsibility affect the improvement of the quality of life?

• What factors influence the effectiveness of social development of the organization's personnel?

Purpose of the Study

The purpose of this research is justification of necessity of the social development of personnel in the organization, and opportunities to use different technologies for social development of personnel. The authors also tried to form a social development concept for conditions of innovative economy taking into account the influence of various factors. This research is also aimed at development of practical recommendations on the organization of the social development of personnel to improve the quality of life and human capital formation in the Russian Federation.

Research Methods

The general category of abilities called "human capital" was first identified in the early 60s of the last century by Schultz (as cited in Akhinov & Kalashnikov, 2011). Later, Becker (1957) put the category "human resources" to the rank of a significant resource of the organization.

Investing in human resources has a long-term character, and for employees, the result of these investments is to improve working conditions and increase the income, and for employers – to increase the productivity and reduce non-financial risks. This in turn contributes to the growth of the organization's competitiveness (Belyaeva, 2015).

Despite a significant increase in research and practice linking the corporate social responsibility (CSR) and human resource management, a comprehensive study of the relation between these two structures is still to be conducted (Voegtlin & Greenwood, 2016).

The application of corporate social policy in the practice of organizations and, as one of its directions, social development of personnel allow us to determine the main approaches to the formation and development of the human potential:

• Targeted approach to the activities of each employee;

• The creation of social conditions for the staff;

• The intensification of staff activities in order to achieve the productivity growth by creating and maintaining a healthy moral and psychological climate for each employee.

In order to ensure a sustainable growth of the length and quality of life of the population, the most effective tools for social development should be:

• Changing the character of interaction and social behavior of staff using innovative social technologies;

• Influence on the ethical side of people's actions;

• Implementation of measures aimed at improving the quality of life of the population;

• Formation and development of social technologies aimed at recognizing an individual's intellectual property;

• Creating working conditions that contribute not only to the material but also to the moral satisfaction of employees.

As for the personnel of organizations, the social development should contribute to:

• Use of the "tripartism" principle in social and labor relations and strengthening of the social component within the framework of social partnership;

• Development and implementation of measures that help restore the physical and emotional-psychological strength of employees;

• Assistance in hiring employees corresponding to a specific position;

• Involvement of socially vulnerable categories of employees in the labor process;

• Participation of employees in the solution of management tasks of the organization.

Thus, the social development of personnel in the organization contributes to formation, maintenance and development of human capital. At the same time, the social activity covers not only the staff of the organization, but also all socially vulnerable categories of the population.

Besides, the social development of personnel helps to attract and retain highly qualified personnel. This is determined by the fact that at the first stage, the social development of personnel brings socially vulnerable employees to the minimum acceptable level of life, and then it provides social conditions for improving the quality of life of all employees of the organization. It should be noted that the social development of the organization's personnel is influenced by various factors:

First of all, measures for the social development of personnel are completely dependent on the legal framework of the economic activity in the social sphere. Fulfilling the mandatory component of their social activities (payment of taxes and insurance premiums), organizations implement social policies in relation to their employees and socially vulnerable categories of citizens, ensuring the minimum level of life guaranteed by the state.

In addition, the following factors influence the organization's activities and the implementation of its social policy:

• Globalization processes that affect the organization's non-financial risks;

• Specific features of production and technical properties of products; this is what determines working conditions and how they can be improved;

• Financing of social development activities of personnel is primarily aimed at solving social tasks both at the enterprise level and throughout the country through the redistribution of funds;

• Social features of the organization that determine the level of the labor activity of personnel.

Thus, the main task of the organization's social policy is to increase productivity and labor efficiency, contribute to the solution of management tasks in terms of retaining highly qualified employees, ensuring their rotation and loyalty to the organization.

In the context of globalization, organizations are increasingly implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives related to social issues. They are more likely to be perceived as controversial. Therefore, the way, people consider such actions, can affect their perception of the firm and lead to changes in the individual behavior (Turner, McIntosh, Reid, & Buckley, 2019).

A comprehensive study of needs, interests and problems of employees and their families, taking into account trends in the practice of social development of personnel, contributes to solving social problems that meet modern requirements. In order to optimally and effectively organize and conduct activities for the social development of personnel, managers of organizations should understand the essence, content, goals and functions of the modern social concept of working with personnel.

From the theoretical point of view, the social development of the organization's personnel can be conceptually considered as a system that is based on a certain scientific and methodological basis and consists of interdependent parts.

The specificity of the objects of personnel’s social development requires the use of various methods and tools, which is defined as the concept "technology of social development of personnel" and is a sequence of procedures aimed at solving social problems of personnel and their families, carried out on the basis of the organization's development strategy and its social policy.

The organization of events for the social development of the organization's personnel generally includes three stages.

• At the first stage, the subject of social development for each specific organization, groups of employees, their social problems and needs are determined;

• At the second stage, methods and means for identifying specific social problems are determined, and measures for social development of personnel are selected;

• At the third stage, an algorithm of actions to solve social problems and meet the needs of employees is developed.

The business effectiveness depends not only on economic factors, but also on a well-developed social policy (Schönborn et al., 2019). However, it should be noted that all measures related to the social development of personnel in the Russian Federation are currently used not effectively enough without a clear focus on the formation and development of human capital and improving the quality of life. This raises the main question of defining clear criteria for the effectiveness of social development of the organization's personnel. Investments in personnel should ensure the effective use of human capital in accordance with the received qualifications. This, in turn, requires the use of methods of the economic evaluation of the human capital.

The economic efficiency of social development measures is determined by indicators of the economic growth. However, we should not ignore the social efficiency, which is based on achieving social policy goals. If the use of social development technology leads to the elimination of identified social problems, we can talk about the effectiveness of the social development of personnel. In this case, we can also talk about a positive effect associated with the implementation of social programs, improvement of the qualification level of personnel, development of the social infrastructure, and employees’ satisfaction with working conditions.

For practical evaluation of the effectiveness of applied technologies for social development of personnel, it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

• To assess the effectiveness of the applied measures, evaluate their effect;

• To determine the probability of a possible negative effect from the activities carried out;

• To estimate possible consequences that may occur in the future;

• To determine the cumulative effect from the implementation of measures for social development of personnel, taking into account the possible consequences.

When evaluating the effectiveness of social measures, one should also take into account the absence of complaints about the work performed, the coverage of employees with various types of guarantees, and the speed with which services are provided.

Findings

The formation and development of human capital in Russia and the improvement of the quality of life are directly dependent on the implementation of the organization's social policy and, in particular, on technologies for social development of personnel. At the same time, an important factor in the formation of human capital is the possibility of technologies for social development of personnel in an innovative economy. As organizations enter new markets, the need to develop and implement social policies will grow. The future opens up opportunities for the management of organizations to make strategic decisions that will allow them to be more transparent and win the trust of employees and consumers (Appiah, 2019). Employees play an important role in the firm's competitiveness due to their personal competencies and the human capital that they create for a particular organization.

High social performance indicators of organizations will lead to an increase in reputation and legitimacy in the areas where they operate, and, consequently, to an increase in their income and financial performance (Aguilera-Caracuel, Guerrero-Villegas, Vidal-Salazar, & Delgado-Márquez, 2015).

Investing in human capital contributes to the development of a competitive innovation economy. At the same time, every manager should understand that in the conditions of an economic crisis and the need to reduce costs, reducing investment in human capital leads to short-term savings. In the long term, however, the growth of competitiveness and reduction of non-financial risks of the organization are possible if investments in human capital are made. At the same time, they should be distributed in accordance with a clear system of requirements for each qualification (Eskiev & Arsahanova, 2017).

Conclusion

Corporate social responsibility has made significant progress in the theoretical field in recent years, demonstrating its importance through various perspectives such as institutional theory, stakeholder approach, legitimacy theory, and the shared value process. However, from an empirical point of view, additional research is needed to obtain new indicators and evidence for testing socially responsible policies for business performance (Barrena-Martínez, López-Fernández, & Romero-Fernández, 2017). In modern conditions, organizations have an important mission to solve social problems. Companies have become internal participants in the social development. At the same time, most social initiatives are related to the social development of personnel (Piasecki & Gudowski, 2017).

Based on the results obtained in the course of the study, the authors face new promising tasks:

• Search for more effective mechanisms for organizing the social development of personnel in an innovative economy;

• Improvement and implementation of innovative technologies for social development of personnel taking into account the specific features of an organization;

• Development of universal criteria and indicators for evaluating the effectiveness of social development of personnel that determine the need to implement social policy.

The application of social development technologies for the organization's personnel, proposed in this paper, as well as the solution of new problems caused by conditions of the innovative economy will allow to systematize the work on social development of personnel in organizations in the Russian Federation.

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