A methodical approach to the assessment of human resources' interactions.

• Author: Pereverzieva, Anna

INTRODUCTION

At the present stage of society's development, there is a dynamic increase in the significance of human resources for the economy as a whole, and for individual business entities in particular. This happens due to the impact of the level of knowledge and individual qualities aimed at obtaining a high level of performance. These are people who are perceived as the "element" that can create value, and only they can force the equipment to operate at the expense of their intellectual potential. Each person is characterized by certain abilities that give the possibility to perform the imposed functions and to participate in certain activities. The peculiarity in the process of maximal realization of human potential is that the individual abilities of a person can only be detected in the process of interactions with others--latent abilities. Only under these conditions will the available knowledge and abilities bring the expected result concerning individual development and business entity's success. This is also important for a manager since an efficient and united team envisages not only the automatic distribution of roles and labor functions but also the availability of interaction, collaboration, support and assistance on the way to the common goal. Knowledge accumulation is also the result of interactions, which manifests itself in the ability to benefit from the knowledge of other team members. However, one should not forget that team interactions might have a mixed impact on the activities' results, and can both increase and reduce them, for example, because of a conflict situation. Therefore, an important task for a manager is to ensure a high level of teamwork, as well as its support and development in the future.

The functioning of a particular team or group should be regarded as a certain system, all the elements of which are interrelated, and can either strengthen or weaken each other. According to a systemic approach, the issue of co-existence and interactions between people within a particular system becomes of particular importance, because the quality of these interactions depends on the success of the system's functioning and its future development. Any system has a certain set of elements that interact with each other. The result of these interactions is achieved on the basis of aggregate potential use, rather than the potential capabilities of its elements. On this basis, it can be stated that the whole is greater than simply the sum of its constituent elements. At the same time, the category "whole" refers to the system in general (an enterprise, a united territorial community), and "parts" are individuals and human resources. These words certify the fact that it is impossible to provide a high level of an enterprise's operation efficiency and to create a productive united territorial community without achieving a high level of interactions between human resources who act as a driving force.

Achievement of a certain synergetic effect is the consequence of interactions between system parts. It shows the nature and strength of interactions between a system's parts, for example, between human resources within united territorial communities. The synergetic effect is reflected in both positive and negative results, i.e., it characterizes the direction of interactions. The strength of interactions directly influences the system's development; that is, the stronger its elements are connected through the possibilities of co-existence; the greater the probability of successful development is.

In this study, united territorial communities and a structural unit (university department) are considered as systems. In this case, a community is an example of a large group with a predominance of manual labor, and a structural unit is an example of a small group with domination of intellectual labor. Let us substantiate the need to take into account the level of human resources' interactions for communities.

The formation of united territorial communities means the implementation of a national decentralization policy aimed at increasing the efficiency of a national economy's functioning and raising the living standard of the population by redistributing powers and financial resources and involving citizens in management. Herewith, the issue is the formation of efficient territorial communities whose functioning depends to a large extent on resource provision, among which the key role belongs to human resources: not only to determine the real possibilities of a territorial community which can meet its own needs but also to form potential opportunities for future development. Any territorial community at the beginning of its formation faces a significant number of obstacles, directly related to human resources. The most important are the deficit of human resources with relevant qualifications, low levels of motivation, a lack of substantial participation in a community's life, and other issues that require optimal solutions. These problems cause the necessity to study and evaluate the level of interactions between a community's human and labor resources.

A positive synergetic effect should be achieved inside united territorial communities, as it affects the community's ability to accomplish common goals. After all, as economic facts show, communities are formed on the basis of certain criteria defined by law, that is, there is a significant level of conventionality regarding their formation. Therefore, for the united territorial communities, it is important to achieve only a positive synergistic effect that will allow them to evolve in the future. If a negative impact of synergy is detected, it is necessary to provide the tools to increase the impact of human resources' interactions within the community. Tools' development, aimed at enhancing the interactions between human resources, is an integral part of the process of a socio-economic system's management, i.e. a united territorial community.

The analysis of the level of a structural unit's (university department) human resources' interactions is of a small group with a domination of intellectual labor. This lets us determine whether there is a correlation between the level of human resources' interactions and the group size and its type--either direct or inverse, as well as a correlation between the levels of interactions in teams engaged in manual or intellectual labor, that is, differences caused by the nature of labor. Teams characterized by intellectual labor have considerable intellectual potential and, as a rule, it is difficult for them to find a common point of view because of the unwillingness of some team members to meet halfway, or to walk a thin line, to take consensus. However, if there is a high level of interactions, the process of finding a common point in the team of "intellectuals" is successful. This directly affects the activities' outcomes both of a separate unit (element of system), and an organization in general (system).

The level of interactions affects activity outcomes and supposes the application of measures for their future adjustment based on the human resources management policy by increasing the level of interactions between them. The development of measures to enhance human resources' interactions is an integral part of the process of socio-economic systems' management, namely a united territorial community and a structural unit. The methodical approach proposed in the study allows us not only to quantify the level of interactions on the basis of the coefficient's calculation, but to identify the "weaknesses" that reduce the strength of interactions and "strong points", which are the background for the successful co-existence of a community's and structural unit's human resources.

The aim of this study is to determine the methodological approach to the assessment of human resources' interactions. This approach is universal, as it can be used for various economic actors both at macro- and micro-levels--enterprises, united territorial communities and others. The peculiarity of using this approach with united territorial communities is to achieve a high level of interactions not by the number of community members, but by the intensification level of their participation in joint activities and projects. That is, a high level of interactions can be achieved in big groups too. It depends on the effectiveness of human resources management methods in the community and the level of self-organization. Comparative analysis with the level of human resources' interactions within a structural unit allows us to state the fact of its dependence on the team size--a small group or a large one. Besides, the nature of labor--intellectual or manual was considered as the determinant affecting the level of interactions. To carry out the research and justify the obtained results, we will consider several hypotheses.

We propose the following hypotheses for testing:

H1: There is a relationship between the level of human resources interactions and the group size (co-workers, association of people), the nature of which may be determined by the ability to self-organization and management system's features.

H2: The level of team interactions based on intellectual nature of labor, which is determined by the more active participation of human resources in group's activities, than in associations with the predominance of manual labor.

H3: the level of interactions affects the results of the entity's business due to the positive effects of synergy

LITERATURE REVIEW

Amid increasing instability of economic development, raising the level of economic entities' efficiency is a matter of current interest as their functioning depends to a large extent on resource provision, among which the key role belongs to human resources, which not only determine the real possibilities of functioning but also form potential opportunities for their future...