HR Challenge Dynamics of Value Creation and Competitiveness Through People, edited by Sudatta Ranasinghe and Ajantha Dharmasiri, June 2013. 345 pages. Hard cover. Institute of Personnel Management (IPM), Sri Lanka. Reviewed by: Apu Akbar, Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada Human resource (HR) is the most valuable, but vulnerable asset that organizations, public or private, maneuver for achieving goals. There are numerous areas and perspectives of HRM (human resources management) as it deals with human being. The Book titled, “HR Challenge: Dynamics of Value Creation and Competitiveness Through People” is all about the problems and prospects of HRM (human resource management) focusing on Sri Lankan as well as South Asian perspectives. HR professionals, if ever, search for a mind-provoking, prudent, and practice oriented resource for gaining insights on the riddles of various types in HR practices, the book tiltled, “HR Challenge: Dynamics of Value Creation and Competitiveness Through People” should be the right choice to quench HR professionals. This book is a compilation of 12 articles edited by Sudatta Ranasinghe and Ajantha Dharmasiri. Each article of this edited book is unique not only with its quality, but also in the sense that each article covers different area of HR functions required for building organizational competitiveness. A brief over view of each article is discussed below. The book starts with chapter one having article titled, “HR Challenges in a Developing Economy: Towards Multiple roles of HR Professionals in a Competitive Business Environment,” by Sudatta Ranashinghe. The author describes HR problems focusing on hiring and retaining employees in different industries in Sri Lank covering a ve... ... middle of paper ... ...hat HR practices are always context based depending on socio-cultural, political and economic background. No new theory is proposed in this book. It is a collection of easily understandable literatures which without any confusion will be a supportive resource for HR professionals. However, over narration of the background and literature review in most cases may blur readers’ focus. Though this is not a serious drawback, but it could be overcome easily. In addition, by avoiding over narration, the size of the articles as well as the book could be reduced that would definitely help keep the price of the book lower and make it more available to people. Since ambiguity, paradox, and multifaceted problems are the regular challenges of HR practice, a less serious drawback of this nature, hopefully, will not stand against the acceptability of this book.
Noe, Raymond A., et al. Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010. Print.
Lengnick-Hall M.L.; Lengnick-Hall, C.A.; Andrade, L.S.; Drake, B. 2009. “Strategic human resource management: The evolution of the field.” Human Resource Management Review, 19, pp. 64-85.
Human resource management can be viewed as the spider web that entangles a company’s workforce. HR departments are involved in employee’s work lives from the recruitment and selection process, to the training and development, performance reviews, and the compensation
Mohammed, J., Bhatti, M., Jariko, G., & Zehri, A. (2013). Importance of Human Resource Investment for Organizations and Economy: A Critical Analysis. Journal Of Managerial Sciences, 7(1), 127-133.
" This global London-based mining and mineral company was severely impacted by the global recession in 2008. Such an impact forced unprecedented workforce reductions worldwide and decentralized HR management had to be brought in under a single umbrella to ensure an orderly and efficient system that would support the organization’s future productivity."( Case Study OneRedesigning HR HRMG 5000 - Student Simple). Human resources have a strategic significance if managed efficiently and productively. The company revamped and managed its HR functions in a manner so as to achieve the strategic goals of the
In my opinion, HR practices can make positive contributions to organisational performances, because except the unpredictable external environments, human resource management can improve the most factors that affect employees’ performances which finally influence organisational performances in long-term perspectives. This essay is aim to prove human resource practices can positively effect organisational performances based on literature discussion and empirical evidences. The next section briefly brings few negative views about the limitation of HRM related to improving organisational performances. The third section discuss the positive relationship between HR practices and organisational performances are established by applying HRM processes of hiring, selecting, placing employees as well as creating employment relationships within organisations. The final section is going to analyse an example company Mark & Spensers successfully utilised HR practices to improve their organisational performances and created competitive advantages.
This paper will attempt to give a broad overview from the available literature within three areas. First, the paper will explore the historical relationships of HR and organizational strategy. Second, the paper will give an overview of current practices and trends. Lastly,...
Human Resources have been believed to be a cost to the organization that needs to be minimized and controlled. However, in recent years, the connection of human capital to financial performance has been well recognized. Many organizations battle not only the tough competition, but also a world financial crisis. An increasingly competitive environment, many companies turn to human resources (HR) in order to stay in business and achieve goals, and maintain profitability. “Resources are invaluable and limited sources of any organizations which cannot be easily replaced” (Zohreh, M; Napsiah, I; Zulkiflle, L; Norzima, Z., 2013). Organizations turn to strategic management of human resources to accomplish its mission.
The field of human resources (HR) plays a critical role in the performance and success of organizations. As organizations have become increasingly more complex, the effective management of HR has become even more important. The traditional perception of HR as only an administrative office is no longer valid. Instead, contemporary HR is directly involved with the internal organizational structure, business operations, and variety of functions carried out by employees on a daily basis (Reed & Bogardus, 2012). HR functions impact the organization’s strategic planning, improvement processes, and goal achievement. Six core bodies of knowledge provide the foundation for all of these HR functions. These areas are: strategic management; workforce planning and employment; human resource development; total rewards; employee and labor relations; and risk management (Reed & Bogardus, 2012).
Human Resource Management (HRM) is fundamentally another name for personnel management. It is the process of making sure the employees are as creative as they can be. HRM is a way of grouping the range of activities associated with managing people that are variously categorised under employee relations, industrial/labour relations, personnel management and organisational behaviour. Many academic departments where research and teaching in all these areas take place have adopted the title department of human resources management. HRM is a coordinated approach to managing people that seeks to integrate the various personnel activates so that they are compatible with each other. Therefore the key areas of employee resourcing, employee development, employee reward and employee involvement are considered to be interrelated. Policy-making and procedures in one of these areas will have an impact on other areas, therefore human resources management is an approach that takes a holistic view and considers how various areas can be integrated.
The work of HR specialist is not only affected by the internal factors, there are also external environmental factors that influence how HR specialist operates. In this section, I am going to discuss factors that influence the Practice of HR in organizations, from outside the scope of the organization. The factors include Political, Legislation and Regulations, Actions of Competitors and Economy of the country
Contrary to traditional beliefs, recognition and integration of the link between human resource (HR) strategy and business strategy, or rather, strategic human resource management (SHRM) can contribute to the success and establishment of a business. The first half of this report will draw attention to and examine the importance of having a close relationship between the two named strategies. Bratton and Gold (2007), suggest that SHRM can improve performance by connecting the strategic goals of the business to the HR functions. Be it in a management or academic literature, the proactive nature of SHRM allows the business to have a significant edge given the volatility of the market due to advancement in information systems, globalisation and many other factors. Having said these optimistic accounts, this report will also examine the reasons as to why it can be tedious to determine the influence of human resource strategy on business performance.
Human resource is the most valuable and unique asset of an organization. The successful management of an organization’s human resource is an exciting, dynamic and challenging task , especially at a time when the world has become a global village and economies are in a state of flux. The lack of talented resource and the growing expectation of the modern day employee has further increased the difficulty of the human resource function.
Whether an organization consists of five or 25,000 employees, human resources management is vital to the success of the organization. HR is important to all managers because it provides managers with the resources – the employees – necessary to produce the work for the managers and the organization. Beyond this role, HR is capable of becoming a strong strategic partner when it comes to “establishing the overall direction and objectives of key areas of human resource management in order to ensure that they not only are consistent with but also support the achievement of business goals.” (Massey, 1994, p. 27)
The human resource management stands for the management of an entity’s workforce and all that relates to the workforce. The significance of human resource management includes recruitment, orientation, and the ability to retain employees. The human resource management with other managers utilizes these practices in order to produce a solution that relates to challenges. A competitive advantage refers to the business ability to gain the advantages of its economic activities that, it recognizes the organization’s ability to survive and overcome competition in the marketplace. This paper will discuss the concept of competitive advantage in human resource.