This study will compare Line and HR Executives’ evaluations of the effectiveness of the HR function in terms of its service delivery, roles, and contributions to the firm in SMEs Australia.
Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have been identified as one of the growth engines for many countries around the world. Studies found that SMEs make up over 90 per cent of economy of these countries, for instance, United States, 99.7 per cent (Heneman, Tansky, & Camp, 2000), China, 99 per cent (Cunningham & Rowley, 2008), Europe, 99 per cent (Rauch & Frese, 2000), Philippines, 95 per cent and Taiwan, 96.5 per cent (Lin, 1998) as well as Australia, 99.2 per cent (Australia Small Business, 2012). In Australia, SMEs account for 70% of employment opportunity as of June 2011 and this number is growing (Australia Small Business, 2012). The figures above show that SMEs play a vital role in contributing to the economy as well as employment opportunity.
In order to maintain its competitive advantage, Australia SMEs have increasingly recognized and emphasized HRM’s importance in meeting their business objectives. Studies found that the HR effectiveness in its roles, services and contribution in business lead to the increased effectiveness of the organisation (Huselid, 1995, Becker, Huselid, Pickus, & Spratt 1997, Teo, 2002). With the change of the expectation of HR's roles in an organisation, there is obvious evolution of HR's roles in Australia can be witnessed from previously administrative focused to more business strategic oriented (Teo, 1998). Moreover, HR is shifting from employee advocacy focused to more strategic business management (Brown et al., 2000). Cascio (1998) identified various phases in the recent transformation of the HR fu...
... middle of paper ...
...e performed.
2. This department is very responsive to meeting customer (front line managers and employees) needs.
3. This department provides me with useful and timely information regarding HR issues.
4. This department has helped to enhance the firm’s competitive position.
5. This department provides value-added contributions to the firm’s bottom line.
6. This department contributes to building and/or maintaining the firm’s core competence.
7. This department contributes to building the firm’s human capital (employees/managers) as a source of competitive advantage.
8. The policies, practices, and procedures coming from the HR department help front-line business partners in their jobs.
9. The HR department has developed a well-coordinated set of policies, practices, and procedures.
10. The HR policies, practices, and procedures help support the firm’s business plan.
In closing it is important to note that making HR a strategic partner, having the ability to attain a competitive advantage through HR, creating an effective performance management policy and having the ability to effectively measure HR’s impact will be a key driver to success
Managers should prepare carefully for negotiations; they should not just react to union proposals (Maytree Foundation Website). Managers should assess how much change they can make in one round of negotiations and should also work carefully on the language of your proposals (Maytree Foundation Website). Managers should use several techniques to prepare for bargaining during the negotiation meeting (Dessler, pg. 579).
Human Resource Management (HRM) is the administration and control of employees. Its purpose is to ensure that the workers and the employer cultivate a valuable relationship. As a result, the company will record an exceptional performance particularly with regard to employee productivity (Paauwe, 2004). Further, the workers will benefit in terms of job satisfaction and self-development (Paauwe, 2004). Some of the activities involved in managing workers include selection and recruitment, training, development, motivation, and appraisal (Sharma, 2009). This paper aims to analyse the role of human resource management in organisations and its linkage to the wider organizational strategy using Tesco and Harrods as illustrations.
This paper will highlight the history of the company, followed by HR policies & practices that stand out and implications of HR policies when comparing to other companies. The paper will also explain why the HR policies and practices chosen are important.
The Human Resources department is dedicated to hire and build an excellent team with a great teamwork and leadership. As one of the most important strategies of the business is the innovation of their products, it is needed people who can add value to the company through its diversity, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit, in a competitive and fun environment.
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 function of Human Resources in corporations usually includes the use of metrics and analytics through collection of data on the employees’ efficiency. HR metrics are used to quantify the cost and the impact of employee programs and HR processes and measure the success or failure of HR initiatives (Missildine, 2013). The company is able to track trends and changes with the data collected as it provides for measurement function that helps with HR planning. HR metrics measure the value of the time and money spent on HR activities in the company and together with HR metrics is the HR analytics which is the process of combining data mining with business analytics techniques to analyze human resources data (Missildine, 2013) and provide an organization with considerations for the effective management of employees and quickly and efficiently reach organizational goals. The main issue lies on whether the managers know what to measure and how measurement must be conducted.
Changing Roles. Traditionally, HR has been an administrative position-processing paperwork, benefits, hiring and firing, and compensation. However, recently HRM has moved from a traditional to a strategic role, the emphasis is on catering to the needs of consumers and workers. Before, HR was seen as the enemy and employees believed that HR’s main purpose was to protect management. Now, the position requires HRM to be more people oriented and protect their human capitol, the staff. In addition, human resource management has to be business savvy and think of themselves as strategic partners in the 21st century.
“Hr is shifting from focusing on the organisation of the business to focusing on the business of the organisation” (Zulmohd 2011). David Ulrich points out four distinctive roles of HR which makes the organisation most effective and produce competitive advantage. He planned to change the structure of HR function and build HR around roles. The four key HR roles identified by Ulrich, one HR business partner/strategic partner – aligning HR and business strategy which plays an important role in setting strategic direction. It builds strategic relationship with clients and strategically manages the development of the workforce. The second key role is administrative expert which creates and must deliver effective HR processes made to tailor business needs. It also involves managing people and HR related costs. To continue to the third key role, change agent which understands the organisations culture, and takes the responsibility to communicate those changes internally and gain its employees trust. The final key role identified by Ulrich is employee advocate which is a core in HR role represents employees and helps to improve their experience, protect employees’ interests and confirm strategic initiatives are well balanced. Employee advocates must also “ensure fair, ethical and equitable people processes and practices.” “David Ulrich’s HR Model is about defining the HR roles and
The third stage in HRM development which began in the late 1970?s and early 1980?s was the realisation that effective HRM could give an organisation competitive advantage. Within this stage HRM is viewed as important for both strategy formulation and implementation. For example 3M?s noted scientists enable the company to pursue a differentiation strategy based on innovative products. At the competitive stage, then, human resources are considered explicitly in conjunction with
Operating on the international scale is the dream of every business enterprise. With the rapidity with which globalisation is taking over the product and service industries, coupled with the installed and efficient communication systems; conducting business on the international fronts has increasingly grown simple and manageable (Weiss, 2008). This dream is not only manageable by major companies, but also by the existing Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have come out to shine and even outcompete the too big to fail giants in the markets (Hundeker 2010). Australia has had to harbor a prestigious history line when it comes to leveraging SMEs to becoming world leaders in various production lines. With this in mind, every firm that seeks to establish its prominence on the international stage enjoys a good will created by the country. It is in lieu of this reality that a privately- owned SME Popina Pty Ltd; which specialises in the production of Muesli cereals and snack bars seeks to expand its market in the Indian market (Shaffer, 2011). The Indian market has in the recent decades attracted the attention and interest of the global business community due to its favorable foreign investment policy.
Growth in the small and medium business in Canada and other developed countries has been very significant. This sector of the business community now represents about 40 percent of GDP and accounts more than half of total employment. Today small businesses are more diverse and more vigorous than ever, but they also faces newer and more challenges or inhibitors to their growth than their older conter parts. This research will attempt to find the answer to the following hypothetical question:
Introduction A comprehensive Human Resource Management Strategy plays a vital role in the achievement of an organisation’s overall strategic objectives and visibly illustrates that the human resources function fully understands and supports the direction in which the organisation is moving. A comprehensive HRM Strategy will also support other specific strategic objectives undertaken by the marketing, financial, operational and technology departments. In essence, an HRM strategy’s aim should be to capture the ‘people’ part of an organisation and its medium to long-term projection of what it wants to achieve, ensuring that. It employs the right people, those have the right mix of skills, employees show the correct behaviours and attitudes, and employees have the opportunity to be developed the right way.
As an organisation grows and expands, the human resource department. will know that the organisation needs to recruit more staff and they plan carefully and carefully. Recruiting staff in an organisation is very expensive. and costly, so the human resource function helps the organisation to.
Small businesses have a clear relationship with the economy in general, and if we take an example like the U.S. where over 86% of businesses ...