More handpicked essays just for you.
Strategic human resource theory
Strategic human resource theory
Chapter1 Strategic Human Resources Management
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Strategic human resource theory
Introduction
In the past Human Resource (HR) professionals built staffing, compensation, training, and other programs and policies that focused on employees and kept companies legally compliant. The HR function tended to be positioned at the end of the business chain and often focused on carrying out activities rather than achieving results (Dunn, 2006). But in the last decade, HR professionals have worked to become business partners by aligning their work with business strategies. This is important because being strategic means having an impact on corporate goals and objectives. As a result, HR professionals have been spending more time with general managers and with their counterparts in sales, marketing, and manufacturing to ensure that HR work adds value to the organization and helps deliver business results.
One of the most effective ways for HR to position itself as a strategic business part¬ner is to do so by supporting the strategic business goals through key performance indicators. Key performance indica¬tors (KPIs) mea¬sure human capital outcomes, such as talent management, employee engagement and high performance, illustrates the firm's business, financial and strategic goals, promotes partnership with senior manage¬ment for organizational success and demonstrates HR value to the organization.
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
With the correct metrics in place information can be gathered and reported on in order to form knowledge. Data is raw numbers, information is data with context, and knowledge is the information with understanding, which leads to decisions (Hunter Whitney, 2007). Basing decisions on every metric is a waste of resources and time. As a result, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) distill the vast amount of data into information that is pertinent to the decision making. Some KPIs could be the items per hour, visitors per day, customer retention rate, conversion rate, etc. However, not all companies need to know all of the indicators, that is why KPIs are based on the business model and needs of the company.
At what point do we say enough? Most of us can agree, these days the cost to attend some four-year universities can be extremely overwhelming. What exactly are students paying for anyways? There are many higher education videos and articles available to date in any college library, which ask this exact same question. I believe that if the powers that be cared more about the benefits and quality of higher education than they did about lining their own pockets, the cost of going to college would be considerably more affordable.
Freeman Hrabowski wrote an article, “Colleges Prepare People for life,” which appeared in the Baltimore Sun. Hrabowski gives numerous examples of how college graduates are more likely to get a job and to make a higher salary than those with just a high school diploma. He talks about how college is something that is great to experience not only for the education that the student acquires for their future job but also the knowledge that they learn will help with the impact they have on the people around them. Hrabowski captures the reader’s attention by evoking reasons why college ought not to be seen as a waste of time
These are the skills and competencies I have learned through my studies at Walden University. Kaslow, Grus, Campbell, & Fouad, et al. (2009) stated professionalism comes from my respect for those who need help. Integrity can be built with confidence in the therapist. Attitudes are charitable, polite, caring emotions toward others that fuel my motivation toward helping. This concern welfare of others comes from my religious and personal experiences as a child and young adult.
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.
HRM in any company is a weighty issue that needs much attention where business performance is linked to a HR strategy (Caldwell 2008; Ulrich et al. 2008). In the recent past, competition has become stiff, such that organizations need to come up with other means to compete in the extremely dynamic market world. Thus, companies have shifted their emphasis to Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) where they enhance and empower their personnel in order to increase the productivity and the services offered into the market (Mello 2006). This goes against the traditional ways of increasing the means of competition where organizations place emphasis on tangible resources. In the past, organizations competed in terms of machinery and acquisitions. This has changed greatly due to the changing customer tastes and the diversity of the market in the present (Delery & Doty 1996; Lengnick-Hall et al. 2009).
“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
One of the most important resources of any organization is its employees, the human resource. This makes it very important that these resources are properly managed; so that they thrive and grow along with the organization. People stream defines performance management as “A process for establishing a shared workforce understanding about what is to be achieved at an organizational level. It is about aligning the organizational objectives with the employees’ agreed skills, competency requirements, development plans and the delivery of results. The emphasis is on improvement, learning and development in order to achieve the overall business strategy and to create a high performance work force”. The performance management process involves various stages such as goal setting, skills development, performance measuring against the set goals, mentoring/coaching to enable employees to focus and achieve their goals followed by assessment of performance and any further development plans as required. Let us look at these steps one by one.
Iveta, G. (Mar. 2012). Human Resources Key Performance Indicators. Journal of Competitiveness. Vol. 4, Issue 1. Retrieved from http://www.cjournal.cz/files/89.pdf
Organizational success or failure is dependent on a myriad of variables that can be challenging to measure and interpret. Success or failure can simply be luck and timing or an orchestrated and deliberate effort. As new technologies allow organizations the ability to rapidly measure and assess its internal and external environmental factors, more efficient strategies can be quickly implemented. The focus of this literature review is specifically on one of these mentioned variables. The paper will detail the relationship that Human Resources (HR) practices have with an organization’s strategic goals and vision.
These benefits are best discovered and maximized if used in conjunction with KPIs. A KPI is a key performance indicator and they allow a company to measure and manage ...
Organisations worldwide are experiencing new challenges due to the increasing of globalization, business complexity and uncertainty in the economic climate. As the business environment becomes more knowledge based, we now see organisations in a different light. They are now knowledge driven institutes that focus on performance and continuous improvement, placing greater significance on human resources, their knowledge and capabilities. Singh (2013). Greater emphasis is now placed on performance management systems as it is seen an important and critical HR activity. However performance management is not a simple and uniform process it is a complex and lengthy process that requires total commitment from all levels of the organisation.