Time has changed the way organisations operate. Contemporary organisations not only need to compete for reputation and tangible organisational resources, but also participate in the ‘war for talent’ (Bartlett & Ghoshal 2002). Bartlett and Ghoshal (2002) described the ‘war for talent’ as competing for talented and skilled workers by attracting them to work for the organisation as well as retaining their loyalty. Hence, this paper will focus upon three strategies of Human Resource Management (HRM), that is, attraction, motivation, and retention. It is important to address these because many of the Human Resource (HR) activities build upon these strategies to gain competitive advantage (Jensen 2005).
Organisations can win the ‘war for talent’ and hence increase their competitive advantage by creating and maintaining loyalty within organisations, albeit sometimes requiring considerable investment, effort and commitment to overcome obstacles. This discussion will also form the basis of illustrating that HRM performs more than administrative duties and plays a vital role in determining an organisation’s success. Examples of organisations’ successes in attracting, motivating, and retaining employees will be illustrated throughout the discussion. This essay concludes with an analysis of the skills HR managers need to become a strategic partner in the organisation.
Competitive advantage refers to an organisation maximising its strengths as a method to compete in the marketplace (Bartlett & Ghoshal 2002). This consists of cost leadership as well as differentiation in products and services (Global Reporting Initiative 2002). In addition, an organisation achieves competitive advantage by winning the ‘war for talent’, which is the ultimat...
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...anagement in Australia: Strategy, people, performance 3rd., Sydney, Australia: McGraw-Hill.
Dowling, P.J., Festing, M. & Allen D. Engle, S., 2008. International human resource management: Managing people in a multinational context 5th., Boston: Cengage Learning.
Global Reporting Initiative, 2002. Sustainability reporting guidelines. Environment. Available at: www.globalreporting.org.
Holland, P., Sheehan, C. & De Cieri, H., 2007. Attracting and retaining talent: Exploring human resources development trends in Australia. Human Resource Development International, 10(3) pp. 247-262.
Jeffries, F.L. & Hunte, T.L., 2004. Generations and motivation: A connection worth making. Journal of Behavioural and Applied Management, 6(1) pp. 37-70.
Jensen, E., 2005. HR’ s role in helping companies achieve high performance. Employment Relations Today, 32(2) pp. 39-52.
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.
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2007). Managing Human Resources (5th
While there are many various global issues that affect the International Human Resource Management to run efficiently, there are two key concepts that play a major role in understanding how to approach them with cohesive and a well coherent strategy; they are the International Human Recourse Management Strategy and Understanding the Cultural Environment. In the International Resource Management strategy, many companies will do their research in finding companies that offer the following:
Gaining and retaining the best possible employees is something every company wants to do. The best way to accomplish this is by implementing talent management into the fabric of human resources. It may take a high level of commitment and planning, but the rewards can be astounding. From specific training, to motivation, optimizing each aspect of talent management allows for businesses and groups to reach their goals. “It is difficult to identify the precise meaning of talent management because of the confusion regarding definitions and terms and many assumptions made by authors who write about talent management” (http://www.irproje.com/media/userfiles/610013.pdf).
Noe, Raymond A., et al. Human Resource Management: Gaining a Competitive Advantage. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin, 2010. Print.
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.
In today's global business environment, managing diversity in human resources has become a very important and crucial issue. Human resources management has a lot to deal with managing workers/employees from different countries and nationalities. Managing multinational human resources becomes an issue not only in the multinational corporations, having their offices or plants in different countries, but also in the domestic companies, with domestic workforce becoming more and more diverse each day. Creating an HR that has the ability to recruit and select the right people and the ability to effectively socialize and train employees will allow multinational companies to excel in all business aspects.
Willy McCourt & Derek Elridge (2003), Global Human Resource Management, pp 311 - 315. Edward Elgar publishing.
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Employee retention is a practice in which the employees are convinced to stay in the organization for the most period of time or until the accomplishment of the plan. There is no scarcity of opportunities for a capable person. There are countless organizations, which are looking for such employees. If individuals are not satisfied by the job they are doing, they might switch over to some other more appropriate job. In today’s upbringing it turns out to be very imperative for organizations to retain their employees (Dibble, 2000). Employee retention is supportive for the organization with that of the employee. Employees today are diverse. They are not the ones who don’t have first-rate opportunities in hand. As soon as they dissatisfy with the current organization or the job, they switch over to the next job. It is the duty of the organization to keep their paramount employees (Phillips and Connell, 2003). Employee retention concerns taking measures to convince employees to remain with the organization for the most period of time. Today employees’ retention has become the major issue for organizations. Hiring knowledgeable workers for the job is essential for an organization. However retention is even more crucial than hiring (Inkson, 2007).
...M. E. (2008). Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Challenges Human Resource Professionals face in meeting the needs of the contemporary Workforce “In the War for Talent”.
...an approach of partnership is critical for organizations that want to gain competitive advantages. Butler, Ferris & Napier (1991) state this as, “the more management believes that HRM contributes to corporate success, the more its role will be integrated into the firm’s strategic planning process.” (as cited by Rose & Kumar, 2006, pg. 3). Additionally, organizations that apply energy and resources to HRD benefit from an increase in human capital. López-Cabrales, Real & Valle (2011) state the benefits of building human capital as, “If the company adopts appropriate procedures of personnel management, human capital can be orientated to the achievement of sustainable competitive advantages” (pg. 5).
If Companies fail in hiring talent workforce for the company, it may lead to horrible consequences because other companies may exceed them in the strategic human resource management. For human resource managers, the major is to retain and develop employees strategically. Nowadays, many researchers have realized that it is more useful to focus on staff retention factors rather than working on the reason why they leave.
In the 1980’s, the birth of a new concept called ‘Human Resource Management’ was born. This trend comes after an intense period of Taylorisation, Fordism and now, McDonaldisation. HRM came to counter balance these trends and to consider the concept of the Man as a Man and not as a machine. For the last several decades, the interests of companies in "strategic management" have increased in a noteworthy way. This interest in strategic management has resulted in various organizational functions becoming more concerned with their role in the strategic management process. The Human Resource Management (HRM) field has sought to become integrated into the strategic management process through the development of a new discipline referred to as Strategic Resource Management (SHRM). In current literature, the difference between SHRM and HRM is often unclear because of the interconnections linking SHRM to HRM. However, the concepts are slightly different. Thus, we can ask, what is strategic human resource management? What are the main theories and how do they work? What do they take into account and how are they integrated? What are the links between SHRM and organization strategy? In order to answer to these questions, we will precisely define strategic human resource management, followed by a look at the different approaches built by theorists, and finally, we will see the limits between the models and their applications depending on the company’s environment. Discussion Strategic Human Resource Management: definition Strategic human resource management involves the military word ‘strategy’ which is defined by Child in 1972 as "a set of fundamental or critical choices about the ends and means of a business". To be simpler, a strategy is "a statement of what the organization wants to become, where it wants to go and, broadly, how it means to get there." Strategy involves three major key factors: competitive advantages (Porter, 1985; Barney, 1991), distinctive capabilities (Kay, 1999) and the strategic fit (Hofer & Schendel 1986). Strategies must be developed with a relevant purpose to sustain the organizational goals and aims. SHRM is one of the components of the organizational strategies used to sustain the business long-term. SHRM defined as: “all those activities affecting the behaviour of individuals in their efforts to formulate and implement the strategic needs of the business. (Schuler, 1992)” or as “the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable the firm to achieve its goals.