Human Resources and Competitive Performance

The Human Resources department contributes to an organization’s competitive performance through: recruitment and selection, globalization and technology.

Recruitment and Selection

An organization's success depends on the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its employees, particularly as they help establish competencies which distinguishes one organization from its competitors and other organizations. When an organization has employees with talents that are valuable, rare, difficult to imitate an organization can achieve a continued competitive advantage. In order to "compete through people", an organization has to be able to do a good job of managing their human capital: the knowledge, skills, and capabilities that add value to the organizations (Mathis and Jackson, 2003). Human Resources and Managers must work together to develop strategies for identifying, recruiting, and hiring the best talent available. Through recruiting and selecting the best talent organizations are able to have higher productivity and compete and the highest levels. Human Resources can ensure that organizations have a competitive advantage by selecting the right employee for the right job.

Globalization

The second way human resources can create a competitive advantage for an organization is through globalization. The environment in which businesses compete is rapidly becoming globalized. More organizations are entering international markets by exporting their products overseas, building plants in other countries, and entering into alliances with foreign companies (Mathis & Jackson, 2003). Companies are trying to gain a competitive advantage, through international expansion. Deciding whether to enter foreign markets and whether to develop plants or other facilities in other countries is no simple matter and many human resource issues surface. (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright, 534). If human resources manages the issues that the organization is faced with when globalizing and provides the best services for the issues, it can increase the competitive performance among employees. Doing business globally requires adapting to many different cultures, and political systems, HR can provide diversity training, to cover the cultural issues and political affairs. If an organization has a reputation for being more diverse and understanding of various cultures and knowledge of various political systems they are competing at higher levels.

Technology

Technology is a leading factor in completive organizations, because it is so prominent today. Technology is the third way HR can create a competitive advantage for an organization. By creating a technology friendly HR where employees can access all information at any time in a timely manner.