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Consider the impact of HRM on organisational performance and the challenges
Human Resource Management Managing Employees for Competitive Advantage
Consider the impact of HRM on organisational performance and the challenges
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Workforce management (most commonly known as human resource management, or HRM) as defined by Price (2015) is a philosophy of people management based on the belief that human resources are uniquely important in sustained business success. An organization gains competitive advantage by using its people effectively, drawing on their expertise and ingenuity to meet clearly defined objectives. HRM is aimed at recruiting capable, flexible and committed people, managing and rewarding their performance and developing key competencies (p. 28).
Workforce management has its inceptions far back in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century around the time of the Industrial Revolution, when “time” and “motion” considers were led broadly over a
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SHRM explicitly linked people, management, policies and practices to the achievement of organisational outcomes and performance, most particularly financial and market outcomes” (p. 1). Since that time, HRM is progressively moving to SHRM. Nevertheless, Boxall and Macky (2007), reported that research has revealed that strategic human resource management has been most concerned with the impact of HR strategies on organizational performance. According to Anca-Ioana (2013), (as cited in Popescu, Marincas, and Puia, 2007), the essential objective of strategic human resource management is to develop strategic capability to guarantee that the organization has highly qualified, motivated employees to achieve competitive advantage. Reported by Deb (2006), reasons organizations are moving towards SHRM are the problems with traditional human resource management as enlisted below:
(a) Characteristics of traditional Human Resources Management – primarily staff consultative function.
(b) Human Resource Dilemma – the non-involvement of the human resource function in the business planning process of the organization.
(c) Difficulties in gaining competitive advantage through effective alignment, integration and utilization of human resources.
(d) Pressure from
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).
Before exploring the various answers to the question, I will start by briefly describing the role and purpose of HRM (Human Resources Management) within a firm. HRM is primarily concerned with the human side of management and sees the management team and subordinates as having the same goals. It combines elements of; work psychology, personnel management, employment law, business organisation, training and industrial relations. The HRM team are therefore involved in every aspect of an employees period of employment within the organisation.
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.
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.
Jules and Holzer (2001) noted that Strategic Human Resource Management enhances employee productivity and the ability of government agencies to achieve their mission. One can conclude that it is the same for learning institutions as SHRM focuses on the issues and goals of the organisation and strive to implement plans collectively to achieve those goals. In contrast to traditional Human resource management, SHRM focuses on improving the effectiveness of the entire learning community and helps to improve the organisations by creating and implementing plans that will continuously raise the competencies and capabilities of the members of an organization for the overall achievement of the organization (Ulrich 1997).
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.
According to this definition, we can see that human resource management should not merely handle recruitment, pay, and discharging, but also should maximize the use of an organization's human resources in a more strategic level. To describe what the HRM does in the organization, Ulrich, D. & Brocklebank, W. (2005) have outlined some of the HRM roles such as employee advocate, human capital developer, functional expert, strategic partner and HR leader etc.
Human resource management (HRM) encompasses the activities of acquiring, maintaining, and developing the organization's employees (human resources). "The traditional view of these activities focuses on planning for staffing needs, recruiting and selecting of employees, orienting and training staff, appraising their performance, providing compensations and benefits, and making their career movement and development." HRM involves two aspects:...
However you define the activities of management, and whatever the organisational processes are, an essential part of the process of management is that proper attention be given to the Human Resource function. The human element provides a major part in the overall success of the organisation. Therefore there must be an effective human resource function. In the past, most organisations viewed Human Resource Management (HRM) as an element function, that is an activity that is supportive of the task functions and does not normally have any accountability for the performance of a specific end task. Because of the emphasis on analysis and precision there is a tendency for strategists to concentrate on economic data and ignore the way in which human elements and values can influence the implementation of a strategy. 'Economic analysis of strategy fails to recognise the complex role which people play in the evolution of strategy - strategy is also a product of what people want an organisation to do or what they feel the organisation should be like.?(1).
The Importance of the Human Resource Function Human resources are the backbone of any business. It deals with the most important resource in the business – people. For any business to achieve its objectives they must plan their resources and one of their key resource is people. They need to get the right people and develop. them well in order to meet the organisation’s aims successfully.
In the fields of management and business, Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) has been a powerful and influential tool in order to motivate employees to perform productively. (Ejim, Esther, 2013). According to Armstrong (2011), SHRM refers to the way that the company use to approach their strategic goals through people with a combination of human resource policy and practices. The purpose of SHRM is to produce strategic capability that the organisation must ensure such that employees are skilled, committed, and well-motivated in order to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage, (Armstrong, 2011). Particularly, the organisation must be able to carefully plan strategic human resource ideas, aimed to increase the productivity.
Human resource management (HRM) can be described as a function within a firm that is concern with recruitment, management and provision of direction for individuals working in the firm. HRM is an organizational activity that is concern with issues related to employees such as hiring, compensation, wellness, safety, employee motivation, benefits, administration, communication, and training (Heathfield). HRM is also a comprehensive and strategic approach used in the management of people as well as workplace environment and culture. When HRM is effective, employees are able effectively contribute and be productive to the entire direction of the organization and the accomplishment of objectives and goal of the organization. Currently, HRM has moved from the traditional personnel transactional roles, and administration that are increasingly outsourced. An organization expects HRM to add value to the strategic and effective utilization of workers and that personnel programs impacts the firm in ways that can be measured.
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.
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)
Human resources has been defined as the personnel of a business or an organization, considered an asset in terms of the skills, competencies and abilities they are equipped with. This is regarded as one of the most important elements in the successful performance of business ventures due to the fact that they play a major role in the implementation of business planning, setting future goals and working on daily business operations. According to Ruth (2016), human resources help in the control of the budget, the improvement of the performance and in the sustainability of the business. From all this information, it is clear that it is important to have effective, professional and perfectly-performing human resources. In the business context, human resources are perceived in different ways depending