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TUI University MGT511 ??? Advance Topics in Human Resource Management Module 1 Case Study Module 1 Case: “Strategic Human Resource Management” Introduction Human resource management (HRM) has it own challenges, but management is more focus on what HR can offer their organization in the future. Looking back to the evolution of human resource field, it has followed the history of business in the United States and most western countries. HR has evolved from personal management to human resource management and from HRM to the modern term of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM).
The purpose of this case study is to reflect light on the characteristic of strategic human resource in business operation that makes them successful, and how SHRM can help achieve organization objectives by combining the old way of doing business with the new HR program. In order for HRM to play a strategic role in the organization, first, it has to partner up with the organization. Second, it has to re-focus its effort, and re-align its program to model that of its organization goals and objectives. Important of Human Resources:
Human resource management is as important to any organization as capital is necessary for any business venture. The transformation of HR functions to strategic human resource have pickup few more responsibilities apart from the usual basic recruitment and training of personnel, to include extensive human relation, elaborate reward system, dealing with federal laws, rules and regulation that affect the organization, technology competition, cost-benefit analysis or ROI, workers compensation, pension plan and retaining organization skilled talents able to adapt to the changing competitive environment.
The success of an organization is now focus on the action and program develop by their SHRM, as the environment changes and more and more organizations are entering the globalization era, there will be more competitions, and only those organizations with substantial competitive advantages can succeed. It is critical for SHRM to know the internal and external environmental factors that are affecting their organization progress.
Knowing what need to change and how to change it to better the organization will not only help the HRM to develop a better strategically program tailored only for their organization, but will eliminate any contradiction with the organization strategic goals, and improve their adaptability to the changing environment. Today’s SHRM now know everything that is needed to be known about their organization to include the structure, strategic goals, political laws, rules and regulation, economic condition, technology, culture, and critical skill needed for successful production. Human Capital Planning and Talent Management:
The most important job of any HRM is to know how to recruit and retain their organization talent. Retaining of qualified skilled workers maximizes the utilization of human being as valuable resources available to the organization. The problem of retaining usually starts internally, many HR failed to pay attention to their organization goals, and because they did not incorporate the company overall goals and objective to their HR program, they end up hiring someone without enough skills that can adapt to the changes within the organization. In addition, prior HRM often bases their recruitment and training on cost.
They worry about the financial cost of hiring and training new employees, but forget to consider the benefit of the skill they are hiring for. As a solution, they consider the cheaper route of recruitment and training and end up with employees that have nothing beneficial to offer their organization. The idea of human capital is nothing new, the different between the old and new approach of doing things is that the strategic approach is design to first consider the cost-benefit analysis and the overall return on investment of any employment process and training program.
The new approach is geared toward recruiting people that understand and have the same goals as their organization. People that have competitive advantage base on the skills they offer, people that can be retain for longer period and move up the organization chain, people that can overall improve the organization production. Human Resources and Organization Development Partnership: Organization development (OD) is a critical field for every organization and because today’s organization operates in a rapidly changing environment so are the responsibilities of the OD.
The field of OD is focused on improving the people and effectiveness of the organization. They suggest changes that need to be made, and then guide the organization on how to implement the changes. According to several definitions of organization development, it shows that they focus on the strategic planning, leadership development, organization design, change management, coaching, diversity, performance management and work balance. Organization development is considered a superior field to the HR, but the recent revolution has combined many of the function of an OD to the SHRM.
Without regard to the similar in functions hold by OD and SHRM, the Organization development has several advantages over the human resource management. OD deals with the overall effectiveness of the organization, whereby HR only handles human relation aspect of the organization. According to Bear and Walton, they believe partnership of human resource and Organization development can help increase an organization competitive advantage by creating opportunity to attract skilled employees that can be retain by the organization through the use of motivation.
The continuous challenges being face by both OD and HR shows clearly that neither of the field can survive on their own in today’s changing business environment. Furthermore, they both need new ideas and the introduction of specialized skilled professionals in the field of Information Technology and mostly Economics especially as organization continue to move toward collective system and combined financial resources to manage their human capital.
Organization development effort has showed that they are able to work with large numbers of Human resources successfully. Likewise human resource management needs the strategic knowledge and experience of an OD to be able to strategically impact their organization. Conclusion: Human resource management is crucial and irreplaceable, and very important to an organization success, but as the business environment changes, HR need to change their focus to provide the competitive advantage that their organization need.
Corporate strategies must be formulated using the top-down approach, and implemented at every level of the organization chain. SHRM need to start by using technology to improve their competition through e-learning, e-recruiting and outsourcing to mention a few. This implementation will help human resource reduce overhead cost, increase production and reduce performance loss. Reference Module 1: Strategic Human Resource Management. CD-ROM.
MGT 511 Advance Topics in Human Resource Management. TUI University. Summer 2009. Dunn, J. , “Strategic Human Resources and Strategic Organization Development: An Alliance for the Future” Organization Development Journal. Vol. 24, pp. 4, Winter 2006. Beer, M. , Walton, A. (1987). “Organization Change and Development”. Annual Review of Psychology, 38, 339-367. Neilsen, “Becoming an OD Practitioner”, Englewood Cliffs, CA: Prentice-Hall, 1984, pp. 2-3.