Strategic Human Resources Management and Leadership - Assignment Example

Human Resource Management and Leadership Name Class Unit Strategic Human Resources Management and Leadership 1. How does strategic Human Resource (HR) Management differ from operational Human Resource Management? The main difference between strategic and operational HR professionals is based on their roles. Operational human resource oversees the day to day operations, which are vital in ensuring that employees’ needs are met. Operational HR is also involved in overseeing the payroll and also maintaining the HR information system. They also ensure that employment laws are followed and are consistent. For example, at IBM, operational HR management is seen when the firm maintains and manage its HRIS. IBM has a paperless online employee enrollment. The system requires maintenance which is done by operational HRM. Strategic HR management is based on ensuring that they predict the company outcomes and making sure that there is adequate manpower to help the organisation to achieve its goals. Strategic HR ensures that they come up with ways of contributing to the company long term goals. The main aim of strategic HR is making sure that productivity of the workforce is improved to enable return on investment (Mello, 2006). An example of strategic HRM is practiced at McDonalds. This is through their staffing, reward system, employee development and maintenance and employee relation (Harris, 2009). 2. What are the core strategic HR activities? Core strategic HR activities include: evaluating the state of economy, determining the expertise of the workforce in relation to the current economy, carrying out employees evaluation, coming up with restructuring options, looking for ideas which can lead to achievement of business objectives, perfoamcne and retention, adjusting the performance metrics, supervising training, designing the employee motivation systems. For example, carrying out of performance evaluation exercise in an organisation is a strategic HR activity (Schuler & Jackson, 2007). Another core strategic HR activity is enhancing innovation. This was evidenced at Apple Inc.under the leadership of Steve Jobs. The HR at the company engaged the workforce in creativity through creating an environment which supported it. This was a strategic move as it enabled the company to stay ahead of competitors (Israelite, 2010). 3. What is the relationship between corporate strategy and HR strategy? Corporate strategy is linked to the HR strategy in modern organizations. Business has become knowledge based and human resource has gained a lot of importance. HR has become a center stage in business are used to create value when linked with the corporate strategy. For the firms which have strong HR strategies, the major challenges they face, which includes mergers and acquisitions are based on corporate strategy dimension. The HR have to work together with the corporate strategies to ensure processes such as integration based on acquisition enables the company to grow. Corporate strategies and HR strategies are related due to fact that they work together in enhancing business perfoamcne. This is seen in organizations such as IBM (Boxall & Purcell, 2003). An example of a company that was able to link corporate strategy with HR strategy is Lincoln Electric Company. The company uses cost leadership and uses incentives to enhance competition and teamwork among employees. The company distributes a portion of its profits to employees annually based on their output, cooperation, quality and contribution. This innovative HR strategy has enabled Lincoln to gain a large market share. Another company that has succeeded through linking HR strategies with corporate strategies is Cisco. The company has grown through acquisition (Krishnan, 2005). 4. What are the different strategic HR management? Strategic HR management focuses on human capital. The strategies are designed by the HR and line. Strategic HR management links people with organisation. It leads to the integration of the HRM strategies with the corporate strategies. This enables to achieve a competitive advantage through coming up with a unique HRM. The two main aspects of strategic HRM are integration and devolvement. Integration is based on integrating HRM into the business and corporate strategy while devolvement includes devolving HRM to be line managers. There are five strategic HRM activities are; philosophies, policies, programs, practices and processes (Schuler & Jackson, 2007). An example of a business utilizing different strategic HR management is IBM. The company uses both devolvement and integration (APQC, 2005). 5. What are the latest trends in Strategic HR management? There have been a rise of workplace diversity. Diversity in the current workplace includes age, ethnicity, gender, nationality among others. Future success depends on the ability to manage diversity. For example, multinational organizations such as Toyota who have employees from different nationality and ethnicity. Human resource has increasingly become one of the major determinant of competitiveness and productivity, organizations are increasingly becoming more customer focused and agile. The role of HRM has become more important. There has been an increase in emphasis on talent management in organisation in a strategic way (Hill, 2014). IBM uses global talent management to gain a competitive edge. This is a current trend, based on the economic trends of the 21st century. The company started the program in 2003 with an aim of ensuring that there is future workforce. The company saw the need to change their HR management on talent with an aim of embracing current trends based on globalization (Hill & Jones, 2010). 6. What are the HR professionals’ key competences? The core competencies for HR competences are: leadership and personal credibility, organizational capability, problem solving and implementation, interpersonal and communication skills, future citizenship, strategic, talent management, HR governances, analytics and measurements and service delivery. These core competencies enable the HR to have strategic capabilities. The field of HR has been fast evolving leading to new competencies. The recent identified competencies include being a credible activist, a cultural steward, strategy architect business ally, operational executor and practical. The competencies act as standards for all HR professionals (Dubois, 2004). For example, McDonald’s success has been partially contributed due to their HR core competencies. HR professionals are taught on how to train and motivate employees. The company ensures that their HR professionals have all key competencies (Harris, 2009). 7. Why is it important to make regular Human Resource audits? Regular HR audits are very vital as they help in identifying areas of HR success as well as deficiencies. The results from the audit are an important tool for coming up with improvements in departments as well as the workforce. Through auditing the HR, it becomes easier to make improvements to services given to the employees. For the small business, HR audits are a very vital tool as they ensure the business is on track and also helps in determining the human resource needs. HR audit is also a very important practice to ensure the business is adhering to employment and labor laws. This eliminates the risk of unfair employment practices. HR audit helps in determining company performance and competitiveness. Through an audit the business is able to determine whether their compensation is competitive based on labor market (Keller, 2010). An example of how lack of HR audit can lead to disastrous results is the case of Toyota. Weak HR has been attributed to being the major root cause of Toyota crashes that led to recalls and loss of life. The company lost an estimate of $155 million weekly through recalls. The main blame is poor HR processes such as training processes, hiring and performance management system use. If HR audit had been performed at Toyota, they could have identified the problem and rectified thus avoiding the disaster (Bapuji, 2012). Fig. 1. 8. What are the elements of a job profile? A good job profile provides the employees with vital information that enables them to fit into a new environment and clearly outlines what is expected of them. A good job description should have all major functions and grouping under which duties fall. The frequency of the stated duties should be given. The job should have the requirements for the position which includes skills, knowledge and abilities. These should be directly tied to the duties carried out on the job. The job description should be able to list if there is any physical or special demand. The job profile should provide a job summary statement. Scope and limitations of the authority should be well listed in the job profile. There should be a well clarified relationship which gives the reporting structure (Pollitt, 2007). Fig. 2. Sample job description 9. What options a company has for finding candidates for recruiting? There are different sources for candidates for recruitment in a company. The sources range from referral from friends, colleges and employees, drop-ins, newspaper advertisement and labor internet. At the moment, it is possible to carry out school/campus recruiting. Internal job postings involve hiring from within the firm. All qualified employees are considered for the position. There is also a human resource consultancy organisation which provides the job advertising services for the firms. Professional/trade association also provides firms with an avenue where they can post advertisements. This involves sites such as LinkedIn. Currently, the options for finding the right candidate for a job have expanded with technology. Companies have a wide range of avenues to advertise for the job. The chart below shows various external options available (Pollitt, 2007). Fig.3. External hire sources (Pollitt, 2007). 10. Why does organizational culture matter? Organizational culture is an important tool in ensuring there is sustained performance and the business has a competitive edge. Through organisation culture, it becomes possible to unite employees from different backgrounds. Thus, culture gives the employees a sense of unity and promotes understanding among the employees. Through organisation culture, it becomes possible for the employees to be motivated and loyal to the company. Organisation culture promotes healthy competition and gives the employees a sense of direction. An organisation culture acts as an identity for the business. It acts as the way of doing business in an organisation (Schein, 2004). Through this, it becomes possible to promote a brand image for the organisation. For example, HP has its own unique organisation culture. The company which is an American multinational software and hardware corporate has a corporate culture known as “the Hp way”. The culture was coined by the founders. The culture determines how things are done at HP. Employee is treated as family members and the organisation rarely fires employees. The culture also allows profit sharing which acts as additional premiums. The company culture is its key driver and is seen as a model by many organizations. The culture stands for innovation, teamwork, profit sharing and stock options (Packard, Kirby & Lewis, 1995). 11. What are the elements of organizational culture? Organisation culture elements are artifacts, beliefs, values, assumptions, physical structures, rituals and ceremonies, stories and legends and language. The first level is behavior artifacts level. This is the most visible level and is made up of behavior patterns. This is observed through layout of work environment, mode of dressing, attitudes, behaviors and technology in place. The second level is made up of behavior and artifacts. Beliefs are made up what one perceives of reality while values are beliefs of what is important for the organisation. Through values, the organization is able to determine what is right or wrong (Schein, 2004). This is explained through the rich organisation culture at McDonalds. The company has its own dressing code, attitudes and technology in use. These are the artifacts used by McDonalds. The company is based on diversity and inclusion as part of their organisation culture (Harris, 2009). 12. Why people are prone to resist change? In most cases, it is inevitable that change will be resisted. Change is resisted due to the fact that it brings new ways of doing things. There is also a human tendency to resist change. The most causes of resistance to change are; uncertainty, personal loss, dependence, group resistance, perceived weakness in proposed change (Anderson, 2011). Uncertainty occurs as people become worried that proposed change will affect their lives and work. The proposed changes are sometimes viewed to lead to personal loss such as lower pay or losing prestige. Group resistance occurs when the changes proposed are viewed to threaten members. When employees are cohesive, they form a greater resistance based on group. When the trust bestowed to a leader is low, and change they propose is resisted (Harvey, 2010). An example of change resistance is seen at Microsoft, the company has been outperformed by Apple Inc. due to internal resistance to innovation. While Apple is able to introduce a new product to the market, Microsoft is rigid and takes time before they successfully launch a product. Resistance at Microsoft have been attributed to maintenance of status quo and perceived weakness in proposed changes (Bapuji, 2012). 13. What are the key success factors in change management? The key success factors in change management are; planning, defined governance, informed stakeholders, committed leadership and aligned workforce. Through planning, the organisation is supposed to design and document all the objectives to be achieved through change. Defined governance involves being able to establish appropriate organizational structures and responsibilities for change that involves all stakeholders. Committed leadership is required across the organization. Stakeholders’ participation should always be encouraged to ensure their commitment to change. The five factors should be exhibited well for the change projects to be successful (Anderson, 2011). For example, change at IBM was successful due to leadership, engaged employees and communication. This helped the organisation to drive innovation and growth (APQC, 2005). 14. What types of innovations there are? Innovations can be categorized as products innovation, service innovation and process innovations. Product innovations involve coming up with products that will persuade customers to make purchases. This type of innovation includes both consumer and industrial goods. Service innovations involve coming up with new service applications. They involve coming up with a new way of offering a service or coming up with an entirely new product. The aim is coming up with new services and improves productivity. Process innovations have a great impact on society. Most of the process innovations are less known as compared to product and service innovations. An example of product innovation is Smartphone. Mobile phones have been improving since the first innovation. Service innovation includes transport and communication which have been improving regularly. The invention of modern photocopies changed the processes in organizations. This is through ease of copying documents in offices (Amar, 2004). 15. How HR function can support building innovative teams? HR function has a great role in enabling innovative teams. This is through assuming a strategic role in the organizations. To foster innovation, HR function can hire innovation, create an innovative culture and reward innovation. Through hiring innovative workforce, it involves looking for the employees who are able to lead in innovation. Creating an organizational culture is one of the critical roles played by the HR. Culture is a major driver for innovation. The HR function has to plan and nurture the innovative culture in order to build the innovative teams. Having a culture that is unsupportive leads to lack of innovation as culture is the driver for innovation. Lack of support by the HR leads to lack of strategy for innovation. The HR function is also supposed to design the reward systems that help employees to be more committed and innovative. Through these efforts, the HR function is able to create innovative teams (Robbins, 2005). Google has succeeded in their innovation through utilizing HR functions well. The company hires innovative workforce with engineering background. These employees have enabled Google to lead in innovation. HR processes at Google creates a work culture that fosters creativity and innovation (Israelite, 2010). Fig. 4, innovations at Google 16. How to motivate people in their work Motivation is both intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic motivation involves employee recognisation, employee involvement, job redesign and scheduling. This is the type of motivation which leads to self satisfaction for the employee. It involves the use of appreciation, participative management, job sharing, enrichment and rotation. Extrinsic motivation involves use of variable pay; skill based pay and flexible benefits. In intrinsic rewards, the main aim is encouraging a certain type of behavior with an aim of enabling its repetition. Jobs should be designed in a way that they do not lead to boredom and task repetition. Using flexible benefits gives employees a chance to take the package that fits them based on needs and situations (Amar, 2004). For Google, employees are given 20% of their time to work on their own projects. The flexible working environment acts as a motivation for Google employees (Girard, 2009). The company has been very successful in motivating employees. Fig.5, Employee motivation (Girard, 2009) 17. What different leadership styles there are? There are different types of leaderships with varying degrees of effectiveness. The leadership styles are; autocratic leadership, participative/democratic leadership, bureaucratic leadership, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. An autocratic leader retains a lot of power and is the sole decision maker. He expects orders to be obeyed without objections. A bureaucratic leader manages using set procedures. This is mostly used in public institutions. Democratic leader encourages participation. The staffs are encouraged to take part in decision making. A transformational leader ensures that there is maximum creation of human and organizational capabilities. Transformational leaders are charismatic an example is former Apple Inc. leader Steve Jobs. A transactional leader emphasizes on getting things done based on the status quo. This is experienced in most of bureaucratic organizations (Yukl, 2006). 18. How to develop your leadership qualities? There are various methods for developing leadership qualities. The most used methods are; use of internal skills programs, taking external courses such as seminars, being mentored, in company job rotation, external assignments and e-learning. There is also engaging in time management, seminars and career planning. Coaching is very effective, though its costs limits use in large organizations. Carrying out evaluations such as 360 degrees feedback can help one to improve and develop leadership skills. One can also engage in programs that enhance creativity and imagination. Thoughtful reflection is required for one to learn leadership qualities. One should also utilize formal leadership development programs. For example, HP has an elaborate leadership development program and always encourages employees to develop themselves. The company carries out employees’ evaluation programs regularly (Yukl, 2006). References Amar, A. D. (2004). “Motivating knowledge workers to innovate: A model integrating motivation dynamics and antecedents”. European Journal of Innovation Management, 4(1), 126- 132. Anderson, A. (2011). Engaging resistance: How ordinary people successfully champion change. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press. 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