Strategic Human Resource Management - Assignment Example

Critical Review Customer’s Name: Institution: Customer’s Course Tutor’s Name December 3rd, 2012. Strategic human resource management (SHRM) means, making use of people to achieve set organization goals and at the same time satisfy workers needs. SHRM is a major contributor to organizational success, as it can affect clients, profit of a business and the worth of investors. According to Lee (2011), SHRM means setting outline and budget that assist an organisation to realize it set goals and objectives. SHRM values organisation work force as a vital asset which makes organisation remain competitive. Kelliher & Perrett (2000), discovered that human resource management (HRM) was brought about by the desire to pursue competitive advantage. He argued that, people are different from the various factors of production like money and machinery and therefore are the sources of competitive advantage. Batch (2000), supports this view by adding that, the reason why people are the core of competitive advantage is that people skills, values and conduct enhances and maintains good performance. Caliskan (2010) says that, in order to sustain and maintain competitive advantage, HRM should set some strategic goals. Some of the goals may include, investing in educating workers to meet industrial needs and alignment of skills. An organisation should control behaviour of employees and reward the well behaved ones. It is vital for an industry to encourage people regularly, so that they can be well committed in the running of the organisation. To meet these goals, there is the need for the practice of good approaches by organisations to make use of SHRM wisely and productively. According to Batch (2000), an organisation can use two approaches to show how a good approach to human resource can be explained into various articulate Hr practises. There are universal and contingency approaches. Universal approach focuses on only one means in attaining the best performance while the contingency approach associates the policies implemented by an organisation to the exact environmental factors. However the two approaches play the role of ensuring that business policies work together and also indicates the needs of the external environment. Batch (2000), argues that, for HRM approach to yield profit through people it must incorporate various policies. Different approaches to SHRM are also looked upon by Kazmi & Ahmad (2001). All HRM functions cannot be said to be strategic, some are indeed strategic while others are not. The non-strategic approaches are further said to be functional. According to Kazmi & Ahmad (2001) SHRM is a planning process. There are some strategic features in every constituent of the HRM process that are phrased as SHRM. The key purpose of SHRM is generating and supporting competitive benefit of the organization. McCourt & Ramgutty-Wong (2003) further states that SHRM and good practice is a good approach in key HR behaviour should be practiced as it boosts performance. To implement these approaches, some of the policies are required for instance; ensuring people get good employment security, thorough selection of a good personnel manager and having self supervised employment teams that decentralizes making of key decisions. One can also compensate good performing teams and individuals with good returns. It is vital to allow workers to access an extensive training, avoiding status recognition and barriers, avoiding paying workers in same department who possesses equal skills and knowledge different wages and good coordination and communication in an organisation and sharing of financial resources. Kelliher & Perrett(2000), suggest that policies depends on the level of stage a business can be, for instance, a business can be in the initial stage, in the development stage, peak stage or on decline. One should make a judgemental decision on the policies to be implemented according to the stage of the business. SHRM effectiveness and impacts can be measured by evaluating the role that it plays in regard to the success of an organisation. An industry with good SHRM effectiveness performs very well and yields a lot of profit. As Choo, Halim & Keng-Howe (2010) argued, some HR practises can be used to measure the success of SHRM practices. Some examples include HR strategic planning, fair selection and recruitment of employees, doing performance appraisals, compensating and offering some good benefits and training to employees. Green, Wu, Whitten & Medlin, (2006) says that one can use leadership and management, motivation, good performance, quality training and productivity as good means of measuring the positive or negative impacts of SHRM. Bach (2000) advocates for use of three measures to evaluate the effectiveness of HR. There is the quantitative measure that evaluates the input, output and the results. Qualitative measures provide relevant details and information to workers and the line managers. There is the process analysis which evaluates recruitment and choosing of employees. After comparison there is a lot of similarity in all the evaluation and measurement procedures indicated by the three authors. However to achieve successful measurement of the impacts of SHRM one can compare his or her organisation with other similar organisations and come up with a conclusion or assumption. As study in India further indicates the impacts of SHRM, Sanyal & Sett (2011), HR options add worth although the extent to which they create worth depends on methods of HR option in use, education and development affects economic performance straightforward on the other hand, revenue and production and balance are not affected. Sanyal & Sett (2011) sets out that, in India software production merchandise remaining competitive is determined by how well famous products and services are improved and only the firms that offer high quality services that experience high levels of revenue. Nevertheless managers should be aware that to yield high profits sound investment in HR is vital and must therefore have a clear business plan that focuses on the challenges and external activities should be linked to inside activities. Managers should also remember certain duration of time should be allowed after initiating HR and when real results are experienced because SHRM depends on factors like environment. SHRM practices are present in Australia; however, they are not widely used by all organisations especially non profit making organisations. Kong (2010) says that, in an interview of various non profit executives in Australia it was established there is a direct correlation between the concepts of Human Capital (HC), Human Resource Management (HRM) and Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). This relation has a major role in none profit making organisations as it helps in learning and acquiring knowledge. It can also help non profit motivated organisations increase the ability to put together, plan and complement the ability to learn and acquire knowledge. It is vital for non profit making organisations executives to avoid regarding the knowledge and skills one has acquired but concentrate on how to successfully implement and facilitate the acquired knowledge and skills. The main aim should not be to know how to handle each at a time but how to handle all the three important features together especially in future. However there seems an imminent change in HR in the 21st century where it will be incorporated in business operations by relating with strategies and performances and will be able to focus on market and associating with many investors. The main emphasis will be on changes, being strategic, being competitive, remaining elastic, the worth of the organization, maintaining clients and transparency. Li (2003) feels that, it might be a puzzle since globalization, variety, technology and principles are not taken into consideration by current education curriculum which might be a hindrance in future of HR although there is need to solve the current challenges especially of internal activities. As it was then noted by Li (2011) that, revenue and productivity are affected by individual effects. However, profitability is not a victim. In China, it was possible to find a company with a very bad HRM policy experiencing massive profits; it just required an operational economic strategy but it does not matter whether it is a private or public organisation. HR executives and the duties they undertake are subject to change in future as well as the historical role of the manager. Hawkins (2010) says that, New Zealand is politically charged which will make future managers cautious in language to use and in making deals with employees. Trade organisations will need to explain to workers that the changes will not affect current workers to avoid strikes and less motivated employees. There is also the need to inform even the investors to ensure everyone remains positive to organisational success. Hawkins (2010) also noted that, New Zealand workforce has incorporated foreign workers therefore it will be challenged by how it will deal with the multiple cultures. As a result of integration, the sustenance of HRM will be the biggest challenge in the near future which might make the key strategists put some important decisions into the future (HRM) (Ehnert & Harry, 2012). For instance, growing industries may consume similar resources to industries in developed countries and because some decisions cannot be postponed which will have adverse effects on HR, so (Ehnert & Harry, 2012) advices that in case such moments come, it will be prudent to try to improvise other means and ways of managing workers and business. Although HRM might not be extremely affected and may only need some little adjustments, the best policy is to deal with each problem as it comes. Some of the SHRM problems that need to be faced out are; poor individual’s performance in an organization, lack of job commitment and organizational commitment (Sahoo Das & Sundaray, 2011). These problems help to assess the impact of SHRM in an organization. When the HR purposes are vertically allied with the mission and objectives of the organization and horizontally incorporated in the organizations functions, an organization displays strategic HR. When an organization implements SHRM system in the organization, there is an expected increase in the organizational performance. Job satisfaction among employees, organizational commitment and levels of individual performance also increases significantly. SHRM helps firms bundle their HR practices in an articulate manner and ropes their organizational context. The idea of HR should be an equal strategic business partner with operations, finance and marketing. All are encouraged to adopt SHRM strategy and expect a great improvement in their job related attitude and individual performance on the part of HR (Gurbuz & Mert, 2011). Kong (2010) continues to explore on globalization affects SHRM in an organization. They try to find the degree of globalization as well as the degree of SHRM in an organization. They suggest that, the degree of globalization in a firm is related to the SHRM significantly and positively. The CEO’s role in the HR is found to be that of a partial mediator and he/she plays a very important role in influencing the SHRM practices. The role of HRM in a firm has been turned into that of a friendly picnic organizer; this is from the norm that HRM is the organization’s disciplinarian. Globalization plays a significant role in influencing the SHRM practices in an organization with the relationship between them being positive. Choo & Halim & Keng-Howe (2010) argues that, globalization has a very great impact on the practice of strategic HR in an organization. The strategy they use to measure the impact is a firm underperforms from the CEO’s mismanagement of the firm’s human capital. The degree of SHRM could be raised through the government’s interventions (Qadeer, Rehman, Ahmad & Shafique, 2011). SHRM is seen to be a tool that helps the organization evaluates its practices. Non-financing measures are perceived to be as important as the financing ones in the organization's performance. SHRM and Resource Based View Approach (RBV) are seen as forces that busts the organization's competitiveness and innovativeness. RBV is seen as a mediator between SHRM and performance, RBV is the theory that is most often used with SHRM, equally in the rationale for empirical study and in the development of theory. HR practices are the primary means with which the organization influences and shapes the attitudes, behaviours and skills of individuals in doing their work, this helps in achievement of the organizations goals. Non financial capacity plays a significant role in implementation of SHRM in a firm (Ismail, Omar & Bidmeshgipour, 2010). On the flip side, Thompson & Bill (2007) argues that HRM may be in deep trouble, after evaluating it practically and theoretically. It only portrays a professional image and is thought to be the key to best performance in many organisations which to some extent may be elusive. The common HR practises have become stakeholder’s value estimator in both private and public sectors. This has widened the gap between what is said and what is experienced in the reality. Prioritising labour to be the best asset in an industry misses a major point. In organisations where HRM practices have already been implemented, there is isolation of structures and some reported cases of people disappearing when they are supposed to pay attention to an organisation. Kaufman (2010) goes ahead and highlights that SHRM has received high critics and complementary, some people find problems in the empirical model or some specific aspects of the theory; others think it is entirely an ideologically driven fatally flawed package. Thompson & Bill (2007) see it as naïve optimism. In SHRM there exists a theoretical opinion and the core of it is the study that investigates the incidence of HR on the performance of the firm. Kaufman (2010) has the view that better management of human capital pays. SHRM theory is relevant to only one part of the employment world and one bit of the determinants of the organization’s performance, it is also prejudiced since it mostly neglects or obfuscates the potential for fundamental conflict of interest and harm to employees in moving to a High Performance Work System. Innovation is very important in an organization especially in the competitive worldwide business environment. It is important to examine the function of other organizational issues in the strategic HR process in order to understand how strategic HR adds to the innovation of the organization. The organizational structure highly impacts the effects of SHRM on its innovation. Business culture and organizational structure are pillars and background elements that impact the association in SHRM and produce innovation (Li-Qun, Jun & Herndon, 2011). There is a critical role of SHRM in adaptation of innovation (Som, 2007) in this case the impacts of SHRM are evaluated using the experiment strategy and examines the functions of the issues of the organisation. From the various researches undertaken, it is clear that the impacts of SHRM can be measured according to the performance. How well or bad an organisation performs after using the implemented SHRM practices tells a lot about it advantages and disadvantages. In looking at the benefits a successful SHRM should help an organisation accomplish it set objectives and goals. While a bad SHRM would have negative effects like employee’s strikes and lack of motivation hence affecting the performance of an organisation. One can also measure the impacts of SHRM by evaluating whether SHRM practices increase or decrease employee productivity and the ability of an organisation to achieve its mission. If the SHRM that is implemented affects the productivity of employees, for instance it produces low quality products, infamous products or low revenues, it is not recommended for adoption in an organisation. An effective SHRM should be measured in terms of its influence to future technological changes. A good SHRM practice should be flexible to anticipated technological changes. The impacts of SHRM can also be measured on its ability to incorporate team building and team work cooperation. An ineffective SHRM will concentrate on individual efforts rather than team work. As seen in the undertaken researches SHRM enhances effectiveness and productivity in an organisation. It is viewed that SHRM is key in enhancing the productivity of the employees and their abilities to achieve their mission. However SHRM should be flexible to oncoming technological changes to remain effective in enhancing good production and performance of organisations. 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