Combining Organizational Strategy and HR Development for Improved Performance - Essay Example

Combining organizational strategy and HR development for improved performance Name: Institution: Date: Introduction Combining the practices of human resource development entirely with the view to achieve organizational goals and objectives, contributes substantially to the ultimate success of an organization. It is arguably relevant in resource-based theory that competitive advantage as well as implementation of organizational plans is highly dependent upon its basic inputs. Strategic human resource management is important in enhancing the productivity and effectiveness of an organization. Therefore, organizations are required to employ personnel practices such as internal career ladders, performance-based compensation, broadly defined job descriptions, formal training systems, employee voice or participation and security as well as results-oriented performance appraisals. Such practices on human resource development enable organizations and individual employees to attain their goals and objectives (Marchant, 2000). For instance, Performance appraisal plays a great role as employee development tool because it is used to identify areas of skills as well as ability deficiency. This improves the organization’s focus on training and development since the capability to have appropriate skills and competencies are major elements in enhancing individual performance. The study examines how organizational strategies are combined with human resource development practices to enhance organizational performance, focusing on Meadowvale Health organization and Six High-technology firms in Taiwan as cases of study. Strategic planning and the personnel practices within the organization In order for the human resource practices such as motivation and incentives to w0ork efficiently, they must be tied to goals. This means that organizations to a larger extent employ the needs assessment and ideal human resource strategies in pursuit of their vision or missions. Therefore, needs assessment which reflects where an organization plans to go and the human resource development that identifies the people to get a specified position, focus more on specific organizational as well as individual needs whose ultimate satisfaction result in enhanced productivity. Based on the internal career system human resource practice, it has been argued that a career system helps to focus more on individual attention, particularly on the strategic issues that affects the long-term performance of an organization. For instance, organizational objectives and reward systems that are tied to a short-term cause dysfunctional behavior as well as goal displacement. On contrary, long-term perspective of the organization promotes organizational commitment and loyalty. It encourages both individuals and organizations to focus on training and productivity enhancement with the view that they will reap benefits associated with improved knowledge and technique (Barney, 2001). Results-oriented performance appraisal is a human resource development practice used as aid in judgmental decisional making such as promotion and demotion, retention and transfer as well as compensation. It is used as developmental guide for creating sustainable needs assessment and evaluating employee feedbacks. This means that performance appraisal with the aid of general organizational functions is the main way through which the new employee selection and hiring procedures, supporting of the organizational culture as well as promotion of employee –supervisor understanding are validated to increase organizational performance. Motivation is an integral part in the achievement of improved organizational performance as it involves initiating human behavior, directing as well as channeling that particular behavior so as to sustain and maintain it. This creates no doubt on extrinsic incentives as the key factor in boosting individual performance. In a practical point of view, therefore, reduced level intrinsic motivation will automatically be a concern in any organization particularly in cases where extrinsic incentive is reserved as there will be no high level of performance to be sustained. A case for Meadowvale Health organization, questions was raised on how to determine the best reward or recognition systems to increase the intrinsic motivation as well as improve individual performance and organizational job performance. It was suggested that employee sought achievement, growth and responsibility should be the highest priority areas for incentives in all employees’ work (Marchant, 2000). Goal setting is also an important human resource development factor that provides various employee rewards. This is because individual employees negotiate for desired outcomes with their leaders in the human resource management department. It is apparent that employees who actively participate in the development of organizational goals are able to consider the outcomes as being achievable, and thus become committed to achieving them. However, the involvement of the human resource management ensures that an organization and individual’s set goals are consistent with the corporate objectives. Furthermore, such goals must create challenging opportunities for all the employees to apply their current skills, abilities as well as foster the development of new ones (Tyson & York, 2000). Compensation as a human resource management practice is an important motivator when the managers reward employees for achieving the desired organizational results. Organizations require their employees to achieve the desired behaviors in order to improve their organization's effectiveness. Compensation strategy, therefore, can strengthen the desired organizational culture since it acts as an enabling organizational culture through which pay is connected to performance. This means that the HR compensation policy must reflect the strategic business objectives of an organization, and thus the human resource management must clearly define all the objectives set by their organization so as to achieve them by use of their compensation strategy. After a decision is made, all the set objectives are communicated to all the people in the organization. Although good decisions in some organizations fail to achieve the desired results as a result of poor communication. However, through the provision of the appropriate combination of benefits associated with non-cash compensation helps organizations to motivate their employees as well as sustain them in its task of performance improvement (McLean, 2008). Setting a strategic direction in an organization The process strategic direction development in an organization focuses mainly on the alignment of human resource policies so as to support the strategies, goals, missions and visions of the organization. This implies that the business goals of an organization to achieve improved performance relies on the human resource strategy used. Therefore, aligning of organizational businesses and HR calls for the management to respond to, “Can their organization’s internal capability help to achieve their business goals?” The figure below illustrates how a strategic direction is set in an organization (Moynihan, 2005). A number of organizations view their people as the main source of competitive advantage. As a result, successful organizations continuously identify as well as adopt HRM policies and practices as a way of sustaining their competitive advantage. Such organizations structure and design employee training and development programs, pay and reward policies, performance management in order to enable their members in an organization succeed in attaining the desired organizational outcomes. It means that organizations integrate as well as align their strategies with HRM policies and practices with the objective of reinforcing employee behaviors that help to realize the strategic intent of leaders. Although HR strategies are required to support the entire organization and its people to achieve the intended objectives, it works as a two-way process. This is a clear indication that such strategies can be critical inputs when the management is determining an organization’s strategic initiatives. However, a fatal error involves developing and implementing HR strategies without considering the real objectives and goals either implicitly or explicitly identified by organization (Paul & Robinson, 2007). Achieving competitive advantage The global need to link human resource development with the organizational strategy reflects the need to justify the importance of individual development in relation to organizational benefits. Therefore, it is relevant to argue that organizational performance is improved, particularly when firms have good fit between their organizational strategy and employees’ competences. Due to the rapid changes within the business environment, an increasing number of organizations view human resources as an important and unique asset required to offer sustainable competitive advantage. Since people are considered as crucial resources to organizations, HR strategy is becoming central to the achievement of competitive advantages. It is important, therefore, for firms to use HR strategy as a significant tool for integrating competencies within the organization as well as for matching their employment capabilities with the organizational strategy (Barney, 2001). Firms must investigate how the various capability combinations can result in competitive advantage. This clearly indicates that the management of human resources needs to be in perfect fit with the organization’s management as a whole as well as its strategic plans. Once the business strategy of an organization is determined, the HR strategy is implemented so as to support a competitive strategy developed. This implies that HR strategy is more concerned with the organizational challenge of matching policies, practices and process in a manner that can stimulate as well as reinforce the various employee role behaviors based on each competitive strategy. It is important to note that organizations create strategic, financial and technological value through the competencies of their employees. The basic principle driving the human resources management states that organizations that adopts strategies requires techniques as well as practices effective for managing their workforce. However, such workforces must be different from those required by other organizations that use various strategies with diverse workforces (Yeo, 2003). The resource-based approach shows that resources inherent within the organization’s human capital, reflects the key strategic factors currently possessed by firm. Therefore, sustained competitive advantage is not only achieved through the careful analysis of an organization’s external market position, but also through the strategic analysis of the existing skills and capabilities. It is an aspect of sustained competitive show that competitors find it difficult to imitate the core capabilities used by other organizations. Apparently, the origin of an organization’s competitive advantage lies in the organization itself, indicating the human resources and capabilities possessed as well as controlled by such an organization. All these sustained competitive advantage help to achieve effective organizational performance (Tyson & York, 2000). Organizational learning as a development strategy Organizations development is used by a number of firms as the planned change approaches to enable them grow and improve on their performance. For organizations to improve their performance in today’s knowledge economy, they are encouraging employees to take risks, avoid bureaucracies, embrace change as well as discover revolutionary ways so as to ensure that organizations achieve sustainable competitive advantage. Most organizations relate to their environments in order to acquire the human resources as well as the needed information to function. Such relationships influence organizations to develop some strategies to address their internal and external environmental challenges. As a result of the need for strategic change, organizational learning is highly considered as an important organizational development strategy for transformations. It is a crucial strategy because it shows how learning takes place in the organization, facilitating more alignments among the strategies, competitive environment and its culture, and thus contributing to improved organizational performance (Paul & Robinson, 2007). It has been argued that the highest stage of organizational learning is achieved when the learning is tied to strategic objectives of an organization as well as targeted at the performance improvement. In the contemporary knowledge economy, organizational learning has become important as it involves various ways of perceiving and behaving in organizations. However, less research has been done to discover how individuals collect, perceive and transform new information into corporate social responsibility and knowledge management (McLean, 2008). Six High-technology firms in Taiwan In a case study for Six High-Technology firms in Taiwan to determine how organizational learning was perceived as an influential factor to achieve improved organizational performance. It was discovered that such firms find it easy to implement organizational learning. Use of a language that employees are familiar with, implementing the organizational learning concepts that is congruent with the personal life or work of employees were cited as the best strategies. Research indicates that HR practitioners combine organizational learning with the training programs in order to educate their individuals or members about why organizations require thorough organizational learning to be considered a learning organization as well as achieve organizational effectiveness. However, few organizations make use of the project-based programs, for instance, Total Quality Control (TQC) to execute their organizational learning. This is because the training managers are afraid that their employees may feel to have been given extra work. As a result, the managers embed the organizational learning in their existing projects like TQC programs since their employees are familiar with them as they are run throughout the firms (McLean, 2006). In Taiwan’s high-technology firms, implementation of the organizational learning concepts which are more congruent with the work or personal lives of employees is extended to include the idea humanity. This promotes the creation of communities of practice that not only apply to the professional lives of employees, but also to their individual or personal lives. Therefore, communities of practice emerged to be the mediators for Taiwan’s firms to implement organizational learning. These interventions entirely focus on achieving effective organizational performance. In order to determine how organizational learning was perceived by High-technology firms in Taiwan as influential factor of achieving improved organizational performance. The management of human resources in such firms claimed to be users of direct indicators to evaluate the effects of their organizational learning programs. Furthermore, they make use of the employee overall job-satisfaction qualitative data. This include the use of informal conversation with their employees through which HR confirm as well as improve their efforts at implementing organizational learning for enhanced organizational performance (Tyson & York, 2000). Based on the idea of how they link organizational learning to organizational strategy so as to improve their organizational performance, a number of firms find it not easy to measure the outcomes of implementing organizational learning. Most of the HR managers in Taiwan high-technology firms support that organizational learning is connected to the organizational performance. For measuring performance, the HR managers claim to focus on turn over rate and employee job satisfaction, where they evaluate how learning processes takes place for engineers through the assessment of their satisfaction with the learning processes (McLean, 2008). Importance of Training and Development in organization Drucker (1999) argued that a well-prepared and motivated workforce is an important intangible asset that supports values creating processes of an organization. Drucker also examined that production equipment was the most valuable asset of the 20th century companies, while knowledge workers as well as their productivity has become the leading valuable of the 21st century institutions or organizations. In such organizations, staff training and development is perceived to be an investment since they are the possible ways of organizing as well as implementing learning processes within the organizations. This indicates that today’s organizations are more concerned about knowledgeable workers and how they contribute to effectiveness of organizational performance (Kaplan & Norton, 2004). Human resource development encompasses a wide range of organizational activities that improve the performance of individuals and teams in an organization. Thus, training and development are highly considered as life-long activity and just the front-end and acquisition processes. As a result, the focus has shifted from what trainers do to what learners require as the main concern, an indication of the efforts made to improve individual and organizational performance. Therefore, training and development as an organizational strategic practice is focused on creating a learning organization that constantly review its weaknesses, successes as well as adapt its activities in an appropriate manner (Miyake, 2002). Conclusion Human resource managers combine strategies such as organizational learning with the training programs in order to educate their members on why organizations require thorough organizational learning to operate as a learning organization as well as achieve organizational effectiveness. Performance appraisal plays a great role as employee development tool because it is used to identify areas of skills and ability deficiency. Motivation is also an integral part of the organization as it helps to achieve improved organizational performance. It initiates human behavior, directs as well as channels a specific behavior so as to sustain and maintain it for effective performance in an organization. Reduced level of intrinsic motivation is an organizational concern, particularly in cases where extrinsic incentive is reserved since it limits the level of performance to be sustained within the organization. Compensation is an important motivator when the managers are rewarding their employees for achieving the desired organizational results. Aligning of the organizational businesses and HR requires the management to respond to whether or not their organization’s internal capability aids them to achieve their business goals. The highest stage of organizational learning is achieved when the learning is tied to strategic objectives of an organization as well as targeted at the performance improvement. References Barney, J., (2001). Is the Resource-Based view a useful perspective for strategic management research? Academy of Management Review. 26(1), 41-56. Drucker, P. (1999). "Knowledge-Worker productivity: the biggest challenge." California Management Review 41(2): 79-94. Kaplan, R. S., Norton, David P (2004). Strategy maps: converting intangible assets into tangible outcomes. Boston, Harvard Business School Press. Marchant, T., (2000). 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Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 24(2), 70–83. Read More