Strategic Change in the Current Business Environment - Coursework Example

Strategic change in the current business climate BY YOU YOUR ACADEMIC ORGANISATION HERE HERE HERE Strategic change in the current business environment Introduction During the course of regular business events there comes the necessity for changes in the workplace. These changes, when linked with strategy, can impact the entire course of long-term business options and opportunities if personnel activities are not linked with the human resource function. For instance, depending on the specific strategic goal of the company, the impact of efficiency in the design of the new project or goal could lead to positive or negative business outcomes. This paper highlights several models utilised in modern business environments to ensure the implementation and delivery of successful strategies and the change tools necessary to elicit a positive staff response. The variety of models At the foundation of most HR and strategic models is either a soft approach to managing people or a hard approach. The hard view of HR is less people-focused in which the assignment of various job tasks is largely measured by the profitability or strategic goal-attainment which is provided by aligning personnel to specific tasks. The soft view considers the worker as strategic assets to the organisation, measured by human capital, in which staff members are coached, developed and promoted as a means of ensuring both compliance to various policies and procedures and for developing competitive edge in the workplace. The blend of both the hard and soft approaches to managing people can be reflected in the Harvard Model, which clearly takes a hard approach in which the alignment of strategy to personnel is designed for the achievement of goals associated with profit and long-term business goal-attainment. This model identifies the level to which employees should be engaged with corporate decision-making and develops the performance management system necessary to help personnel attain success in their specific job role functions. This model suggests that line managers are vitally-important for aligning business strategy to personnel policies and creates specific, attainable organisational outcomes based on how people are managed via company leadership (Armstrong, 2004). For instance, an organisation which is attempting to alter business practices in a domestic sales environment might consider taking the company multinational as part of an expansion strategy to boost market share and to increase global company brand visibility. The Harvard Model would identify the expected outcomes, in each corporate division, of different change processes which lead toward the fulfilment of the new international strategy. As suggested by Bowman (2002), the questions required of the Harvard Model include looking at the markets the company is attempting to compete within, explore the specific key competencies necessary, and then determine the most appropriate business activities or management structure necessary to implement a wide variety of change strategies. The Harvard Model applies the necessary blend of cost-focused strategy with that of developing people, and providing the rewards necessary as part of a performance management process which motivate workers to achieve long-term organisational goals. This model provides a system-thinking organisation in which each job responsibility or job task can be linked to whether it is providing value for the organisation or whether people (and their skills and competencies) should be developed with further training or job-performance assessment, to achieve the new international goal. This blend of soft and hard approaches is designed to maximise business potential and align all members of staff and management toward achieving success in specified job functions related to new strategy. In some environments, strong team-focused philosophies are necessary to drive performance, which calls for a redevelopment of interpersonal competencies among staff and managers. This entails an identification of risk, as part of strategy development, to identify staff members’ capabilities which could cause disruption to achieving strategic goals or those who might serve to vault strategy forward due to their unique talents and knowledge about job role function. Malek and Narayanan (2008) suggest that in order to build cross-functional teams which are dedicated to achieving specific goals related to long-term strategy, areas of uncertainty must be removed from the strategic equation. Risk and the extent to which a company maintains a positive organisational culture will greatly, under this professional view, impact the effectiveness of strategic change. This reinforces the importance of utilising an appropriate model for changing organisational culture, and adding value to the cross-functional team, by changing the methodology by which inter-organisational mental models are formed and acted upon. For instance, a company may have team-focused projects underway in multiple business divisions but the company is finding difficulty in promoting unity of purpose and keeping costs under control in these groups. Identifying risks to strategy would recognise the importance of establishing a work group facilitator to reinforce and manage the interface between the different work groups to ensure they are aligned with budget, strategic goals, and unity of purpose. This is another soft model toward the HR function and the strategic goal-setting theories as it recognises the human behavioural tendencies of workers and works to maximise positive business outcomes by reducing risk through culture change and the development of cross-functional teams equipped with the interpersonal dynamic necessary to achieve unity of purpose. Enright (2001) identifies an appropriate strategic model for building cross-functional teams known as the Enright Model in which team members focus around CPT or cost, performance and time as measures of team efficiency in project completion related to strategic goal-attainment. An organisation which develops new products routinely as a means of sustaining competitive edge would require cross-functional teams for communicating various breakthroughs related to getting a new product to the appropriate sales market environment. The Enright Model views the cross-functional team as an independent group both capable and willing to make the appropriate decisions necessary for project development and completion. However, this model clearly links the role of strategist with that of human resources by identifying preliminary contingency plans in the event of team breakdown or complication toward meeting the CPT of project development. Enright again suggests the establishment of clear, concise project goals (of which no other goals should supersede) and rich communication between strategic leader and junior members of the cross-functional team. The Enright Model describes the necessity for identifying preliminary contingency solutions as a means of ensuring no project slow-downs as well as giving cross-functional team members the opportunity to discuss important issues whilst establishing the specific hierarchy of control (scope of control) within each project team. It appears that uncertainty in strategic decision-making is one of the most detrimental aspects of goal-attainment when group members are unsure of what their specific job function is and who they should report to. This would seem to be a rather common-sense view of establishing group criteria, however it serves to reinforce the view that successful strategic goals cannot be planned or achieved without positive group performance. Conclusion Aligning a specific strategic goal to personnel activities is not an easy task as the actions leading to success in a project or goal do not occur within a bubble. The company is a system-thinking organisation in which staff members and management alike are able to locate contingencies, determine which competencies require development, and the steps necessary to move forward on strategy with the assurance that all teams are aware of their specific function toward goal-attainment. The aforementioned models also establish the structure necessary to guide these changes. Bibliography Armstrong, Michael. (2004). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 9th ed, Kogan Page. Bowman, Cliff. (2002). Strategy in Practice, 2nd ed. Financial Times. Malek, W. and Narayanan, V. (2008). Why smooth execution depends on clear outcomes’, Ivey Business Journal, London. 72(2): 1. Rauniar, R., Doll, w., Rawski, G. and Hong, P. (2008). The role of heavyweight product manager in new product development. International Journal of Operations & Production Management. Bradford. 28(2): 130. Read More