What the Human Resource Managers Do - Assignment Example

A. HRM can be described as central, senior management driven strategic activity, which is developed, owned and delivered by management - as a whole to promote the interests of the organization that they serve. Discuss the benefits and draw backs of a HRM senior managements driven strategy. Human resource is one of the most important aspects of the business. This is the area of the business where the full force of operation is coming from. The people are the human resource. They are what make the business flourish or fail. With this reason alone, it is extremely important that the human resources are managed properly and effectively. The work force – may it be a supervisor, manager or just an ordinary enable - must be satisfied with the policies and procedures of the company. They must feel that they are properly compensated and that their philosophies and vision in life is parallel with the philosophies of the company as well as with its mission and vision. If this does not happen, for sure, majority of the human resource will not feel motivated to work. This of course would mean that the desired output and/or projected earnings of the company will be hard to achieve as the human resources do not deem it necessary to aim for a better performance. What the Human Resource Managers Do Analyze the organization Human Resource Managers have a clear understanding of the organization first. They establish a detailed organizational analysis. Analyzing the organization structure is categorized into four different ways. This includes (“Organizational Analysis”, 2006): · Explicitness or non-explicitness of the company’s vision and strategy · Premeditated information and work flow in and out of the company · Appreciation of the culture of the organization · Knowing the people in terms of how they are selected, what are their qualifications, what are their most recent salary and benefits, when was their last promotion and what is their career path With these four categories, it is very clear that organization is not only focus in how to earn money but also on how to maintain harmony inside the company by maintaining ideal communication flow and having and retaining qualified employees. Evaluate the Core and Distinctive Competencies of the Employees After having a clear understanding of the organization, analyzing the competencies of each and every employee is the next step that the Human Resource Managers do. The employees are one of the biggest weapons of the company. They are the workers who ensure that the company is working right on target and the customers are satisfied with what the company is offering. This is the very reason why the organization sees to it that all the staffs are equipped with the right armament to keep them competitive and effective in their respective responsibilities. Among the many strategies to keep the human resources at a greater advantage over their rivals is by properly motivating and training the people. This is a proven way of keeping the staffs; in fact, American businesses have been spending billions of dollars annually on employee staffing and training (Georgenson, 1982). Because of this, there have been series of studies conducted to really discover the linkage between the success of business strategy and the training practices of the company. From a mere business strategy typology that provides strategic challenges translatable into specific job and skill requirements, newer and advanced theoretical perspectives are now being revealed in the pursuit of understanding how firms acquire and shape the human resources to establish a sustainable competitive advantage (Wright and McMahan, 1992). Based on the resource-based perspective, firms possess unique bundles of resources that are largely incomparable (Peteraf, 1993). Some of these resources are collected in a path-dependent manner, which in turn make it difficult and expensive to replace or acquire quickly when needed (Dierickx and Cool, 1989). Meanwhile some resources are simply not tradable, for example, tacit know-how. Firms possessing such difficult-to-create resources are then forced to work with their existing stocks and not rely on creating them again as and when needed. Indeed, resource-based view plays a very significant role for this can be utilized to understand how firms develop and accumulate human resources as a basis for creating sustainable competitive (Winter, 1987). On some other studies, it has been proven that the resource-based view of competitive advantage implies that the human resources provide enduring distinctive advantages to the company because they are able to remain inadequate and/or hard to replicate, have no direct substitutes, and enable companies to pursue distinguishing business opportunities (Barney, 1991). Thus, the concept of human resources as a source of competitive advantage shows that the people have competencies, experiences, and knowledge which provide significant economic value to the company. Barney and Wright (1998) even disclosed that in order for human resources to bring in sustained competitive advantage, they must remain hard to imitate, create value, and co-align, uniquely, to the organization's business strategy. These are just some of the reasons why HRM are described as central, senior management driven strategic activity, which is developed, owned and delivered by management. They work for the management and at the same time their ore competencies are targeted to benefit the whole management and the whole members of the human resource. B. To what extent is human recourse management driven by senior management in your organisation and in what ways does the HR manager, or the person responsible for HR in you organisation (or an organisation known to you), work with senior management to promote the interests of the organisation through its HRM strategies? Recommendations to improve effectiveness should be included. Human resource is one of the most important aspects of the business. This is the area of the business where the full force of operation is coming from. The people are the human resource. They are what make the business flourish or fail. With this reason alone, it is extremely important that the human resources are managed properly and effectively. It can be noted that through the years, the roles played by the human resources have been changing dramatically. The changes are in response to the every-changing requirements of the business world, which may include trends in globalization, technology, diversity, e-business and even ethics. In the past, the human resources people are only expected to do certain responsibilities which are related to maintaining employee personal and professional records, keeping track of the salaries and wages of each and every employee and managing employee benefits. Today, these tasks are also part of the human resources’ roles but there have been more things that were added. Now, the human resources people are entrusted to perform different activities which will contribute to the better performance of the whole organization (Buhler, 1999). Because of this bigger responsibility, most companies nowadays, assign an HR Manager to oversee the whole human resource department’s programs and activities. It may be good to note that in the present scenario, HR Managers are now perceived as a member of the top management of the company. In should be noted there have been drastic changes with the way different businesses have been operating lately. The so called ‘information age’ has evidently invaded most industries. Because of internet and other forms of information technology, ideas and information are very much accessible to everyone (including the competitors). However, the ability to imitate and/or adapt with technology, still comes from the employees. People are the core of a company's competitive success in the marketplace. And this is where the human resource department becomes critical to a firm's success. It should be noted that two trends are at play with the human resource departments. The departments themselves are becoming smaller. Yet at the same time, the organization-wide influence of the department is definitely increasing. The HR departments today are emphasizing "higher-value activities" with company wide benefits that add value to the organization. This shift has been described as one from a "micro view" to one of a "macro view" of the department's role in the organization. Dave Ulrich stated that "achieving organizational excellence must be the work of HR." The work of HR cannot be disconnected from the real work of the firm, but rather must be clearly integrated with the work of the business (Buhler, 1999). Most organizations have recognized the increasing importance of human resources and have signaled this to the organization by including the top ranking human resource executive in the dominant coalition of the firm. That is, there is usually a vice president of human resources that sits with top management from all the other functional areas of the firm and assists in determining the strategic direction of the company. This is a critical move for organizations since the human resource strategy must be closely aligned with the overall strategy of the organization of the firm to ensure success. In addition, all the functional level strategies must be closely aligned. With this alignment of strategy, the human resource department can then better partner with managers throughout the organization to help meet corporate wide objectives. If these two strategies are not closely aligned, the firm will find itself pulling in different directions and not making any progress toward meeting goals (Buhler, 1999). More organizations are restructuring their human resource departments to reflect the true partnership with operational managers throughout the firm. In many cases, a human resource generalist is permanently assigned to a business unit - almost in a consultant's role. This individual then learns this business and develops an understanding of the drivers of this business. This understanding is then translated into a better grasp of how they can assist their business unit in meeting its business level objectives (Buhler, 1999). With this structure, this HR generalist provides all the HR support for this unit and simply draws upon specialists in the corporate HR department. For instance, the HR generalist assigned to a specific business unit may conduct a needs assessment and identify particular training needs. The corporate HR training specialist may then be called upon to actually deliver the training program (if the generalist is not qualified). This structure allows for more flexibility and can be more responsive to the needs of the various business units. The HR individual assigned to the SBU really learns the business and can translate the business needs to specific support in the HR department. Some organizations choose to structure in a more centralized manner with a corporate human resource department that supports each of the strategic business units. The HR department includes specialists who provide the same services to all the SBUs (Buhler, 1999). That is, a given training specialist may deliver a training program to all the employees of all the business units. Managers from the operational units are given support from the entire HR department. This structure allows for HR employees to become resident experts in their given field and the managers throughout the organization benefit from this expertise. Unfortunately, some firms find themselves being less responsive to the business unit's specific needs and instead simply offering what they have - versus delivering what is needed. Indeed, the changes that occurred in the roles of human resources are very noticeable. This can be attributed to the fact that the contribution of the human resource to the success of any business is also noticeable and immeasurable. References: Alchian, A. & Demsetz, H. (1972). Production, information costs, and economic organization. American Economic Review, 62, 777-95. Barney, J. (1991). Firm resources and sustained competitive advantage. Journal of Management, 17, 99-120. Barney, J. & Wright, P. 1998. "On Becoming a Strategic Partner: The Role of Human Resources in Gaining Competitive Advantage." Human Resource Management, 37: 31-46. Becker, G. 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