Hard and Soft HRM Practices - Assignment Example

According to Wilcox and Lowry, it is the reframing and repositioning of HRM practices as the business's strategic partner that makes employees important economic resources (2006, pp. 50-64).

There are two major views and perspectives when it comes to Human Resource Management. These are the instrumental or hard practices and the humanistic or soft practices. Instrumental practices focus on the quantitative and strategic approaches toward people management. In this case, it mainly provides a highlight of the economic value of human resources. It focuses on how these resources are important in maximizing the performance of the organization (Lee-Ross & Pryce 2010, p. 66). As such, they can be used to provide a firm’s competitive advantage. It is these HRM practices that can be aligned with the other activities in the business and strategies of the organization to promote some of the other additional practices such as restructuring, outsourcing, and downsizing, which are considered to be strategic actions. The instrumental or hard HRM practices include labor legislation. On the other hand, humanistic or soft HRM practices are those that include functions of organizational development, management of conflicts, education of human resources, organizational culture, leadership development, and components that contribute to the building of relationships. They are more employee-centered and put into account the humanness within employees as it considers them to be proactive contributors to the firm (Harris, Wijesinghe & McKenzie 2010, p. 129). It makes more emphasis on the need for commitment, job satisfaction, motivation, trust, and knowledge. In this sense, it helps in the enhancement of the level of employee engagement, development, participation, and autonomy in addition to the participation in decision-making activities and collaboration.

Between these two kinds of HRM practices, it is the humanistic or soft practices that are considered the most effective in terms of performance management,e the instrumental or hard approaches. This is because they not only focus on the employee but overall organizational activities. They can align policies and strategies in HRM with the strategic intentions of the organization. However, it has an added advantage in that it realizes that the recognition of the competitive advantage within the firm can be achieved through the value of its people and their contributions within the firm (Harris, Wijesinghe & McKenzie 2010, p. 134).

It can be clearly shown through its ability to be integrated into the overall strategic functions of the organization. In particular, the humanistic or soft HRM approaches have a more holistic approach toward development and management than the instrumental or hard approach. It can enable frontline staff to take part in a quality culture of empowerment, trust, and engagement.

Conclusion

Managers should always try to globally manage their HRM practices to simply go further than adapt effective strategies from one culture to the other. The introduction of Western HRM practices has reflected the instrumental view of the people and hence proven ineffective. There is thus a need to integrate different approaches through the use of soft HRM approaches.