Human Resource Training Strategy - Essay Example

Business Table of Contents Organizational Strategy 3 Human Resource Training Strategy 5 Business Strategy 7 Reference 11 Bibliography 12 Organizational Strategy Organizational strategy is the basis on which organizations adapt to their business environments. Organizations have increasingly realized the importance of competitive advantage and how it comes with intangible, knowledge and capabilities, and the relationships created and generated by employees within the organization and rather from making investments in physical assets and access to capital. Organizational strategy therefore requires that all business units, support units and employees are aligned and linked with the business strategy. The most important management responsibility in this context is to design, create and implement organizational strategies which are best suited to the demands of the market, its customers and the business model. However, since the competitors in the market would also have access to the same or similar information and might develop the same strategies, it is crucial that it must consider its organizational design as its most important strategic weapon. Some of the factors to be kept in consideration are as follows (Heracleous, p.XIV). Firstly identifying the right organizational strategy suited for executing the business strategy of the firm is important. This must be followed by identifying its own operating capabilities and sources of competitive advantage. Organizations can only act according to its business strategies if management designs the right way for them to do so. The most important factor in this context is strategy and structure alignment in designing its capabilities in a completely informed and rational manner. Some of the problems that might arise in the process are the strategy changes that might have implications or poor alignment with the organizational design and structure; need for restructuring of organizational parts due to sudden changes in technologies and other competitive pressures; organizational growth demanding changes in organizational design and finally, poor execution and organizational effectiveness (Jensen, p.5). The first phase in this alignment is gathering and organizing of data which is then fed to the management in a way which supports validation and learning. The management reaches out on the many different key issues, causal factors and problems and organizational requirements. This is followed by the design process which includes scale and leverage assessment, designing vertical alternatives and lateral structures etc. Since organizational structures work through trade-offs the various alternatives are evaluated through with regards to their fit with requirements, impact of implementation etc. Based on the evaluation the new organizational structure is created with clear roles and responsibilities; development of values and norms for the alignment of culture with strategy; designing rewards and metrics etc (Jensen, p.5). A theory of management has three main components, a set of assumptions regarding the attitudes and behaviors of humans, the managerial practices, policies and actions consistent with the assumptions, and expectations regarding the performance of employees if the policies are implemented. Research reveals that organizational structure affect the performance of a firm. There are evidences which show that a firm’s performance declines considerably when the strategies are not rightly matched with the appropriate structure and controls. The structure necessarily specifies the work which needs to be conducted and how to do it also. It influences the way managers perform their work activities and the decisions resulting from the same. Supporting the organizational structures, strategies are concerned with the processes used for conducting the task activities. Effective structures provide the stability and steadiness towards an organization’s needs and requirements to establish and implement its strategies. It also helps to maintain and its present competitive advantage also simultaneously helps to provide the flexibility towards developing such advantages which can be required in future. The success of organization strategies is primarily and necessarily based on its structural flexibility which provides it with the opportunity to venture and explore competitive possibilities and then allocate resources and factors to such activities which enable shaping of the competitive advantage of the firm which can be critical and necessary for its future. One example can be provided in this context. Cisco is an organization in which the management system accounts for proving the needed skills, speed and flexibility. Cisco attains this through using team based processes as per the requirements of its basic structure and allows it to exploit its present advantages and at the same time venturing into future possibilities too (Hitt, Ireland & Hoskisson, p.319). Human Resource Training Strategy Organizations have increasingly felt the need for implementing training and development programs during the times of hiring new employees and for raising the performance level of existing employees. Additionally, with the rapidly changing global environment and introduction and advancement of new technologies the need for training and updating the existing skills of employees has also increased. Training needs might arise out of an immediate requirement for new employees with new expertise, for expansion of headcount of the company or even for enhancing the level of performance of staffs for overall performance and productivity improvement of the organization on the whole. Firstly the training needs must be aligned with the business goals and objectives of the organization. In order to ensure that the training strategies are aligned with the requirements in the organization while designing, buying or delivering of the training program the business goals and objectives must be necessarily be identified first to support the training process. The goals can differ between organizations, namely organizations can go for reduction in expense, increase in revenue or even regulation compliances in which the industry or the government can ask organizations to provide such courses needed for preventing errors and fines from the regulatory agencies (Biech, P.27). Training and development necessarily begins with a training needs analysis strategy. Under this the present level of performance of employees are noted and the desired level of performance is also identified. If it is seen there is a gap between the present performance of employees and the performance which is expected of them a training requirement is felt in the organization. Most importantly this step highlights the skill gaps and the extent of shortage of the skills in employees too. It is obvious that training needs would be different for different employees according to their skill availability and level of performances. Based on the skill shortages the types of training and development to be delivered are identified. However, type of training might vary between individuals; there can be behavioral training and technical training also. Training can also differ from person to person according to their types and characteristics. For example, there can be on-the-job training or even off-the-job training programs. Training can be provided by members within the organization or even by someone who is hired from outside the organization. Depending on the need of the organization the training programs are settled. Organizations can also require behavioral training for employees. In such cases coaching can be provided by experienced and knowledgeable professionals. Recently coaching has emerged as a very important training type for enhancing the skills and performances of employees. This is because under or low performance does not always necessarily result from lack of skills. It can also result from mental blocks, frustrations at the workplace, de-motivations which can be correctly identified through coaching. Thus coaching and mentoring has evolved as important forms of training programs lately. It is crucial to determine exactly what training is needed for employees and to which extent. The success of training and development strategies in organizations is primarily dependant on the extent of success of the fulfilling the training needs and requirements of employees. Moreover if there is no skill level improvement of employees the training modules would not be treated as successful (Saks & Haccoun, p.210). The above step is followed by making an analysis of the changes in performance level of employees. Training must necessarily lead to a change in the level of performance of employees and the change must necessarily be an improvement. Fall in performance level or no change in employee productivity and performance depicts the failure of the training and development strategy in the organization. Most importantly it must be ensured that the changes in performance levels are in alignment with the organizational goals and objectives. If it is a revenue improvement program then the performance level changes must reflect through revenue improvement for every employee. In case of an overall productivity improvement every employee must account for a change in his performance and productivity level. Training evaluation would comprise of the extent to which the training programs has been effective to attain the new goals and objectives. Failure to meet that goal can be treated as a failure of the training programs in the organization (Rae, p.17). Business Strategy The very purpose of any business strategy is to tightly exploit the resources and capabilities of an enterprise with the aim of gaining and attaining competitive advantage in the market by catering to its customers’ need and requirements in a chosen marketplace. An effective business strategy exploits the scopes in business, understands’ customers’ needs and knows how it can exploit its own advantages and finally attain competitive advantage in the market. It identifies the main actions which are necessary in implementing the strategy and the particular reasons why these changes are considered necessary (Sears, p.31). Mathur and Kenyon (1997) have opined that organizations must separate competitive strategy for each offering made by the company. For example a 100 gram jar offering of Nescafe must have a different business strategy from a 200 gram offering of the same product. This is a very elegant practice theoretically but can have several problems in reality. The process of division of business strategy so finely is not only difficult but it is also impossible to implement such fine grained business strategies. The strategy must begin with a strategy documentation stating clearly the answers to each question supported by key facts and summarized analysis (Sears, p.31). There must be a statement regarding the strategic intentions of a business or that which it expects to become or attain in near future. It must provide detailed outline as how this future is different from its present conditions. However, this strategic intent of the business must be related to the strategic intentions of the enterprise on the whole and must have relevance with all other corporate strategies (Benson, Bugnitz, Walton & Walton, p.158). This must be followed by the strategic assessments which include making in-depth internal and external business environment of the firm and capabilities of the enterprise. This segment also provides the present status assessment of the firm and its future prospects in business. The next step is to put forth the strategic choices before the firm with supporting rationale. The particular reasons for making a choice over another must be spelt out clearly and must be persuasive. It is desirable to reflect how each choice matches with the strategic intent of the firm (Benson, Bugnitz, Walton & Walton, p.158). There must be clear statement of the goals and objectives of the business strategy. Measurable and supporting goals are considered to be extremely valuable for the business. However, business objectives must not always be communicated in financial terms. Rather they should set the note of fundamental nature of the business or the culture that must be adopted for catering customer needs and stakeholder’s needs and requirements. After this step the strategy must outline the principle actions which must be undertaken for implementing the strategy and making it happen (Benson, Bugnitz, Walton & Walton, p.158). The principle concern in any business must be to meet the real needs of the customers which also accounts for the principle driving factor of the business. It is the responsibility of the marketing functions of the business to understand the needs of customers, how this need differs between individuals and groups and how they have been changing. Thus business strategies do bear a close association with the marketing people and are necessarily market driven. However, it must be understood that business strategies are different from marketing strategies. Business strategies are more influenced by the strategic intentions, human and also financial constraints than marketing strategies (Evans, p.93). The second most important drivers of business strategies are the competence of the firm. Different analytical methods can be employed for identifying capabilities of firms and measuring resources too. The ultimate need is to differentiate the firm from its competitors with regards to its core competencies and. This happens to be one of the crucial needs of business as it is seen that most business strategies go wrong or become unsuccessful because of their failure to identify their core competencies and the needs of customers. It is important for the strategy to realize the issues associated with competitive advantage. This might demand the admission that the former competitive advantages can be eroded. It has been out forth by John Kay (1999) that all businesses move through certain good and certain bad times and that it is not possible to attain competitive advantage permanently. The strategy must essentially mention the basis for competition and how it keeps changing such that it can tap the changes and take advantage of it. Lastly the strategy must identify the basic initiatives required for implementation of the strategy. For this it must record the business process changes, changing cultures and organizational changes too. Attainable and measurable objectives must be set before implementing the strategy and a specific time scale in which it needs to be attained. To summaries it all, business strategy comprises of the exploitation of resources and capabilities of any firm for attaining competitive advantage of the same in the market through serving the needs of people at the marketplace (Evans, p.93-94). Reference Benson, R. J., Bugnitz, T. L., Walton, W. & Walton, B. From business strategy to IT action: right decisions for a better bottom line. John Wiley and Sons. (2004). Biech, E. 10 Steps to Successful Training. American Society for Training and Development. (2009). Evans, N. D. Business agility: strategies for gaining competitive advantage through mobile business solutions. FT Press. (2002). Heracleous, L. T. Strategy and organization: realizing strategic management. Cambridge University Press. (2003). Hitt, M. A., Ireland, R. D. & Hoskisson, R. E. Strategic Management: Competitiveness & Globalization, Concepts. Cengage Learning. (2010). Jensen, M. C. Foundations of organizational strategy. Harvard University Press. (1998). Rae, L. Using evaluation in training and development. Kogan Page Publishers. (1999). Saks, A. M. & Haccoun, R. R. Managing Performance through Training and Development. Cengage Learning. (2010). Sears, D. Successful talent strategies: achieving superior business results through market-focused staffing. AMACOM Div American Mgmt Assn. (2002). Bibliography Hamel, & Prahalad, C. K. Strategic Intent. Harvard Business Press. (2010). Read More