Strategic Issues Considered in Developing Human Resource Plans - Example

Strategic Issues Considered In Developing Human Resource Plans and Polices In the Field of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Values and Sustainability Name Institution Course Instructor Date Abstract There are various defined strategic topologies that can be applied by various organizations during their planning and policy making. These topologies are applied depending on the organizations’ activities although they are not limited to them. For the successful running of an organization, human resources should be well managed and catered for. An organization should always fight to sustain its valuable assets that facilitate its operations. Additionally, an organization must always observe ethical and legal values in its operation. The welfare of the neighbouring community should always be put among the most important aspects that an organization considers during its daily activities. An organization should always have a way of developing values and sustaining these values. In this regard the paper focuses on the various strategic issues that should be considered for an organization to experience an overall growth and success. This report is written to evaluate the strategic issues that should be considered while preparing plans and policies to govern human resource management. Additionally, it evaluates strategic issues addressing corporate social responsibility as well as values and sustainability. In conclusion it is established that for proper growth and development of an organization, strategic human resource management is required as well as respect to the surrounding environment. It is recommended that organization should always include all its stakeholders when while strategizing so as to ensure each stakeholder feel represented and therefore work as part of an organization. Table of Content Abstract 2 1.0 Introduction 4 1.1 Key Strategic Issues Required in Preparing Human Resource Plans and Policies 5 1.2 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 9 1.3 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Values and Sustainability 11 2.1 Conclusion 14 References 16 1.0 Introduction 4 1.1. Key Strategic Issues Required in Preparing Human Resource Plans and Policies 4 1.2 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) 8 1.3 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Values and Sustainability 11 2.0 Conclusion and recommendation……………………………………………………..………12 2.1 Conclusion 12 2.2 Recommendation ……………..………………………………………………………………13 References 14 1.0 Introduction The purpose of this report is to evaluate the strategic issues that would be addressed while developing human resource plans and policies, corporate social responsibilities as well as values and sustainability. A strategy is an arrangement for relating with a competitive setting to attain goals of an organization. Goals delineate where an organization is heading to while strategies delineate the means an organization should apply to get to its defined destination. The strategy of an organization simply refers to the techniques an organization should apply in an attempt to accomplish its mission and attain its long and short term goals. There are various strategic methods that are applied by various organizations depending on organization setting. These strategic methods are what define an organization and thus they need to consider the chief aspect issues faced by an organization. This report focuses on the main strategic issues that must be considered while developing human resources plans and policies in corporate social responsibility, value and sustainability. Subsequently, the report goes on to further discuss key strategic issues necessary to be considered in preparing and developing human resource plans and policies. It then discusses key strategic issues in respect to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) whilst providing an overview on the importance of CSR. In addition, this research report explains strategic issues in the context of value and sustainability and goes on to further identify five strategic aspects that should be put into consideration. Finally, a conclusion is arrived at that in order for an enterprise to succeed in its business, it has to exercise good practices both within and outside its environment. 1.1 Key Strategic Issues Required in Preparing Human Resource Plans and Policies Recently, organizations have turned out to be much more challenging to work in. Increasingly, workers are expected to perform in their respective fields and also expected to come up with ways of improving their work, manage their personal ongoing learning process, contribute to efforts of change and attain new performance levels. In this regard, human resource managers are trying to work in collaboration with other organization workers in developing policies and plans that would enable smooth learning of an organization in a strategic way. According to Chopra et al. (2008), strategic human resource management is a planned pattern of deployment of human resources and activities anticipated to facilitate an organization in achieving its defined goals. There are a number of strategic issues that need to be considered in developing good policies and plans to govern human resources needs and challenges in an organization. According to Groschl (2007), an organization’s working condition, education level of the workers, working facilities, the number of workers in relation to work available among others, are some of the factors to be considered while developing human resource strategic plan and policies. According to Walt et al. (2002), organization policies can be highlighted by use of three strategies. The first strategy views policies as technologies forces or wider socio-economic by-product and therefore, in the human resources’ case, expansion of an organization results to the pressure of developing workforce training. The second description is that adoption of policy by a particular organization holds externalities for other similar organization, thus forcing them to adopt specific policies to be able to generate a specific standard for competition purposes. This include recruiting qualified personnel, offering training to new and existing workers, offering better salaries and good working conditions. And lastly, adoption of policies due to an organization’s set standards, where there are set qualification standard before an organization, qualify to be recognized in a particular region. Therefore, an organization must contain specific basic policies to define its operation processes. Thus, before setting policies in a human resources department, the three strategies need to be considered. These strategies has been applied in medical research organization and resulted to a great success in distribution of workforce to the marginal areas. Different organizations are faced with different challenges. To deal with these challenges, an organization needs to develop plans and policies based on the faced challenges as well as, the speculated future challenges. According to Muller (2012), to handle such situation an organization should make intentional choices among them cropping alternatives. Additionally, an organization should make a decision that would ensure that it has acted on and eliminated the challenge rather than just reacting to the problem. Hamdan and Defever (2003) indicate that in such a situation, an action plan to handle the existing problem to develop long-term goals measures needs to be developed so as to ensure a comprehensive elimination of the problem and prevention of its reoccurrence. Strategy involves making decision of and selection on particular issues depending on the situation. According to Public Service Secretariat (2008), there are four particular approaches that can be involved in plans and policies development in human resource strategizing. These approaches include best practice, configuration, RBV-Recourse based view and best-fit. Best practice technique involves management of HPHR practices and HCM-human capital to better the way an organization manages and reacts to necessary alterations. Configuration technique involves constructing strategic proficiency across an organization through both vertical and horizontal fit. RBV-resource based approach involves developing strategies around resources and capabilities of an organization. And finally, the best-fit approach that entails initiating structural alterations to sustain strategic direction. Hiltrop (1998) believes that efficient application of any of the four approaches would enable an organization to schedule for proper approaches to handle its human resource and also develop relevant policies that would guide an organization to great all round success. According to Chopra et al. (2008), policy makers and human resource organization planners’ need to conduct a systematic review to aid them to synthesise, appraise, select and identify the major issues that need to be addressed while making new policies or plans in an organization. These systematic reviews could elevate policy makers’ confidence regarding the possible effects of various policy options and lower high opportunity cost risk associated with inappropriate policies implementation. Additionally, systematic reviews can enlighten policy makers on how a specific policy alternative was implemented in various contexts and on how they could gauge it in their current context. In such cases, Chopra et al. indicates that it is advisable to list all possible options, point out effects and results for which evidence lacks or evidence exist, analyse the results and weigh on the best option to cater for the prevailing condition (Lengnick-Hall et al., 2009). Employees are an important aspect of organization and therefore should be respected and treasured to ensure efficiency in an organization. According to Hamdan and Defever (2003), while drawing plans and policies of an emerging organization, human resource should be the most prioritized aspect for it is the foundation of an organization and its success highly depends on workers’ efficiency. Therefore Hamdan and Defever indicate that policies should cater for a balance between the work available in the organization and the number of workers present. For a successful operation, workers should always work at the recommended time and should do a reasonable work piece. Additionally, the organization should make plans on employees training. Hamdan and Defever urged that no assumption should be made regarding technological knowhow of the employee in an organization. The second aspect policy makers should emphasis on is enhancement of professional standards and quality, coupled with plans towards improving workers professional organizations development of various professional fields. This is mostly applied in medical health organization. According to Al-Zboon and Hasan (2012), for successful planning, there are six strategic stages that an organization needs to follow. The first stage involves planning. At this stage, the organization gets into preliminaries of coming up with a schedule to be applied in its daily operation. The second stage is strategic analysis where the organization’s scope and future expansion are analysed and documented so as to be considered in drawing the final plan and policies. The third stage involves strategic direction appointing where the organization’s mission, vision and goals are clearly defined and documented to be applied all through the company’s operations (Lengnick-Hall et al, 2009) . The fourth stage involves strategic formulation where executive plans for controlling and governing operations in an organization are clearly defined. The fifth stage, strategic implementation stage, defines practiced events and group of activities for executing the comprehensive plans and the results presented by the activities, for instance feedback which increases plan execution efficiency. The last stage is strategic control. It involves supervision of the implemented part of the plan and ensures that all the aspects defined in it are completely followed and effectively achieved. These six strategic stages were applied by Al-Zboon and Hasan (2012) in developing plan for an academic organization. 1.2 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) According to Neil (2012), corporate social responsibility is a responsibility that goes beyond what is required by economics and law, for an organization to pursue lasting goals, which are of high-quality to the society. Corporate social responsibility focuses on business continuous commitment to act ethically and add to the development of economy while improving life quality of the workforce as well as, their relations and that of surrounding community and society in general. It concentrates on how an organization controls its business procedures to create a general affirmative impact on the society. According to Beneke et al. (2012), corporate social responsibility entails performing business operations in an ethical manner and in the wider community interest. An organization with social responsibility positively responds to emerging societal expectations and priorities. Additionally, it has an enthusiasm to act prior to regulatory confrontation, balancing interests of stakeholder against that of extensive community and acting as an excellent citizen in the society. Obeua (2012) argues that CSR overlaps clearly with business ethics. In his perspective, the two concepts regard decision, objectives and values based on a little more than profits’ pursuit. To ensure success, a socially responsible organization needs to act ethically. Obeua also indicated that CSR concerns obligation of an organization to all stakeholders. For successful strategizing, CSR should be governed by four dimensions. These dimensions include economic, legal, ethical, philanthropic and voluntary. Economical dimension pressure an organization to take responsibility of earning profits for its owners. Legal dimension forces an organization to comply with wrong and right codification of the society. Ethical dimension guides an organization in doing what is fair, just and right, and not actions based on profit making only. Lastly, philanthropic and voluntary dimension promotes human goodwill and welfare in an organization. Consequently, Obeua (2012) goes on to argue that a well strategized CSR develops behaviour that can profit an organization in various ways. Some of the experienced benefits, apart from increase in profit log, are seen in that an organization is able to retain and attract staff, attract ethical and green investment, attract customers that are ethically conscious, result to cost reduction through re-cycling and act as a competitive advantage source for it thus distinguishing an organization from its competitors. For an organization to meet its full social responsibility, it should develop a process to incorporate human rights, ethical, environmental and social concerns into its business core strategy and operations in close partnership with all its stakeholders. Obeua indicates that the aim of this integration is to facilitate positive impact, for instance through the novelty of new services and products that are beneficial to the organization and society at large, and to prevent or minimize negative impacts. According to Beneke et al. (2012), to enhance a great CSR, an organization should develop a strategy based on how to enhance good/services dissemination and CSR visibility. This can be done by awards generation and the institution of stakeholders, and enterprises sector-based platforms to make common monitoring process and commitments. The policies should also cater on how to track and improve trust level in business, improve co-regulation and self-regulation processes, enhance CSR market reward, improve environmental and social organization information disclosure, integrating CSR further into research, training and education, and in emphasising the significance of sub-national and national CSR policies. A real CSR has to run through the organization’s lifeblood, permeating each organization’s operations aspect in a manner that would make organization processes redundant. According to Neil (2012), an organization needs to handle its employees with respect, train them to an elevated standard, safeguarding them from dangerous practices and compensating them excellently for their services. Consequently, the organization experiences staff turnover fall, rise in production and company loyalty culture inculcation. Similarly, an organization can ensure that it profits the communities in its surrounding. This can be done by ensuring that the local individuals have equal access to jobs in the organization and not only in least-skilled categories, but also in higher or on all levels of the organization’s operations as long as they have the qualification. Additionally, customers should also be recognised as the organization’s stakeholders and thus an organization should know that every activity taking place in that organization matters to them as much as it does to other stakeholders. Therefore, ensuring a good image to the outside world that consumes organization’s goods and services creates a better ground for growth and expansion of an organization. Quality products and services should be ensured to aid in marketing. This has been applied and ensured a great success in Panasonic and Diamond companies in South Africa. 1.3 Key Strategic Issues Addressing Values and Sustainability According to Coady and Khan (2011), at its best, an organization can ensure five chief imperatives for scaling, managing and planning a creation strategy for sustainable value and offer some practical for each imperative, which can aid to speed up the journey of all organizations searching for an extra sustainable technique to attain higher performance. These imperatives include opportunity recognition, radar recalibration, research repetition development, organization rewiring and lastly value reinforcement. According to Everingham (2012), by thoroughly analyzing the original causes of central business challenges on hand, organizations frequently uncover fundamental societal issues that if handled, they may result into novel competitive advantage sources. It has been established that once the pertinent societal problems have been clearly identified, attaining the goals of creation requirement for sustainable value pinpointing the best role that an organization can play in aiding to address, those problems would be much easier. To achieve this, an organization has to invest in a deeper understanding level of the future development path as it associates with needs of a community. Therefore, radar recalibration imperative focuses on expanding external and internal networks to valve into tends. It also focuses on improving ability of an organization to screen ideas founded on core competencies, strategic fit, uniqueness and need. In developing strategy for a sustainable value in an organization, executives are required to adopt a philosophy of management that is similar to the running of research and development department. For instance, a hands-on method of conducting research on the local market requires the understanding of needs of a society and accommodating a development cycle that is more iterative. Additionally, leaders have to be comfortable with the thought of trying, applying and failing lessons for program refinement over time. As an organization realises first success with creation of sustainable values, it should therefore focus on scaling of programs across the company. Doing this needs important organizational alterations which would include embedding programs of incentives, governance structures and practice of measurement across the organization in strategy support. Lastly, an organization should set a distinctive executive leadership that would ensure success to creation of sustainable value. The overall leader must particularly set the program pace as well as tone and strengthen the value with chief stakeholders that include partners, investors, customers and employees (Bonini and Gorner, 2011). According to Coady and Khan (2011), sustainable value can be developed in various ways. One of the major strategies involves extending similar capabilities at which leading organizations already excel. These would include controlling a complex stakeholders’ ecosystem, markets creation, mobilizing around alteration, investing in innovation and understanding customer requirements. Coady and Khan indicated that this strategy holds huge enterprise transformative potential beyond usual business and dictates the growth of additional leadership, operational and strategic capabilities. Creation of sustainable value presents a stylish resolution. Wherever and whenever possible, it fuses interests of an organization with that of the society. Additionally, it contains transformative power at the individual enterprise level where the strategy acts as a filter via which, all novel business investments and opportunities are evaluated more extensively by assisting an organization to engage with its communities as real partners operating together for common advancement. These strategies have been applied by various successful companies in the world as indicated by their CEO during their interviews (Coady and Khan, 2011). 2.0 Conclusion and Recommendation 2.1 Conclusion For proper growth and development of an organization, an organization needs to develop a strategy that caters for human resource management and sustainability. To achieve this, proper policy making and planning must be ensured. As discussed in this paper, there are various issues that influence the strategies adopted by each organization while developing such policies. Some of these factors include the activity carried out by the organization as well as the challenges faced by an organization. The paper also focuses on corporate social responsibility, which is a responsibility that goes beyond what is required by economics and law, for an organization to pursue lasting goals that are of high-quality to the society. A well strategized CSR develops behaviour that can profit an organization in numerous ways. To enhance a great CSR, an organization should develop strategy based on how to enhance good/services dissemination and CSR visibility. A real CSR has to run through the organization’s lifeblood, permeating each organization’s operations aspect in a manner that would make organization processes redundant. On the other hand, at its best, an organization can ensure five chief imperatives for scaling, managing and planning a creation strategy for sustainable value and offer some practical for each imperative that can aid to speed up the journey of all organizations searching for an extra sustainable technique to attain higher performance. While creating strategy for a sustainable value in an organization, executives are required to adopt a philosophy of management that is similar to the running of research and development department. Sustainable value can be developed by extending similar capabilities at which leading organizations already excel. 2.2 Recommendation To achieve the best, organizations should always include all its stakeholders in planning and policy making. It should as well treat its human resource with respect by developing policies that will not only cater for executive’s needs but also for human resource welfare. An organization should develop a habit of awarding its employees by merit so as to motive. It should as well do its best to maintain a good relationship between it and the surrounding. It should strive to be accepted and appreciated by its neighborhood. Lastly, an organization should keep on updating its policies so as to fit the current situation and while doing so, all relevant groups should be involved. References Al-Zboon, M. S. and Hassan, M. S., 2012. Strategic school planning in Jordan. Education, 132 (4), pp. 809-825. Beneke, J., Wannke, N., Pelteret, E., Tladi, T. and Gordon, D., 2012. Don't bank on it: delineating the relationship between corporate social responsibility and retail banking affinity. South African Journal of Business Management, 43(1), pp. 45-54. Bonini, S. and Gorner, S., 2011. The business of sustainability: putting it into practice. Sustainability & Resource Productivity Practice. McKinsey & Company. Chopra, M., Munro, S., Lavis, J. 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Health Policy, 62, pp. 85-101. Read More