HR Specialists Are Still Cinderellas in the Senior Management Team - Coursework Example

HR Specialists are Still “Cinderellas” in the Senior Management Team Insert your name Insert tutor's name here Insert Institution here Insert a date The roles of human resource management (HRM) have remained multifaceted. From the one hand, debate that human resource specialists continue to become “Cinderellas” in the senior management team distorts the very basic structure of management that defines the very ‘senior management team’ (Barney & Clark, 2007). On the other hand, organizational culture steers change management as the ability of managers to acknowledge change as reactive, unpredictable and discontinuous. In such connectedness, Bos-Nehles, Van Riemsdijk and Looise (2013) argue that the senior management team may not have these changes if the role of human resource specialists is continued to be ignored or put in the bracket of Cinderellas. Better still, strategic management has shifted focus from being a one dimensional approach to an idea that seeks human resource managers to understand theories, methodologies and organizational demands (Boxall & Purcell, 2016). It therefore means that if an argument is going to be accepted that indeed HR specialists are still “Cinderellas” in the senior management team then one would first assess the extent to which senior management team can function without the input of HR specialists. To advance this argument, the aim of this essay is to assess the extent to which roles of HR specialists have become defunct and as such, they have little contribution in strategic management. According to Peters (2004) strategic management is misunderstood by group of top managers in organization. Such misunderstanding has brought confusion to an extent that roles played by human resource specialists are blurred. From their thinking, Boxall and Purcell (2011) add that some individual within senior management team think that strategic management is about meeting set organizational goals. In such understanding they have a strong belief that since they can meet these goals then the roles of human resource specialists is becoming redundant. However, this perspective is misleading owing to the fact that strategic management has moved from being a one dimensional approach that senior managers can deal with to a concept that stretches beyond theories, methodologies and organizational demands. Within the context of HRM, strategic management is the process through which experiences are shared on the basis of commonness. The essence of commonality is of great importance to organization as the programs of the organization are therefore likely to be executed from a common point of communication for the overall whole of the numerous components. Secondly, Jiang, Lepak, Hu and Baer (2012) agreed with Boxall and Purcell (2011) while assessing ways in which human resource management influence organizational outcomes by comparing the role of HRM and other senior managers and saw organizational strategic management as one of the critical challenges that affect the functionalities of organizations in the new century. Strategic management requires individuals with operational structures so that they can describe the extent of their structures for communication and other functionalities. These requirements have been brought by economic, social, political and legislative environment under which they operate other senior management may not know how to navigate. The extent to which roles of HRM cannot be matched by any other senior manager was seen in Telstra. Alexandra Badenoch rejoined Telstra in 2015 as human resource manager and introduced competitive advantage which resonated around superior efficiency, innovation and customer responsiveness. In as much as other senior managers such as Tony Warren (he was the group executive of corporate affairs), Andrew Penn (he was Chief Executive Officer by the time Alexandra Badenoch was rejoining) and Joe Pollard (she is chief marketing officer and group executive media) were present when they could not undertake what Alexandra Badenoch introduced. As a result of the input that Alexandra Badenoch introduced as HRM Telstra made the way of technical revolution by the end of 2015. This has enabled the company wade off competitions from rival companies such as Optus. For instance, Optus exaggerated its network coverage area in a TV advertisement---a move that aimed at providing unfavourable condition for operation. Despite these challenges HRM’s superior efficiency, innovation and customer responsiveness enabled Telstra to enjoy the floated economies of scales. To conceptualise this understanding, Telstra made an introduction of bundles with an aim of providing affordable access to popular Foxtel on T-Box channels. This created a platform where innovation and customer responsiveness could be attained. Secondly, the company defines its competitive advantage through its expectations and experiences expressed through shared values (Kehoe & Wright, 2013). Telstra case indicate that roles of human resource managers are still important in organisation and may not replicated or attained by other senior managers as every manager in every organisation has specific role to play within his or her department. Studies now view human resource management as planned process where an organization renews its direction, structures and abilities to serve the dynamics of the organization (Marler, 2012). It is basically a situation where organizations and their human resource managements repeatedly sense, monitor and respond to the internal and external environment in small step but as an ongoing procedure (Paauwe, 2004). Therefore, the extent to which HR specialists are still “Cinderellas” in the senior management team is not defined by such schools of thoughts. Putting this point differently, one factor that distinguishes human resource managers with other senior managers in any organization is their training on situational leadership. Taking for instance contingency theories of leadership, it is only a human resource manager or human resource specialist who will understand how the theory provides an avenue for change and strategic management by allowing human resource specialist to develop situations that can predict and overturn challenges organisations are likely to face (Ren & Chadee, 2017). Unlike other senior managers who might be concerned with issues such as finance, performance indicators or supply chain management, human resource specialist have the training in identifying unstructured or unformulated processes within an organization and as a result, streamline them for the needed strategic management (Trullen, Stirpe, Bonache & Valverde, 2016). Contextualsing these arguments, we take a case from Parmalat Group to provide an example how roles of human resource managers cannot be assumed by other senior managers. Parmalat Group entered into bankruptcy but intervention from human resource manager who undertook the following: Assessing areas of internal control that could assist in the introduction of the needed change Establishment of measures that could help the situation Investigation of principles of corporate governance and changes needed From Parmalat case study roles of strategic management is sometimes confined to human resource managers. The idea that human resource managers do not belong to top team is one thing but advancing the debate that human resource managers do not make contribution to strategic management is in itself deluding the definition and scope of strategic management. For instance, the aim of human resource managers in strategic management is to help organisations reach improvement in service standards to rival other competitors. Experience gained by human resource managers therefore allows such organisations to focus efforts and consolidation of a given set of expertise around the product and not the function. According to Wright and Nishii (2013) this is when such organisations will be able to bring in a more focused set of skills and experiences through decisions made by human resource managers but not with other senior managers as the debate may be advanced. Secondly, any company seeking to be strategic it their management should be able to address the constantly changing business environment in a more flexible and responsible way. For instance, studies have recognised that currently organisations are grappling with product design model and how to ensure that organisations have their products penetrating markets (Jiang, Lepak, Hu & Baer, 2012; Clinton & Guest, 2013). With that in mind, Dipboye (2016) argued that these companies need decision making and contribution to strategic management so that a product design structure and strategic management if applied by human resource specialists will provide the organization with an opportunity to gather cross-functional and diverse teams under each focus segment, and provide customized and effective solution to the smooth running of the organisation. Other than theories of leadership, human resource managers are trained on contemporary problems facing organisations and one of them is leadership and organisational conflict. It is not worth arguing that human resource managers are not making contribution to strategic management if we are dealing with companies that are likely to face leadership and organisational conflict. We need human resource managers to deal with different conflicts that may arise as a result of leadership. Mencl and May (2016) point out that in as much as transformational or transactional leadership approaches may suit any organizational demands, having a trained human resource specialist will be an added advantage to such organisations as they have leadership knowledge and skill in management of change in leadership. Following studies such as Armstrong (2016) we recognize the importance of senior management team. In fact, the researcher puts it categorically that senior managements have advanced their roles by mastering new sets of management operational and financial techniques and disciplines. However, roles of human resource managers are still undisputed since organisations need them for strategies and managerial skills to suit the future happenings and avoid the likely problems in the organization (Jesinoski, Miller & Volker, 2016). Generally, we observe that HR specialists are still cannot be termed as Cinderellas in the senior management team they constantly introduce strategic management skills to the advantage of the organization. Organisations have since evolved and that comes with different management issues such as structure of communication in an organization. Human resource managers are not only trained on hiring and retaining nut implementation of policies that regulate communication within the different ranks. It is therefore imperative that positions of human resource specialist be recognized within senior management positions. Conceptualising this position, communication entails controlling, leading, organising skills and management of different ranks (Yousaf, Sanders & Yustantio, 2016). For these aspects of management to be successful, it is the role of human resource to streamline structure of communication that will guide how roles and responsibilities overlap each other so that there is minimal conflict of interest and duplication of roles within a department or section. Clinton and Guest (2013) observed that the dynamism that have been exhibited in the communication methods has been a relevant choice to adapting communication as an essential skills that only human resource managers can effectively exhibit. Ostroff and Bowen (2016) acknowledged that communication processes within an organisations is not about exchanging ideas, facts, thoughts or feelings. It is about following different structures and theoretical models that have been proposed to guide communication within an organization. According to Marler (2012), human resource managers, unlike other management in an organization have been equipped with training skills on how to use a given approach of communication depending on the structure of management and how orders within the organization are structured. For instance, he observed that human resource managers may propose bottom-up channel of communication if junior employees are not working towards set organizational goals. In contextualizing this argument the author observed that roles of human resource managers cannot be assumed to be defunct just because there are other senior managers. 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