Human Resource Management - Essay Example

SUMMARY

Thesis: The transformation of human resource management from an administrative and operational perspective to becoming a strategic partner is important in attaining the organizations objectives through improving productivity of the staff.

Summary: In becoming a strategic partner, the human resource management team of an organization enables the staff to better meet their goals through the establishment of partnership between the human resource of the organization and the management. In the strategic partnership, the organization can undertake staff development through training and wall as ensure proper motivation of the staff to enhance their morale in the production process. As a strategic partner, the management of the organization becomes a leader and shares its vision and objectives with the staff thus resulting in better attainment of the organization goals and objectives. Furthermore, through motivating the employees of the organization to attain the goals and objectives of the organization, the business can better compete in the environment because of the dedicated workforce that strive to excel in the production or service provision activities within the organization. The strategic approach in human resource management contrary to the administrative and operational approaches that were initially used in the production process utilizes a humanistic approach whereby the staff is viewed as individuals first prior to unit of production. The strategic partnership approach therefore enables the employees to be part of the organization through sharing in the objectives and goal that are set by the leadership of the organization thus resulting in increased productivity of the employees.

DISCUSION

Human resource management entails a consistent and a judicious approaches to the organization's management of the valuable assets present in a body, in this case, the people who, by working in an organization contribute to the achievement of the organizational objectives (Truss et al., 2012). By focusing on policies and systems of an organization, the human resource management can successfully engage in control and actively manage the employees in an organization. The paper explores a brief history of human resource management and the importance of transformation of human resource management from primarily administrative and operational approaches into being more strategic in the approach to organization human resource management. The paper is based on the importance of human resource management in the success of the business mainly because of the valuable nature of employees and the management in attaining the organization’s goals.

Traces of application of principles underlying human resource management are evident during the prehistoric times, such as during the selection of tribal leaders and screening techniques that were employed by the Chinese between 2000BC to 1500BC (Akingbola, 2015). All such actions called for training of individuals for jobs through practices such as apprenticeship that assured candidates would attain the much needed knowledge and skill for a productive workmanship. Moving from the ancient training, during the industrial era the employee specialists in the early days were called personnel managers who performed a set of steps in ensuring that the business had the best workforce that is suited for the job through undertaking staffing activities (Akingbola, 2015). The staffing activities include recruitment, selection, and training of workers to ensure that the individuals that are identified are best suited for the task at hand. However, personnel managers had no real relationships with the activities of an organization such as providing leadership or establishment of interpersonal relationships but rather the personal managers were mainly involved in ensuring that the employees worked towards attaining the organizations goal through their performance.

In the United States and the United Kingdom, personnel management developed faster and earlier than any other place. The process of personnel management, however, created came with monotony in the working environment and facilitated the existence of hazardous jobs that culminated into divisions between management (Biswas et al., 2013). With time, the human resource management was graced by theorists such as Marx (1900) and Frederick Taylor. Marx could identify potential conflicts between the employees and the employer interests, an approach that had an extensive view of the modern-day management. The management theorists could later embrace the emerging models from psychological and sociological research. Achievement of greater organizational goals was boosted by the behavioral theories by Frederick Taylor and Henry Ford.

The implementation of the strategy is essential in the development of an organization. The era of administrative and operational approaches was marred by confusion and ambiguity, yet with the valuable tool as working personnel. Currently, organizations are embracing strategic human resource management due to reasons benefiting an organization. In the management of output and production within an organization, strategic human resource management has a role in strategy formulation (Wynn-Williams, 2016). Through strategy formulation, details regarding any incentive plans by the competitors can easily be provided, as well as information on opinion survey data from employees. Customer complaints can also be easily fetched and considered when strategic management is in place. As opposed to the more operational and administrative approaches, the opinion data from the employees can also be obtained and complaints efficiently addressed due to adequate competitive intelligence (Wynn-Williams, 2016). Therefore through strategic management, an organization can attain valuable knowledge regarding the business environment that can be used in managing competition as well as improving upon the productivity of the employees.

Human resource strategic management emphasizes management of personnel as business resource (Wynn-Williams, 2016). As such, human resource management that incorporates strategic approaches will foster recruitment if new employees into the business. The company’s culture is squarely represented by the employees therein. Recruitment forms an integral part of an organization while ensuring that new hires are well inducted into the organizational culture. The advantage was not well realized in the more operational and administrative human resource management approaches that majorly emphasized departmental operational success (Wynn-Williams, 2016). In various organizations, among the services that are being emphasized upon is being able to produce goods or services that address the needs of the people and therefore human resource provided the customers with a touch of human experience through the provision of products and service by the organization. For example in the service industry, customers services are considered to be among the key to success to success for the business therefore through the human resource services offered by the organization, this goals can be attained.

Strategic human resource management would also bring with it new ways of valuation of assets as well as new approaches to valuation of capital measurement (García-Alcaraz & Maldonado-Macías, 2016). The valuation process entails an assessment of employees and comparison of the organizational assets with an ideal employee profiles. The steps towards the building of better businesses are evident when looking proper evaluation of jobs and skills as presented by human resource management approaches that remain strategic. The many fit-gap analyses that the organizational goals through strategic human resource management are what partly motivate an organization towards aligning the plans and the initiatives with the core objective of the business (García-Alcaraz & Maldonado-Macías, 2016). In the present business environment, aspects such as motivation of staff and interpersonal relationship within the workplace in emphasized because these are among the factors that determine the productivity of the employees. For example, an organization may set up policies such as code of ethics and policies guiding the safety of employees in the work environment so as to enhance the morale of the staff at work. In return, the organization benefits from the motivated employees through increased efficiency and effectiveness in the production process or provision of services in the environment.

The proposals that come with strategic human resource management generate arguments, relevant data, and information unlike the administrative and operational approach whereby the employees are just seen as units if production rather than humans (Akingbola, 2015). Through such recommendations, an organization built on strategic human resource management will be able to distinguish between the old and the new human resource functions. The advanced resource functions are result oriented while ensuring that the employees therein can accept internal and external environmental changes that may come with beneficial organizational restructuring. The coordination of plans of an organization with other functions and the initial approval of the plans is also fostered by the assumption of strategic management of human resource by an organization (Akingbola, 2015). Streamlined human resource process can bring agility and efficiency to the human resource department. The resultant effect is that the employees and the managers can provide the right input to the organization, precisely involving the human resource processes and procedures.

Moreover, through strategic human resource management, an organization by way of utilizing the available human resource can outsource the processes that rarely add value to the current organizational world (Wynn-Williams, 2016). The human resource managers can, therefore, spend time with internally positioned clients, focusing on the delivery of specific strategic goals. Henceforth, a realization of a highly-performing human resource organization becomes possible. Other than getting rid of the old process, strategic human resource management comes with a capacity to manage functional skills consistently. Such includes the strategic workforce planning which does not go down so well with the line managers. However, the planning is significantly influenced in which the headcount fails to recognize history. Strategic formulation is an item that is well established in the present organizational structure and function (Akingbola, 2015). What follows strategic formulation is environmental scanning, which helps organizational management in identification of opportunities and threats as they present in the environment. Furthermore, in this regard, the role of HRM comes during the scanning of the prevailing external environment, during which the organization identifies specific threats and opportunities. Subsequently, an organization can exploit the opportunities and avoid the threats presented by the environment. An example of an organization with well-established SHRM is the Daw Chemical Company. Through the six-sigma intervention initiative, the company generated US$ 3.2 million as appositive financial impact (Truss et al., 2012). The stigma intervention initiative involved enhancement of the organizational, operational efficiencies which resulted in competitive advantage as compared to the competitors. The resultant processes due to the stigma intervention initiative were processes that synchronized well with socio-cultural systems of the Dow chemical’s organization. Therefore through such changes that are enjoyed by the organization due to the use of strategic human resource management, it is evident that the administrative and operational human resource management is ineffective in achieving the desired organizational goals in the present day economy.

Just like it was evident with Dow Chemicals Company, SHRM lead to strategic thinking (Akingbola, 2015). The human resource managers that employ strategic HRM think about the daily activities in the context of whether they benefit organizational development. Strategic thinking can relegate previously important issues as non-relevant, and the voices in the form of opinions by SHR managers become crucial in the decision-making. The move to embrace SHRM is also informed by the possible positive pressure created by the employees (Truss et al., 2012). Such employees are faced with the pressure to learn new, which is embedded in their capacity to have skills related to facilitation, negotiation, and leadership. The strategic agenda of the organization is a huge participant in fuelling of this pressure as the employees decide on what is important to a company and additionally, what would influence the results of business.

In conclusion, the transformation of human resource managers in the present day market from being predominantly administrative and operational in their approach to staffing to a more strategic approach is important in attaining the objective of the business. In accordance to the discussion of the paper, a shift from the traditional administrative and operational approach to a strategic approach is caused by the need for interpersonal relationship and human touch in the provision of services. Therefore the strategic approach to human resource management is important in ensuring that and organization attains its goals in the present day business environment. This is because strategic human resource management includes the consideration of factors such as the motivation of employees and interpersonal relationships within the work environment that ensures increased productivity of the staff.