The Design and Implementation of Sets of Strategic Human Resource Practices - Essay Example

The paper "The Design and Implementation of Sets of Strategic Human Resource Practices" is a great example of a management essay. Strategic Human Resource Management falls under strategic management. Strategic management utilizes the Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats (SWOTs) theory in its planning method. In the theory, strategic management involves setting goals for the organization and goes ahead to meet them as planned, this engages strategic resource pooling with the objective of attaining the set goals on the base of the SWOTs theory. Strategic human resource management which is part of Human resource management is defined as the connecting of human resources of an organization with strategic objectives and goals in order to develop organizational culture that enhances innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage while enhancing business performance through the Human Resource activities such as selecting, rewarding, training and recruiting personnel.

Different organizations implement a diverse set of strategic human resource management activities with the objective of attaining the strategic objectives and strategic competitive advantage through the workforce. Design and implementation of SHRM in organizations essentially include activities concerned with staffing, development and employee relation as the essential human resource activities which demand strategic approach. However, some activities which have constituted part of strategic human resource activities include organizational reorganization, workforce planning, linking performance management to mission accomplishment, human resource self-assessment and HRM measurement metrics.

The best fit, or the contingency approach to HRM, is of the opinion that HRM enhances organization performance when there exist close vertical fit between the organization’s strategy and HRM practices. Fit in strategic HRM approach is the concomitance between the management of an organization’s human resource and the overall strategic direction of the organization. Coherence means orderly and logical management of the employees, while consistency means regular and dependable HR activities. Considering suggestions of diverse literature and personal experience the design and implementation of SHRM activities in several organizations have lacked a common metric, coherence and consistency with organizational objectives, therefore the researcher agrees with the view that the design and implementation of sets of 'strategic' human resource practices continue to lack coherence and consistency, primarily because the concept of 'fit' is still so little understood.

Literature review

Different authors have offered contradictory opinions on the subject of “fit” in consideration of strategic human resource management. The relationship of strategic human resource management and the organizational objectives is a controversial subject considering that the relationship is founded on the word “fit”, which defines relative relationships rather than absolute relationship. The “fitness” of strategic Human Resource Management to the organization’s objectives tends to be judged subjectively depending on the perception appraiser, rather than objectively.