Free Business Dissertations - Introduction The Overall Premise Of Shrm Is That It Should Get Aligned With
Introduction
The overall premise of SHRM is that it should get aligned with business strategy or strategic management of a business. If this is not achieved, then the human resource function is not adding value to a business.
To bring clarity to this premise, it is important to define strategic management as well as strategic human resource management:
Strategy: One of the best definitions existing in all its simplicity is strategic management is a human process beset with all the pitfalls that characterise human attempts to make decisions in conditions of uncertainty, rivalry and limited resources. (Strategy and Human Resource Management, Boxall, Peter and Purcell, John).
Strategic HRM: may be defined as the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable a business to achieve its goals. It is focused on longer-term people issues, organizational culture and its climate with the view to matching resources for future needs. (Source: Corporate and HR Strategy-CIPD).
New Role Required
Dave Ulrich, professor of business at the University of Michigan, has identified 4 new roles for the human resource function. He states that these involve HRM becoming:
A partner in Strategy Execution: This involves contributing to defining an organizational architecture, conducting an organizational audit, renovation in structure, self-assessment and goal setting within the HR department.
An administrative expert: Creation of internal processes within HR department that improve efficiency and credibility.
An employee champion: This involves engaging employees and improving organizational climate.
A change agent: By transforming the base culture of a business that uniformly binds people with common vision and goals. This role involves preparing the organization for facing and managing changes in external environment.
(Source: Ulrich, Dave)
Models and frameworks
There are innumerable thoughts on how HRM can be aligned with business strategy and a number of theoretical frameworks have being proposed. However the bottom line in all these models is clearly that: HRM needs to contribute to business performance and for achieving this goal there need to be clear HR strategies that transform human capital for achieving business goals.
One model that attempts to link HRM to business goals is visually expressed as:
(Source: Boxall, Peter and Purcell, John, Strategy and Human Resource Management, p5)
Essentially this is a broad framework of strategic human resource management and it implies that if a business is able to create an outstanding mix of outcomes across the three areas encompassing labour productivity, organizational flexibility and social legitimacy, it can achieve sustained competitive advantage.
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