Best Fit vs Best Practice Essay

Contemporary globalization of businesses and growing global market competition has made effective human resource planning as one of the major strategies to forge ahead and remain proactive. It can be said that an organization 's success lies to a great extent to the knowledge, skills, creativity, and dedication of its workforce. Every aspect of an organization needs human capital to drive its activities or operations to achieve individual strategic goals and objectives towards its purpose of existence, growth, and competitive status. Companies can compete at all levels of the marketplace through improved commitment not only through creativity, innovation, and research, but also human resource development (Truong, Heijden, & Rowley, 2010). In this regard, the human resource planning is needed to ensure a systematic analysis of human resource needs so that the right quantity and quality of employees are always available when required. Fundamentally, organizations are looking for the best people that would help drive them to their desired destination of achieving their missions. Therefore, it is important to develop human resource strategies to support organizational strategies, through measures such as forecasting human resource requirements, and effective strategic staffing. Technically, an organization 's mission, goals, and objectives drive its strategy and human resource (HR) and staffing strategy in an interactive manner. The purpose of this

This assignment will be investigating what constitutes “best practice” in recruitment and selection, and explain what strategies should be used to ensure the best qualified and most effective employees are selected. In particular this essay will focus on;

The "best-fit" approach questions the universality assumption of the best-practice perspective. It emphasizes contingency fit between HR activities and the organization's stage of development, an organization's internal structures and its external environment like clients, suppliers, competition and labour markets (Redman and Wilkinson 2009). HR policy should be minted by the appropriate context of individual employees and therefore support the overall competitive strategy. Aligning HRM practices to strategies can enable companies to create potential competitive advantages (Schuler and Jackson 1987 in Redman and Wilkinson 2009).

CRITICALLY COMPARE AND CONTRAST THE 'BEST FIT', 'BEST PRACTICE' AND 'RESOURCE-BASED VIEW', MODELS OF HRM STRATEGY AND EXPLAIN HOW EACH APPROACH IS ARGUED TO CONTRIBUTE TO IMPROVED ORGANISATIONAL PERFORMANCE.

The following sections, 2.1 – 2.9 provide an overview on the application of best practice as well as a guide to the rationale behind each stage. It is important to note the relationship between each stage and the effect that neglecting the initial planning stages can have on the overall process in terms of the impression applicants may form of the organisation and in terms of recruiting the right person for the role.

Business environment is facing a rapid change that reminds the business management to focus on its core competencies to survive and sustain in the competitive environment. The core competencies can be developed by strategic human resource management. According to Armstrong (2006) employees are the valued assets for a company. The strategic human resource management is mainly developed in accordance to the fact that human resources need to be managed strategically for the company to enjoy sustainable competitive advantage.

Martell and Carroll (1995) stated that there are two types of human resources: strategic and operative. They went on to describe four characteristics of human resource initiatives: (1) They are long-term oriented; (2) They are connected with the corporate strategies; (3) They are connected with the organizational performance; and (4) The line managers are involved in the details of decisions regarding human resource management. Too often, both operations managers and human resource mangers forget that they are working toward the same goal. Often, human resources will adopt policies and procedures that are hard for line managers to implement, and line managers expect human resources to have an inherent understanding of the processes taking place on the plant floor. The relationship between the best human resource practices and organizational performance must always

There is a growing recognition as evidenced by academic literature that the adoption of ‘best’ practice performance management schemes are important to attract and retain high performing talent in the workplace (MacDuffie 1995; Delaney and Huselid 1996; Delery and Doty 1996; cited in Marchington and Grugulis 2000). As established in the works of Jeffrey Pfeffer (1994, 1998; cited in Marchington and Grugulis 2000) there exists a set of ‘best’ human resource practices which if implemented in the workplace can enhance firm performance and can be universally applied to organisations. This implies that a ‘one-size-fits all’ recipe must be inherent in ‘best’ practice human resource management. This paper challenges this notion on the basis that business organisations are dynamic and continuously evolving entities. Therefore, their ability to successfully conform to a set of prescribed rules on people management is questionable. This paper also challenges the research methodology used to determine ‘best’ practice. Further, it is also argued that implementing a one size fits all system to manage people can generate a complete opposite response to what was hoped for. Lastly, the incongruence between the adoption of strict performance based management schemes and efforts by firms to build a team oriented work culture will be analysed. The aforementioned discussion points will be corroborated

The practise of Human Resources is moving from the traditional forms of managing people to a more strategic form whereby the Human Resources function is closely linked with organisational performance and success. This strategic form of human resources has increased the need for the Human Resource professional to understand the linkages between Corporate Strategy, Human Resource Strategy and Employee Integration.

Schuler (1997) summarises Strategic Human Resource Management as expressing how people are to be treated and valued in the workforce as well human resource management's responsibility for articulating the processes which encourage behaviour which is consistent with the organisation's business. In this context strategic human resource management also includes the development of guidelines for the implementation of people-related programs and, the more complex area of co-ordinating and facilitating change.

People are the key to business success. However nowadays of business this is often neglected and people are seen to be a necessary expense. A successful business does not just rely on a person’s power instead it involves continuous effective teamwork and communication. Storey (1995) defines that human resource management is an individual approach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable workforce, using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques.

The yield expected from successful human resource management (HRM) or development (HRD) differs greatly depending on where the organisation is based, its’ culture, resources, size and socio-economic climate. Therefore, it is imperative that the development and delivery of improved human capital via HRM is rooted in the needs of the organisation rather than opting for an ‘off the shelf’ closed option such as ‘Best Practise’ or high performance work practices. Theorists have yet to settle on a definitive model for best practise, which itself suggests a certain degree of flexibility is built into the interpretation of what it could be. Here lies the first contradiction to the pro best practise argument as these rigid principals are yet to be

Talent acquisition, retention and development is becoming into the range as one of the most critical elements of Human Resource Management. For years, companies have struggled to capture market share through economization and downsizing, while growth had seemed to take a backseat. New technology and tools are now available to address attracting, developing and retaining talent.

This paper intends to define, firstly, the Human Resource management, functions and then, broadly, the System in terms of General System Theory. Strategic Human Resource Management has been defined in various ways and by various scholars. Following are the most precise definitions: “Designing and implementing a set of internally consistent policies and practices that ensure a firm’s human capital (employees’ collective knowledge, skills and abilities) contributes to the achievement of its business objectives” (Huselid, Jackson, Schuler and Randoll, 1997: 171) “It is the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable a firm to achieve its goals” (Wright, 1998: 187). First, the Human Resource System, consists

The 21st century workplace environment is established on numerous reforms and transformations in different aspects that constitute the management of human resources. Therefore, the human resource departments in different departments have adopted different approaches to managing their employees. In this regard, most businesses and organizations across the globe have adopted different concepts of strategic human resource management in their operations, particularly, in managing their employees. With this mind, these businesses and organizations consider either best practice or best fit approaches in addressing issues that concerns employees. Speaking from this perspective, this paper will evaluate the ‘best fit/best practices’ approach in relation to strategic HRM.