‘Effective Strategic Human Resource Management Leads to Improvements in Organizational Performance.’ Discuss

HR management is also known as “ A strategic approach to managing employment relations which emphasis that leveraging people’s capabilities is critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, this being achieved through a distinctive set of integrated employment policies programmes and practises.”

HRM is an approach to employment management, which aims to achieve a competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a committed and capable workforce using an array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques (Storey 2001). Ultimately, it focuses on the sharpening the ‘Labour’ and ‘Entrepreneurship’ factors of production. This means that the business can produce a high quality product to consumers with hopes of outshining competitors and achieving its strategic aims.

In this new business culture of ‘strategic management’, fitting every ‘division’s’ strategy in to the overall strategy has become the norm. Human resource management has developed and ‘integrated’ its processes and activities in strategic management, ‘through the new discipline’ of strategic human resource management (Wright, McMahon, 1992: p49).

An organisation’s performance is vital to an organisation’s success. It is agreed upon that strategic human resource management (SHRM) can be a beneficial tool in achieving optimal organisational performance. Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) is a large-scale fast food chain with over thirty thousand employees (MarketLine, 2016). KFC must ensure all employees are motivated so that they improve their productivity, performance and ultimately achieve the organisation’s objectives by increasing their profit. However, as fast food organisations do not incorporate high performance work systems (HPWS) to manage their human resources, this resulted in low flexibility, decrease in the level of skills and abilities of employees and the employee’s perception of the organisation. This has also led to lower staff morale and increase in staff turnover. In order to resolve these issues, SHRM practices can be implemented. The use of the ability, motivation and opportunity (AMO) framework can be beneficial in determining the underlying reasons for employees’ behaviour that has led to low productivity, decreased motivation and high turnover. Additionally, an employee’s perception of an organisation’s objectives and commitment to the employees is also a critical issue that fast food organisations need to address. Restaurants in the fast food industry such as KFC can utilise strategic HRM to resolve issues that they encounter in order to ensure the workforce is operating efficiently and

Human resource management plays a critical role in one organization as a key function to maximize people’s performances within the organization’s goals and objectives. It consists of primarily tasks – recruitment, performance appraisal, training and development, and compensation (Baum, 2006). Within each task, HRM focuses on creating system, policies, and procedures to manage, promote and motivate people in order to ensure the business strategy can be achieved through HRM practices as one of the main keys.

Hard HRM is a kind of strategy where employees are considered as resource that either profitable or a detriment to the company. Employees are seen much like production equipment. The main focus is on the growth of the organization and achieving its goal and target. Issues associated with the employee benefit are short term. This strategy focuses on getting the job done instead of rewarding for performance.

The Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) is an approach that defines how the organization’s goals will be achieved through people by means of HR strategies and integrated HR policies and practices. Thus human resource is considered as important asset to organizations to achieve sustained competitive advantage (SCA) and optimize organizational performance. The Resource Based View (RBV) or approach, best explains the human resource as a source of competitive advantage that culminates to superior performance. Therefore, the RBV approach to SHRM in this essay is argued and established as a better alternative from other approaches such as Best practice approach and Contingency approach. Down the line, its managerial implications in terms of HR actions

Human Resource Management (HRM) is now a term which is now widely used, yet loosely defined (Guest, 1987). So, what is HRM? What does it mean and what is its focus? “The focus on HRM is on managing people within the employer – employee relationship. Specifically it involves the productive use of people in achieving the organisation’s strategic business objectives and the satisfaction of individual employees needs.” (Stone, 1998) Derived from this and certain theories addressed later in this research, HRM in the field of organisational behaviour engages a set of policies designed to maximise organisational integration, employee commitment, flexibility and quality of work. With this perspective, and rapidly changing trends, it is no

Human Resource Management (HR) acts to serve a function which is aimed at maximizing the overall performance of a business and its employees in relation to the employer 's set standards and strategic objectives. The primary focus of HR is concentrated upon the management of employees, and on the policies and systems within and outside the organisation. (Boxall & Purcell, 2011). “Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) aims to align the functions and processes of HR with the strategic aims and objectives and competitive advantage of an organisation.” (Hartel, Fujimoto, Strybosch & Fitzpatrick, 2006). After all, the key characteristic of HR is ‘integration.’ The role of HR and HR Professionals can be linked to four main SHRM theories which will be discussed below:

“Corporations began viewing employees as assets rather than as cogs in machine. ‘Human resources management’, consequently, became the dominant term for the function—the ASPA even changing its name to SHRM in 1998. (SHRM)” The realisation from organisations that their most prised and valuable asset is their employees. This lead to development and integration of HRM and has become crucial to plan an organisation’s strategic approach “to generate a competitive advantage, the resources must be valuable, rare, imperfectly mobile inimitable. (Taylor, Beechler & Napier 1996)” To understand why

According to Decenzo and Robbins (1994), “Human Resource Management is a process of procuring, developing and maintaining the performance level of the employees to achieve the organizational goals in an efficient and effective manner”. The HRM practices of recruiting and selecting employees, training them for their job, evaluating their

Hard HRM, on the other hand, stresses 'the quantitative, calculative and business-strategic aspects of managing the "headcount resource" in as "rational" a way as for any other factor of production', as associated with a utilitarian-instrumentalist approach (Storey 1992: 29; see also Legge 1995 b). Hard HRM focuses on the importance of 'strategic fit', where human resource policies and practices are closely linked to the strategic objectives of the organization (external fit), and are coherent among

The strategic management of the human resource is revealed at virtually all levels of the relationship between the employer and the employee, since the need for a new hire is identified, up to the point where the employee leaves the firm. Some focal points of this strategic HRM include the motivation of the employees, their training, their reward or the offering of adjacent incentives, such as flexible working schedules. Overall, it is the scope of strategic human resource management to ensure that

Human Resource Management is a unique approach for proper implementations of employment management. This organization department aims to achieve competitive advantage with the use of strategic deployment of a highly dedicated and competent labor force, by means of an integrated selection of intellectual, structural and personnel methods. HRM is a specified department that deals directly with the employees as well as their concerns in regard with anything that has to do with the company. HRM aims to enhance employees’ contribution to the organization they are employed with by introducing programs for extensive training and culture management. It is whole new concept on management theory, practice and style. HRM is commonly depicted as the working body concerned with activities in association with the effective management of workers in an organization.

In the late decade of 1980, the organisations realized the significance of their employees as a capital asset or human resources; and by adopting and implementing a set of HRM practices (such as recruiting, training and developing people etc.) aimed to succeed a sustainable competitive advantage based on a business strategic view by making the employees’ involvement the main key point of the new human resource management into the business process; and by establishing the organizational culture that they are part of the organization (Kaufman 2001: 506). During this period, the HRM is transformed into a Strategic HRM approach in order to sustain in these modern business challenges.