HR ROLE AS A STRATEGIC PARTNER
Personnel/HR’s long history as a staff or advisory function has left it
with a some-what impoverished reputation: Some still tend to view it as less
than it is. For example, one view is that HR is strictly operational and that
HR activities are not strategic at all. According to this line of reasoning, HR
activities simply” ... involve putting out small fires - ensuring that people
are paid on the right day; the job advertisement meets the newspaper deadline;
and the same manager remembers to observe due process before sacking the new
rep who didn’t work out.
A more sophisticated (but perhaps no more
accurate) view of HR is that its role is simply to “fit” the company’s
strategy. In this view HR’s strategic role is to adapt individual HR practices
(recruiting, rewarding, and so on) to fit specific corporate and competitive
strategies. By this view, top management crafts a corporate strategy – such as
to buy Lotus – and then HR is told to create the HR program required to successfully
implement that corporate strategy. As two strategic planning experts have
argued, “the human resources management system must be tailored to the demands
of business strategy.” The idea here is that for any particular organizational
strategy, there is purportedly a matching human resource strategy.”
The third view of HR management is that it is
an equal partner in the strategic planning process. By this view HR
management’s role is not just to tailor its activities to the demands of
business strategy, nor, certainly, just to carry out operational day-to-day
tasks like ensuring that employees are paid. Instead, by this third view, the
need to forge a company’s work force into a competitive advantage means that
human resource management must be an equal partner in both the formulation and
the implementation of the company’s organization wide and competitive
strategies.
HR’S ROLE IN FORMULATING STRATEGY
Formulating a Company’s overall strategic
plan requires identifying, analyzing, and balancing two sets of forces: the
company’s external opportunities and threats on the one hand, and its internal
strengths and weaknesses on the other.
This is where strategic HR management comes
in. First, HR management can play a role in what strategic planners call environmental
scanning, in other words, identifying and analyzing external opportunities and
threats that may be crucial to the company’s success. For example, in 1995 both
United Airlines and American Airlines considered and then rejected the
opportunity to acquire US Air, a smaller and relatively weak airline. While
both American and United had several reasons for rejecting a bid, HR
considerations loomed large. Specifically, both American and United had doubts
about their abilities to successfully negotiate new labor agreements with US
Air’s employees, and both felt the problems of assimilating them might be too
great.
Similarly, HR management is in a unique
position to supply competitive intelligence that may be useful in the strategic
planning process. Details regarding advanced incentive plan being used by
competitors, opinion survey data from employees that elicit information about
customer complaints and information about pending legislation like labor laws
or mandatory health insurance are some examples.
HR also participates in the strategy
formulation process by supplying information regarding the company’s internal
strengths and weaknesses. For example, IBM’s decision to buy Lotus was probably
promoted in part by IBM’s conclusion that its own human resources were
inadequate to enable the firm to reposition itself as an industry leader in
networking systems, or at least to do so quickly enough.
The strengths and weaknesses of a company’s
human resources can have a determining effect on the viability of the firm’s
strategic options. For example, “situations were human resource capabilities
serve as a driving force in strategy formulation occur where there are unique
(human) capabilities……”. Here we often find a company building its new strategy
around an HR-based competitive advantage. For example, in the process of
automating its factories, farm equipment manufacturer John Deere developed a
work force that was exceptionally talented and expert in factory automation.
This in turn prompted the firm to establish a new-technology division to offer
automation services to other companies. As another example, the accounting and
consulting firm Arthur Andersen developed unique human resource capabilities in
training. The firm’s Illinois training facility is so sophisticated that it
provides the firm with a competitive advantage, enabling it to provide fast,
uniform training in house and so” ... react quickly to the changing demands of
its clients.”
HR’S ROLE IN EXECUTING STRATEGY
We’ve also seen that HR management can play a
pivotal role in the successful execution or implementation of a company’s
strategic plan. For example, Federal Express’s competitive strategy is to
differentiate itself from its competitors by offering superior customer service
and guaranteed on-time deliveries. Since basically the same technologies are
available to UPS, DHI, and FedEx’s other competitors, it’s Fed Ex’s work force
– its human resource – who necessarily provides Fed Ex with a crucial
competitive advantage. This puts a premium on the firm’s HR processes, as
discussed earlier, and on the firm’s ability to create a highly committed,
competent, and customer-oriented work force.
HR management supports strategic
implementation in numerous other ways. For example, HR is today heavily
involved in the execution of most firms downsizing and restructuring
strategies, through out placing employees, instituting pay-for-performance
plans, reducing health care costs, and retraining employees. And in an
increasingly competitive global marketplace, instituting HR practices that
build employee commitment can help improve a firm’s responsiveness, as
explained earlier.
HR PLANNING |
WHAT IS HR PLANNING?
§ HR planning is one of
the most important elements in a successful human resource management program
because it is a process by which an organization ensures that it has the right
number and kinds of people, at the right time, capable of effectively and
efficiently completing those tasks that will help the organization to achieve
its overall strategic objectives.
§ HR planning
ultimately translates the organization's overall goals into number and types of
employees needed to meet those goals.
§ HR planning cannot exist in isolation. It must be linked to
the organization’s overall strategy, i.e. there is a clear linkage between the
Organizational strategy and the HR planning. Therefore, senior HR managers need
to understand the overall business strategy as the HR planning is linked with
it.
LINKING
ORGANIZATIONAL STRATEGY TO HR PLANNING
|
Mission
|
Spells out who the company is, what it
does, and where it’s headed.
|
|
|
|
|
Objectives
and Goals
|
Setting goals and objective.
|
|
|
|
|
Strategy
|
Determining how the goals and objectives
will be achieved.
|
|
|
|
|
Structure
|
Determining what job need to be done and
by whom.
|
|
|
|
|
People
|
Matching skills, knowledge and abilities
to require the job,
|
IMPORTANCE OF HR PLANNING
·
Achieve
goals and objectives
·
Plan
staffing and development activities
·
Achieve
economies in hiring
·
Make
major labour market demands
·
Anticipate
and avoid staff shortages/surpluses
·
Control/reduce
labour costs
·
Utilize
employee capabilities effectively
Like any good plans, HR plans are built on
premises-basic assumptions about the future. The purpose of forecasting is to
develop these basic premises. If you are planning for HR requirements, you’ll
usually need three sets of forecasts:
·
One
for HR Needs;
·
One
for the supply of Inside Candidates; and
One
for the supply of Outside Candidates;
THE HUMAN RESOURCE PLANNING PROCESS
|
STRATEGIC
PLANNING
|
|
|
|
|
|
HR PLANNING
|
|
|
|
|
FORECASTING DEMAND FOR HUMAN RESOURCES
|
COMPARISON
OF
REQUIREMENTS
AND
AVAILABILITY
|
FORECASTING SUPPLY OF HUMAN RESOURCES
|
|
|
|
DEMAND =SUPPLY |
SURPLUS OF WORKERS
|
SHORTAGE OF WORKERS |
|
|
|
NO
ACTION
|
RESTRICTED
HIRING, EARLY RETIREMENT, RETRENCHMENT
|
RECRUITMENT
& SELECTION
|
FACTORS IN FORECASTING HR NEEDS
Managers should consider several factors when forecasting
personnel needs. From a practical point of view, the demand for your product or
service is paramount. Thus, in a manufacturing firm, sales are projected first.
Then the volume of production required to meet these sales requirements is
determined. Finally, the staff needed to meet this volume of output is
estimated. In addition, the following factors should also be considered:
- Projected Turnover (as a result of resignations or terminations).
- Quality and the nature of your employees in relation to what you see as the changing needs of your organization.
- Decisions to upgrade the quality of products or services or enter into new markets.
- Technological changes resulting in increased productivity.
- The financial resources available to your department.
TECHNIQUES FOR DETERMINING HR REQUIREMENTS
Trend Analysis
|
Trend analysis means study of a firm’s past
employment needs over a period of years to predict future needs.
|
Ratio Analysis
|
A forecasting technique for determining
future staff needs by using ratios between sales volume and number of
employees needed.
|
Regression Analysis
|
Statistical relationship between business
activity and employees.
|
Managerial Judgment
|
It’s rare that any historical trend, ratio,
or relationship will continue unchanged into the future. Judgment is thus
needed to modify the forecast based on factors you believe will change in the
future.
|
TECHNIQUES FOR FORECASTING THE SUPPLY OF
INSIDE CANDIDATES
Markov Analysis
|
A method for
tracking the pattern of employee movements through various jobs.
|
Qualifications Inventories
|
Manual or computerized systematic records
listing employees’ performance records, educational background,
promotability, interests, special skills, and so on to be used in forecasting
inside candidates for promotion.
|
Personnel
Replacement Charts
|
Company records
showing present performance and promotability of inside candidates for the
most important positions.
|
Succession Planning
|
A process of ensuring suitable
supply of successors for current and future senior or key jobs arising from
business strategy, so that the careers of individuals can be planned and
managed to optimize the organization’s needs and individuals’ aspirations.
|
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন