The role of human resources continues to expand, with human-resources profession

Question

The role of human resources continues to expand, with human-resources professionals and their departments involved in broader and more complex organizational practices and issues. The traditional “hire and fire” role of human resources now includes involvement in the strategic direction of the organization and how to utilize innovative employee training tools to garner more customers. Strategy formulation and implementation remains a key operational function of an organization, and the role of human resources has taken a greater role in this function. In a well-written paper, complete the following: Research and identify a strategic plan for a mid-sized organization (a mid-sized organization typically has more than 500 employees) that you are familiar with or that captures your interest. Briefly, summarize the main components of that strategic plan. Identify how the human-resources department of that organization can assist the organization in attaining its strategic goals. Importantly, detail the advice, counsel, and actions human resources should propose/enact in support of this endeavor. Your paper should meet the following requirements: Be 3-4 pages in length Include at least two scholarly sources, in addition to properly citing information from the selected organization

Explanation / Answer

I would like to explain the context of how Human Resource department in an organization support in attaining its strategic goals using the following HR levers.

Role of strategic human resource department in strategic management:

A human resources department is a vital factor of employee well-being in any organization. HR functions include employee payroll, compensation and benefits, hiring, and aligning everything with state and federal tax laws.

The role played by HR department within an organization: Different roles played by HR department are as follows… It starts with an HR Executive Director who is directly responsible for Corporate Governance, Organizational policies and procedures, departmental oversight, appraisal systems and fair practices, collective bargaining etc., Under the Executive director, there shall be three key functions:

The above-mentioned categories include Clerical Model, Counseling Model, Industrial Relations model, the control Model, and the Consulting Model...

Ways in which HR support managers/supervisors as they seek to lead and supervise employees:

The majority of the HR activities performed these days are more focused on operational activities. Very few Strategic activities are performed. This is predominantly because of the controllership maintained by the leadership team. HR comes under the lens of the overall Head of the department or the process. Like other functional teams, viz., IT, Facilities, Infrastructure, HR also a part of the functional teams which is headed by a General Manager of the asset group. Strategic activities are initiated and directed by the top leadership and accordingly, operations group initiate and execute them.

Effective human resource practices are imperative elements to any organization because of the following... Human Resources are the key ingredients of an organization. When it comes to any company, the two financial elements are cost vs revenue. While categorizing various costs, Equipment, Buildings, tools, process, and procedures etc., are fixed costs. The variable component is the human cost. This is fundamentally essential because the revenue element for the organization is generated through this human cost. Rest of the elements can be managed very effectively just by planning and organizing them. The only element that needs to be monitored, trained, controlled etc., is the human factor. Without the human cost, an organization cannot generate revenue. Rather than giving importance to rest of the factors like building, facilities, infrastructure etc., when an organization follows the right human resource practices, these other factors are taken care on its own without any issues. While following the appropriate human resource factors, staff's motivation needs and basic hygiene factors are well-taken care. In turn, when those human elements interact with other factors like machines, equipment, facilities, buildings etc., these factors are well-taken care. In the balance sheet of the organization, Human beings are included as the intellectual assets of an organization. Hence following effective HR practices is always a better competitive resource than other factors like buildings and equipment.

Ways in which HRM lend to the company's success:

Human Resource Management plays an instrumental role in channelizing many aspects that are interlinked in an organization. There could be various functional departments in an organization viz., Production, Finance, IT, Marketing, Operations etc., For all these departments, people play a major role. To make sure those employees are managed and lead appropriately with fairness, integrity, trustworthy, appropriate compensation, clear reward mechanism etc., HR plays a critical role and the database maintenance of it is stored in HRIS. HR is a department that starts with an HR Executive Director who is directly responsible for Corporate Governance, Organizational policies and procedures, departmental oversight, appraisal systems and fair practices, collective bargaining etc.,

Under the Executive director, there shall be three key functions that lend to the company's success... They are,

The significance of HR communication during Organizational Change:

Changes to the business are inescapable… When there are customers constant changing demand, organizations need to position them self in a differentiating their strategies which is inevitable.

It modifies based on the customer demand, customer behavior, market situations, risks of new entrants; competitor’s strength etc., In order to support these strategic initiatives of the business, the leadership needs strong support from their middle managers, the entry-level managers and from all the employees.

We cannot have an objective to achieve this without a clear modification to the culture of an organization. Cultural change in the organization is related to Behavior of their employees, thought process of all the staff during change management process, acceptance criteria etc., In order to understand the culture shift in an organization; let us see the following example... When we look at modern organizational conditions, diversity is the first and the foremost area that companies bring in from the organization's cultural perspective.

Learning organizations transcend political boundaries and organizational change cultures in multiple different ways. For example, a start-up organization will go through various different complex situations in their business as setting up Operations that is responsible for customer deliverables is the most important requirement for any business. When that is initiated, other aspects pertaining to people, availability of raw materials from suppliers, processing procedures, availability of standard operating procedures, guidelines, quality standards, checks and balances for the accuracy model, sales & marketing, customer-facing teams etc., need to be an integral part of the core functions that looks after each other in various different modes for their individual deliverables.

In my organization, cultural change is managed in the following ways… For the understanding purpose, let us consider the following business situation. Executive Board Members have decided to sell the organization to a private equity firm. How does this change get communicated to staff? For a Public Limited organization like mine, Leadership team need to announce the change in public with what is the change, why are we making the change, when/how/to whom etc., details to be made available. This is a huge change and this is likely to have an impact on people due to various different HR related people policies. First and the foremost thing, my organization did is to ensure people do not panic about their job security. This was addressed by the chairman in the town hall organized by all staff. Later they announced the changes step by step on various aspects how it makes sense for the company to sell its portfolio to a different private equity firm. How some of the disadvantages that we had in the parent organization is overcome by bringing this change etc., were clearly explained to staff.

In Performance Appraisals and Compensation, the Scope of survey refers to the set of the target audience who evaluates organizations performance on various categories like People, Performance, Process, Stakeholders etc., The factors that affect the scope of the survey are as follows:

Employee Satisfaction: This is also referred as ESAT which is one of the significant factors for organizations having highly talented and productive workforce. Staff who are stressed, will not be productive and they are likely to be unhealthy and their motivation levels are low.

360 Degree Feedback: Performance evaluation of an individual from his/her supervisor, peers, cross-functional managers, team members, functional staff etc., Such feedback gives holistic picture and development of staff.

Talent Development & Training: Providing ongoing training, refresher training, need-based training, job enriching training are some of the key factors of developing talents through training.

The salary, wage, reward or compensation agreement is based on the key business levers which are also called the key performance indicators (KPI’s) of the business. It covers major elements linked to performance and the corresponding merit, pays for performance, contingent pay, staff compensation, and benefits, initiatives on employee engagement towards rewards mechanism.

Reward process also focuses on the pay scale, normalizing pay, approach towards pay increase, evaluation of job code in line with the job description and providing flexible benefits option for the employees. Some of the methods for adjustment for wages while providing the compensation offer are as follows…

Base pay administration: This is the process of decision making on employee pay scales with fairness approach and grading mechanism. This involves compensation market study, which comprises of categorizing employees under below market range, on par and above market range.

Variable or Contingent components: This is also called variable pay component which is composed of performance, ranking, qualitative and quantitative metrics, individual competence, individual and team contribution, knowledge, skill, attitude, initiatives, vintage details etc., The contingent pay enables progressiveness by adding them to the base pay range. Mostly Contingent pay rewards as a quarterly or annual bonus as a component of Incentive. Seldom it is also used as a retention strategy in some organizations.

Employee benefits: This includes other flexibilities like paid leaves, sick leaves with pay, insurance coverage, flexible benefits like leave travel allowance, car fuel, and maintenance allowance, medical allowance, Education and Professional development schemes, food coupons, conveyance, house rent allowance, telephone reimbursement, children education allowance, pension schemes etc.,

Manager effectiveness: This is measured by the extent to which the manager achieves the organizational goals and objectives. In addition to this, Manager's effectiveness is also measured based on certain organizational values like Partnership, Trust, Innovation, and Performance. Some of the elements of these values are as follows:

Trust - Upholds high standards of behavior that others can follow, Demonstrates consistency between words and actions, Treats employees fairly and with respect.

Partnership - Removes obstacles that prevent the team from getting things done, Treats others in the organization as partners and not as competitors, Connects ideas, information and resources to maximize scale and impact

Innovation - Creates an environment that supports experimentation and curiosity, Challenges the team to think and act differently, Encourages employees to speak up and share their ideas

Performance - Holds employees accountable for their behavior and performance, Communicates clear priorities, Delivers timely, candid and actionable feedback, Recognizes people for their contributions and performance excellence, Demonstrates a genuine interest in employees’ career and development.

HR initiatives to cope with workplace changes and trends such as a more diverse workforce, the global economy, downsizing, and new legislation:

Promoting a diverse workforce for Business to succeed:

Workplace Diversity refers to an inclusive environment at work locations where employees, operations members, project members, suppliers, vendors, customers etc., who are the key stakeholders of the business are not discriminated with the background of one's culture, race, skin color, physical appearance etc.,

Organizational cross culture is a function of values, norms, belief and various different assumptions that group of people follows in an organization. These shared norms possess a great deal of influence over the people in an organization and this governs various aspects like dressing, responding, behaving, job performance, following some systematic guidelines etc., Each individual in the team will have different norms and values for themselves. Some of those to understand the team culture are,

My thoughts in accepting and incorporating differences in a cross-cultural & diversified workplace:

The issues fundamentally appear in situations where one fails to see other in their perspectives. For example, in a situation where the manager of India and China doesn’t seem to be in sync with each other’s opinion. Each of them does not seem to understand other person's cultural values, norms, and behaviors. Some of the team strategies that overcome the Cultural issues, diversity issues and stereotypic behaviors are as follows:

By developing the team through this 3-way process of Mapping, Bridging and Integrating, teams shall start functioning without any diversity issues that arise due to culture, geographical location etc., and also sometimes without the dependence of the local manager within the region as they will be equipped to work along with the multicultural diversified staff.

To improve organization's climate for diversity:

In order to improve the climate for diversity, Business shall focus on Affirmative Action and cultural changes in the organization when it comes to diversity. An affirmative action is an act that favors people who tend to be affected by discrimination or unfairness. Its policies are those in which an institution who engage in an effort to improve opportunities for traditionally expelled groups in America. The focus is always towards education & employment. From the perspective of higher education, affirmative action refers to admission policy where they provide equal opportunity to access education for the people who were historically underrepresented for women and minorities.

It allows diversity is in place. Supports deprived persons with advancing. Acts as a boost to underprivileged students as it secures equality for all races.  It breaks color oriented discrimination and encourages hard work and study. It is really required to recompense minorities due to several decades of slavery. It allows students of minority community enroll for higher education. It encourages equality at work locations and social places…

Aging of the workforce: Aging of the workforce impacts the HR practices in several ways. Age oriented discrimination, its impact, Reverse Age discrimination and the corresponding Employment Act is described below…

Increase in outsourcing, offshoring, and employee leasing or downsizing: Offshoring means generating production output or services from a different location or country where a simple relocation of the parent organization only. Offshoring is not outsourcing since outsourcing happens to be given to a different organization. For example, when a bike manufacturer in the London starts a factory in China to prepare certain parts for the automobile, they are offshoring their sub-production process as the final product is still coming out from their parent company in London only.

Strategic Human Resources department plays a vital role in the strategic management of an organization. Strategic human resource management is to ensure that human resource management is fully integrated into strategic planning, that HRM policies cohere both across policy areas and across hierarchies and that HRM policies are accepted and used by line managers as part of their everyday work, opines Guest.

Role of strategic human resource department in strategic management:

1. Analyze the opportunities and threats existing in the external environment.

2. Formulate strategies that will match the organization’s (internal) strengths and weaknesses with environmental (external) threats and opportunities. In other words, make a SWOT analysis of the organization.

3. Implement the strategies so formulated.

4. Evaluate and control activities to ensure that organization’s objectives are duly achieved.

Strategic HR framework aims to leverage and/or align HR practices to build critical capabilities that enable an organization to achieve its goals. Strategic management offers both financial and non-financial benefits to an organization which practices it.

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