DIFFERENING APPROACHES TO STRATEGIC

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

• Ihab Mohamed tarek • ID: 12105180

To : Dr. Reem Osman

INTRODUCTION

Strategic human resource management (SHRM) has emerged as a significant issue in tandem with the increasing attention being given by the companies to strategy.

The response of the corporation has been to attempt to build up a sound internal configuration that includes human resource management (HRM) systems.

The key to providing an effective response is to have an HRM system attuned to strategic requirements.

DIFFERENT VIEWS ON STRATEGIC HRM SHRM is facing an 'identity crisis' and it is defined and viewed from several perspectives.

Some of the major perspectives are:

1) HRM or Strategic HRM

2) Strategic Functions of HRM

1- HRM OR STRATEGIC HRM

HRM and strategic HRM are considered identical and used interchangeably by some authors. Mathis & Jackson (1985: 3-4) define HRM as "the strategic planning and management of human resources for an organization. . . HRM is more broadly focused and strategic in nature“

HRM is seen as a strategic function focusing on tasks such as HR planning or devising compensation policies and strategies.

This definition is similar to what Beer et al. (1984: 13) consider as SHRM. In their words "we view HRM from strategic perspective”.

2- STRATEGIC FUNCTIONS OF HRM Every function of HRM process has its own strategic elements. These strategic elements of the functions of the HRM process are also called strategic HRM.

For example, Torrington & Hall's (1995: xvi) Inputs, in their model, act on the strategy, operations, and interactions levels requiring a tiered response at the organization-level requires planning for jobs and people, resourcing requires recruiting and formulating contracts of employment.

Some other authors mention that every element of the HRM process has some strategic aspects that could be termed as SHRM.

For example, Olian & Rynes (1984: 172) see a relation between the stages of staffing process and the choice of selection needs to focus on the strategic dimensions, as the type of knowledge, skills, and abilities required for the job.

DISCUSSION ON THE DIFFERENT VIEWS ON SHRM There are several different views expressed by theoreticians from time to time.

Here are three points around the discussions:

1) People are Strategic Resource

2) Planning Process

3) Competitive Advantage

1- PEOPLE ARE STRATEGIC RESOURCE In HRM discipline every author agrees that people of the organization should be viewed as not only resource asset, or capital but also as human (Snell & Dean, 1992) or social (Beer et al., 1984) resource, asset, or capital.

The distinction of strategic HRM in comparison to functional HRM is that in the former case people of the organization are considered as strategic human resource (Hendry & Pettigrew, 1986) in order to attain competitive advantage.

2- PLANNING PROCESS

Strategic HRM is a planning process. For example, Miller (1989: 51) says that " the key is to make operational the concept of fit … of HRM with the strategic thrust of the organization (and) the development of operational linkages is what strategic HRM is all about".

For the purpose of this linkage it is necessary to formulate a long-run plan and this planning process continues until final implementation and feedback are completed.

3- COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

The objective of SHRM is to create competitive advantage for the organization.

The concept 'our people make the difference' is the outcome of that theme.

For example, IBM has experienced are due, in large part, to its ability to attract and retain skilled employees and managers. The shifting nature and competitive challenges in computer marketplace forced IBM to avoid employee layoff and termination.

Employees with a long service record with the company were offered early retirement incentives and many production employees were shifted to sales or activities in the company. These activities illustrate that HRM is a crucial part of organizational success (Mathis & Jackson, 1985: 2).

CONSOLIDATION OF DIFFERENT VIEWPOINTS An attempt to consolidate the different viewpoints led us to develop a typology of the approaches based on the focus of a particular group of thinkers in SHRM.

It presents a comparative chart of four approaches.

1) Strategy-focussed

2) Decision-focussed

3) Content-focussed

4) Implementation-focussed

1- STRATEGY-FOCUSSED APPROACH Several authors (Mathis & Jackson, 1995 or Beer et al., 1984) view HRM and SHRM as identical.

This means that HRM by its very nature is strategic.

The elements of HRM such as recruitment and selection or compensation, do not operate in isolation, but are derivatives of the requirements of the strategy that an organization employs.

Strategic planning dictates HRM planning.

2- DECISION-FOCUSSED APPROACH According to Tichy et al. there are three management levels – strategic (long-term), managerial (medium-term) and operational (short-term)

The HR functions performed at the strategic management level is SHRM.

The managerial- and operational- management level activities that deal with medium- and short-term HR functions do not come under SHRM. Rather these are functional HRM activities.

the strategic management level activities are directed to achieve strategic goals.

the blending strategies requiring the creation of a fit between HRM and strategy.

3- CONTENT-FOCUSSED APPROACH Like Torrington & Hall (1995) in every element of HRM there are two aspects, the strategic and the functional.

when HRM elements match with the organization's strategy, SHRM emerges.

These strategic aspects are referred to as SHRM.

In the content-focussed approach, the functional aspects of HRM elements can also be blended with the organization's strategy which leads to the emergence of SHRM.

4- IMPLEMENTATION-FOCUSSED APPROACH Thinkers like Miles & Snow (1984) express the view that organizations have some competitive objectives that are achieved by some business strategies.

In order to implement these business strategies, appropriate types of HRM systems are required.

Such HRM systems are strategic in nature , this approach can be termed as SHRM.

CONCLUSION

The differing views are consolidated under four groups wherein SHRM is seen to be either strategy-focussed, decision- focussed, content-focussed, or implementation-focussed.

There are two broad areas of HRM; Strategic HRM and functional HRM.

There are some strategic aspects in every element of the HRM process and these are known as SHRM.

SHRM is a planning process and the resulting plan must be a long-term plan.

Both strategic and functional types of HRM consider people merely as assets, resource, or capital. In contrast, SHRM considers them as strategic human asset, resource, or capital.

The main objective of SHRM, which arises as a natural corollary to the definition of SHRM, is creating and sustaining competitive advantage for the organization

THE END THANKS