The relationship between human resource practices and a company’s business strategy are aligned in many ways. The ultimate goal of the alignment is to use human capital as instrument to maximize the organization assets for the benefit of the stakeholders. Below are some of the relationship between human resource practices and business strategy.
STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Human resource practices create the process for the development of employees’ knowledge and the skill-set across the organization to promote its core competencies that support and maintain its competitive advantage in the industry. The term “strategic HRM” is the new template in the management of modern organization that is anchored on the concept that the most valuable asset an organization provides itself is HR, since it is the tool that is responsible for the coordination and implementation of other factors of production that spurs corporate performance journals
The business strategy adopts by an organization is meant to showcase how it intend to succeed by using the factors of production at its disposal to build a competitive advantage, strategy-business. Business strategy helps to identify the direction that the organization wishes to go in relation to its environment. Human resource strategies manage human resource so that the goals set by the organization can be achieved. The focus is directed on what the business intentions are as they relate to human resource policies and practices. Therefore, how human resource is spread across the organization’s units and departments, motivated, managed and retained will affect the performance outcome after the business strategy has been implemented. The relationship between business strategy and human resource practices also would determine the organization competitive and performance outcome.
A glimpse into Oya Erdil & Ayse Gunsel’s ‘BUSINESS STRATEGY AND HUMAN RESOURCE STRATEGY- THE INTERACTION’ shows there is a relationship between human resource management practices and an organization business strategy, which also could be referred to as the business environment and organizational development. Another defining aspect of that relationship is the across the board acceptance that an organization’s human resource management practices have a link to the firm’s decision making process, in other words, the HR practices be closely aligned with the strategy of the whole business. While there is not much disagreement as pertaining to the relationship between HR practices and business strategy, there is a tendency not to acknowledge the deeper nature of the relationship. The theory of human resource management opined that should employees be considered and managed as a valued strategic asset, the organization in practice would be able to achieve a competitive advantage, and the outcome will be a superior performance. This again, means managing human resource in such a way that it will correspond to the business strategy, being that the goals and process of each of the strategy profiles are different.
According to Oya Erdil & Ayse Gunsel, this relationship is further entrenched when you look at how human resource practices are selected based on competitive strategy espoused by the organization. An organization that coordinates its business strategy and human resources policies and practices achieve a superior performance outcome than those that do not.
ALIGNING PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT TO STRATEGY AND CULTURE
As explained by Rob Gray’s ‘Aligning performance management with business strategy,’ some employers could be missing the key factor that links performance management to strategy and culture. For it is an organization’s prevailing culture and practices that will determine the optimum use of its valuable asset (human beings) when its business strategy is aligned with its human resource practices. The right tools are needed if employers are to succeed in aligning their human resource management to its business strategy. The era of using performance review and appraisal as the only tools for performance, management solutions have since been replicated by a complete suite of competency measurement tools. These tools are able to assist employees to understand the means and learning resources through which they can effectively develop their skills and talent. Technology is one of the enablers but needs commitment from top down that is important for a high performance culture.
TALENT MANAGEMENT
Edward E. Lawler lll’s, ‘What should HR Leaders Focus On In 2014’ gives a deep insight into how business entities could achieve a superior outcome for their shareholders. While technology is a valued enabler that spurs performance leading to superior outcome for an organization, another thing that should be a thing of focus for HR is the aspect of talent management that assesses the necessary skills every organization needs to implement its business strategy, the plan for recruitment and the management of critical talent. Even though, talent has long been determined to be important, it is of recent becoming more so given that many businesses are performing knowledge based work that is more complex, and with operations in the global markets. This has led to the situation of performance talent having a great impact on the organization’s bottom line. Google, Amazon, Apple, and other techs and service organizations have done a tremendous job of recruiting and managing people around the world that have the needed critical knowledge based skills. Their talented workforce have been able to perform well, differentiate their companies from competitors across industries which have translated to a pattern of communication that relays their type of employees and the jobs they offer.
INNOVATION
Innovation is another standard of performance management, Innovation.Tools.com, that when effectively coordinated with an organization business objectives lead to a superior performance outcome. When an organization devote a substantial amount of time to innovation and business strategy, and both are valued equally, promoted across the board, and well communicated, a culture would exist naturally which will foster a relationship of the two. The fostered culture creates a top down business objectives that are communicated across the board in the organization, that enable all units to focus in addressing the organization’s short and long-term goals. From then, it becomes the innovators’ task to forge an alignment of their activities in support of the organization’s goals. The various ways to naturally coordinate both camps is the joint development of technology/product, and business road maps that encourage discussion and debate, forging links that guides actions. Successful performance outcome are highlighted through internal business and fairs, using the avenue to raise visibility for long term opportunities.