Strategic HRM Practices for Employee Engagement and Performance

The study highlights the significance of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM) in enhancing employee performance and overall organizational success. SHRM involves various functions such as hiring efficient people, providing training and development programs, conducting performance appraisals, boosting morale, and compensating employees. These approaches have a positive impact on workforce performance in contemporary organizations with team, project, or matrix structures. The study also emphasizes the importance of creating a good and healthy working environment to boost employee engagement and commitment. Three approaches to SHRM, namely universalistic, contingency, and configurationally, were discussed as effective practices for HR departments in achieving organizational targets.

STRATEGIC HUMAN
RESOURCE
MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION.........................................................................................................................................3
TASK 1..........................................................................................................................................................3
TASK 2..........................................................................................................................................................5
TASK 3..........................................................................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................................9

INTRODUCTION
Strategic human resource management is an approach to manage people within an enterprise
which deals with long term goals and outcomes of business. It is the process which foster innovation and
improve motivation, productivity, satisfaction and overall performance of organization. This study is
based on strategic HR practices which help in development and growth of undertaking. Through this
report, reader will be able to understand importance of employee engagement and its impacts on overall
performance of business (Buller and McEvoy, 2012). It will also describe about various impacts of
strategic approaches and models on people management in contemporary organizations.
TASK 1
Human resource management (HRM) is an important part of an organization which is engaged in
managing people and enhancing their performance within an enterprise. Strategic HRM is an approach to
manage and support long term business plans, goals and outcomes. It includes HR functions like hiring,
payroll, discipline, etc. SHRM plays a significant role in employee engagement. Involvement of
employees in the various functions and work of entity shows the attachment of working people with
premises. When individuals fully engaged with company and perform their best to achieve goals and
targets of firm, it will reflect their interest in working with such enterprise (Boxall and Purcell, 2011).
This interest and attachment is known as employee engagement. SHRM plays very essential role in
creating employee engagement at a workplace like National Health Service (NHS). Through performance
of individuals, involvement and their interest in working is observed by management of company.
Employee engagement is a source of competitive advantage. The cognitive feature of engagement
consists of employees’ belief about entity, management and working condition. Undertakings which
create conditions that support, sustain and enhance employee engagement will have higher level of job
and competitive advantage to firm. There are number of theoretical frameworks which facilitate SHRM
system to create competitive advantage. HRM controls working environment and climate of an entity
because it focuses on implementation of various HR policies, procedures and practices to enhance skills,
knowledge, performance and efficiency of employees. There are the following organizational outcomes
of employee engagement:
 Organizational performance: There is a direct link between employee engagement and
organization outcomes. It has a positive impact on various activities and performance of an entity
such as customer satisfaction, profitability, productivity, employee turnover, health and safety,
etc. Employee engagement plays a significant role in building a healthy and good working
environment which directly affects the performance of enterprise and create chances of success in

business (Hendry, 2012). It has a potential affect on individuals’ retention, loyalty, productivity
and job satisfaction.
 Employee productivity: As discussed above, involvement of people within workplace affects
their working performance. High level of engagement helps workforce to take initiatives in
achieving goals and targets of firm. It helps them to develop new skills and knowledge which
enhance their efficiency. Therefore, this involvement assists in improving productivity of people
within premise.
 Employee retention: Employee engagement also helps in retaining people in an enterprise.
Individuals who are highly committed with their jobs are more stable and stick to their work for
long. This assist management to increase ratio of employee retention and decreases employee
turnover.
In an establishment, it is the responsibility of management to build up employee engagement and
they use different practices to develop that in an entity. To get competitive advantages, undertaking refer
HR department to set a goal to create culture of engagement at work (Tooksoon, 2011). HR department
deals with people starting from their recruitment and selection process to the end of their job. HRM is in
the charge of selection, staffing, orientation, training and development, performance appraisal and their
health and safety issues. SHRM helps to assimilate HR policies with enterprise’s strategic plans and
facilitates such an environment where employees feel confirmable and perform their jobs more
efficiently.
Commitment of staff members in NHS is an important issue to look forward. It is a key element
which helps NHS to meet all challenges which it faces. Through involvement of staff members in various
deci9sion making process of undertaking will help entity to maintain and improve morale of workforce.
There are two main sources of employee engagement such as job resources and personal resources. Job
resources are related to physical, social and organizational aspects while personal resources refers to
characteristics of people like resilience, optimism and self efficacy. Job resources influence employee
engagement that includes characteristics of job like task identity, autonomy in roles, variety of skills
needed to accomplish tasks, etc. To become successful, it is important to establish an integrated HR
strategy to focus on employee engagement (Van Buren, Greenwood and Sheehan, 2011). Thus, from
above discussion it is clear that SHRM plays a vital role in creating employee engagement and
competitive advantage.

TASK 2
SHRM is created by management with an aim to achieve organizational goals and objects
through people. SHRM covers organizational concern related to culture, structure, and management of
change, performance, competence, business requirements, employee development and many more. Here
are following approaches of SHRM:
 Universalistic approach: This approach describes about the set of practices which are suggested
by HR department to perform well with in premises. It is also known as best practice approach
which is accepted universally to get best results and to improve performance of employees. It
involves wide range of HR issues such as recruitment, selection, training and development,
employee motivation, etc. These are equally applicable to each and every enterprise. This
approach emphasis on internal or horizontal fit of HR practices which assist in improving
performance of firm (Wright and McMahan, 2011). It is the simple approach to analyze HRM
strategies. Sometimes, it has a negative impact on performance of employees within a workplace
which create various problems like employee turnover, decrease in motivation and job
satisfaction level, etc.
 Contingency approach: This approach considers that policies of HR must be reliable with other
aspects of company. If HR practices depend on various different strategic positions of firm, then
it will improve performance of entity. It is also known as best fit approach which is just opposite
to universal perspective. It stresses need for integration between HR policies and wide range of
other policies of firm. It also has some drawbacks because it in not always possible that one
policy of HR is depends on another one.
 Configurationally approach: This approach argued that SHRM is concerned with the pattern of
planned HR development activities which helps a corporation to achieve its goals and objectives.
In order to meet organizational targets it is necessary to develop an effective HR system for
which it must be both horizontal and vertically fit. Horizontal fit means internal consistency of
HP practices and policies where as vertical fit refers to equivalence of HR practices with other
practices and policies of firm (Mello, 2011). This approach is combination of both the above
approaches i.e. best practice and best fit.
Models of SHRM
There are three main models of SHRM which are discussed as under:
 High performance management model: The main aim of this model is to use people to improve
the performance of organization by improving productivity, quality, level of customer service,

growth, profits, increase in value of shareholder, etc. This model includes various characteristics
which influence the working of firm in both positive and negative way. It is the functions of HR
department to facilitates recruitment and selections process to hire new and efficient workforce
within company and provide them effective training for enhancing their skills and knowledge.
This model also define clear job design, high level of participation process, performance
appraisals, promotion and reward schemes which provide financial and recognition of high
performance employees of firm.
 High commitment model: This model goes beyond high performance management model that
includes employee commitment and identifying goals and values of enterprise and based on high
level of trust (Ridder and McCandless, 2010). Employee commitment is very important for a
corporation to run its business effectively. Employee with higher level of commitment works
with full efficiency and maintains good relations with management and other people of firm. It
helps in development of career of employees and emphasis of trainability of them at all levels. It
has a heavy dependence on structuring of team which facilitates team work and helpful in solving
various problems related to business. It also reduces the hierarchies of management because high
engagement of workforce does not require many levels of management to supervise them. It
assists management in job designing which provide a job with considerable level of intrinsic
satisfaction. This model works with a policy that there is no compulsory lay off or redundancies
and facilitate permanent employment guarantee.
 High involvement model: Here, employees are treated as partners and have full interest and right
in various business functions and activities. The main purpose of this model is to develop a
climate or environment where continuous dialogue between managers and workforce prevails.
Expectations of individuals in the corporation are defined through sharing information on vision,
mission, values and goals of entity (Purce, 2014). It also establishes common considerate and
framework of managing and developing people is developed and ensured.
TASK 3
Organizational design has two categories i.e. traditional and contemporary. Traditional one
includes simple, functional and divisional structure while contemporary comprise of team, matrix, and
project structure. This type of structure empowers workforce, reduces centralized control and perform all
responsibilities of firm and take their own decisions. These types of enterprises introduce horizontal
elements in structure of a firm. It does not include hierarchical levels of management and individuals
report directly to manager for various issues and other business related matters. These undertaking are
more flexible in meeting different organizational challenges than the other one (Jackson, Schuler and

Jiang, 2014). As it is more flexible in nature it has a drawback that it is less efficient. This structure
allows people to become familiar with the work to make corresponding decisions for an entity.
HRM is very important than any other competitive source because it manage various functions of
entity and create competitiveness and identify objectives of firm. Therefore, an enterprise firstly
understands expectations of its employees in order to meet targets and goals of establishment. As
mentioned above there are three approaches of strategic HRM which has both positive and negative
aspects. A good theory helps corporation to predict what will happen at a given set of vales for specified
variables. It means to move SHRM in forward direction; theory plays a significant role in this. In reality
SHRM is not formal and a linear process that floes from strategy of business (Daley, 2012). SHRM has a
growing and positive impact on performance of employees which have directly impact on organizational
performance. SHRM practices further emphasis on gaining competitive advantage by means of effective
and efficient utilization of resources of firm.
The above theoretical models have a great impact on performance of contemporary organizations.
It is also discussed that SHRM is very important to use such models which allow for both predicting and
understanding the effect of HR practices of functioning of entity. Strategic approaches are not suitable for
all types of undertakings. These are appropriate for those firms which have long term investments and
future goals. SHRM includes three types of approaches which have a great impact people management.
SHRM perform several functions which helps organization to improve its productivity and profitability.
SRHM involved in developing and organizing long term plans which is helpful in improving productivity
of both individuals and firm (Guest, 2011). People in an enterprise play an important role in achieving
goals and objectives of firm because they are main part of entity and with out involvement of them a
corporation cannot achieve success in business.
SHRM assists undertaking in managing people within workplace. It perform various functions at
different levels of management such as hiring efficient people, proving training and development
program, performance appraisal, enhancing skills and abilities of persons, creating good and healthy
working environment, boosting morale of employees, compensating, etc. In contemporary organizations
these functions are very effective in enhancing performance of employee by managers of entity (Brewer,
and Brewer, 2010). As these enterprises have team, project and matrix structure where individuals are self
motivated and confident towards their job; so, these functions help managers to motivate people to boost
towards their jobs. Therefore, approaches of SHRM have a positive impact on performance of workforce
in contemporary entities.

According to above study, it is clear that there is an overall model which explains how human
resource are managed to achieve requirements of business. The theories of SHRM are not useful as
today’s concern but were in use few years ago. As these are very useful in accomplishing goals and
objectives of entity but there are some drawbacks which made it less effective. In the model of SHRM,
there are several variables include like HR practice, human capital resource pool, specification of
behavior of individuals and effectiveness of strategies of business (Armstrong and Taylor, 2014). Thus,
strategic HRM has both positive and negative impact on performance of organization.
CONCLUSION
This study concluded that strategic human resource management plays a significant role in
managing people within an entity. Employee engagement is very necessary in a corporation to make a
business successful in market. In every field or enterprise commitment of individuals are very necessary
to create a good and healthy working environment. This study described about three approaches of
SHRM i.e. universalistic, contingency and configurationally which describe about good practice of HR
department in achieving targets and objectives of firm. These approaches and models of SHRM has
positive and negative impact on functioning of contemporary organizations.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
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Wright, P.M. and McMahan, G.C., 2011. Exploring human capital: putting ‘human’back into strategic
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