Delivering a Business Strategy

This report examines the key concepts and theories of strategic human resource management (HRM) and their application in a business context. It analyzes the influence of external and internal factors on HR strategy, explores change management models, and discusses methods for monitoring and measuring HR outcomes. The report uses TNT, a global delivery company, as a case study to illustrate the practical application of these concepts.

DELIVERING
A
BUSINESS STRATEGY

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
ACTIVITY 1....................................................................................................................................1
Determine key current trends and developments that influence an organization's HR strategy. 1
Analyse how both external and internal factor influence HR strategy and practice..............2
ACTIVITY 2 ...................................................................................................................................3
Apply relevant theories and concepts relating to the growth and development of strategic
HRM to specific organizational scenarios..............................................................................3
ACTIVITY 3....................................................................................................................................5
Evaluate how appropriate change management models support HR strategy in application to
relevant organizational examples...........................................................................................5
ACTIVITY 4....................................................................................................................................8
Explain how HR outcomes can be monitored and measured and apply this to a specific
organizational situation. ........................................................................................................8
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................10
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................11
.......................................................................................................................................................13

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the term used to define the system or process to manage
the employees within an organization. It involves recruiting, selecting, directing, imparting
training, appraising the performance of employees, proving compensation and other
perks/benefits, motivating, ensuring safety and healthy working conditions. Strategic human
resource management refers to the continuous activities of attracting, developing, rewarding and
retaining employees for mutual benefits of employees as well as the organization. It is vital to the
entity's success. Under this, the company takes the best out the skills and talents of its employees
to form a better co-ordination and strengthen other departments (Paauwe and Boon 2018). The
report exhibits the relevant theories, models for developments of, changes in the policies and
practices of, the implementation of concept and recommendations for HR management and
development for sustainable business by gaining competitive advantage.
ACTIVITY 1
Determine key current trends and developments that influence an organization's HR strategy.
HR frame strategies and apply them in an organization to manage the people working in
the organization effectively for smooth functioning of business activities. There are some trends
and developments that affect and influence the HR strategies. These following trends are based
on the Contemporary theory:
1. Globalisation and its implications: Multinational companies are growing rapidly which
possesses the requirement to upgrade the existing HR strategy. The basic reason for this
is to select the individuals with best knowledge, skills and cultural adaptability to be able
to meet the challenges of globalization. TNT provides services across the globe, hence it
has deal cross borders for effective delivery of the packages. Therefore, the HR
formulate policies by taking into account applicable laws and customs of each country in
which it is providing its services.
2. Work-force diversity: It refers to the similarities and differences among the employees
in respect of age, cultural background, physical abilities and disabilities, sexual
preferences etc. It is a challenge to manage the diversified workforce. Therefore, HRM
must be aware of and manage the diverse people working in the organization by
understanding and giving respect to everyone's opinions.
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3. Employee expectations: An organization often face high employee turnover because
their expectations are not fulfilled. Since the financial and non-financial needs are ever-
growing therefore, it has influence the HR strategy to a great extent. HR strategy of TNT
should identify the requirements of each personnel to retain them in the firm.
4. Changing skill requirements: Development of an employee is essential to the
competitive growth of an organization. The HRM policy of TNT must focus on
conducting suitable training and short term programs for reducing the deficiencies of
personnels.
5. Continuous improvement programs: This process is done to focus on the quality of
employees and provide necessary training by conducting short term sessions for
productivity. HRM strategy should define a process of clear and extensive
communication to enable the manpower to understand what the company is expecting
out of them.
Analyse how both external and internal factor influence HR strategy and practice.
Key external factors and how they influence have been mentioned below:
1. Government regulations: A company face pressure from the increasing number of
relations that are applicable. This have its impact on every process of HR department
including, hiring, training, compensation and so on. In case of non-compliance with the
laws, the company may be wound up (DuBois and Dubois, 2012). TNT should comply
with the domestic as well as international laws in order to carry its business smoothly.
2. Economic conditions: The fluctuations or crisis in the economy affect not only the
available pool of employees but completely make the company incapable of hiring a
candidate at work. TNT should analyse the impact of financial crisis and BREXIT in
UK.
3. Technological advancements: An entity tries to save and reduce the cost which are
associated with the new technologies acquired by it. Also, the requirement of hiring new
employees will arise, who will be capable enough to understand the change in the
technologies and work accordingly. HR should impart adequate training to make
employee aware about the technological changes and work properly such updated
technology.
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4. Work-force demographics: The compensation packages of an older generation will be
entirely different from the new generation set of candidates entered into the company.
Therefore, TNT should plan the distribution of salary on the basis of an appropriate way.
The internal factors and how they might affect the HR strategy are as follows:
 Compensation: The amount that an organization offers to its employees attract new
candidate to join the workforce and helps in retaining the existing one. The compensation
should not be too high so that it may make the company suffer loss. . TNT should analyse
the industry to see what its competitors are paying to their manpower.
 Employees: Employees are the crucial part of an organisation. If a company has a policy
on internal promotion, it should first provide the necessary training and then promote. HR
department should appraised and monitor its personnels. This will enable the company to
manage healthy relations with people in an organization.
 Customer: A company earns profits by selling its products or offering its services to
customers. The main aim of every organization is to maximize the customer-satisfaction.
Therefore, HRM of TNT will hire employees who will understand and fulfil the needs of
its consumer in order to increase the level of satisfaction. This will be achieved by
imparting training to and development of the man power.
The effect of HR policies have its positive impact on various sectors such as private,
public and voluntary. All the three are different in structure but the duty and responsibilities of
HR remains same. The main aim of HR policy is to retain the employees. Since, public sectors
have funds of public, the importance of HR becomes more as inefficiency of employees may
bring losses to the company and in extreme situations, it may even be wound up. Therefore, HR
policies should be implemented to lower the employee turnover and create attractive workplace.
ACTIVITY 2
Apply relevant theories and concepts relating to the growth and development of strategic HRM
to specific organizational scenarios.
There are more than one theories that can be applied by the organizations for effective
implementation and development of strategic HRM. A company may face difficult situations
such as conflicts between the employees etc. Hence, to boost the retention of employees and to
avoid difficult circumstances, various HRM strategies are applied. In the given case, TNT needs
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high-level skilled employees to cover a wide rage of functions in various department of the
company. Along with this, it want to offer interesting careers and opportunities to both existing
and prospective employees so that they can progress in their professional life. Lastly, it wants to
implement strategies to identify and meets the deficiencies in the capabilities of the existing
workforce. To overcome the problems and make the HRM strategies more strong and effective,
David Ulrich model will be suitable for TNT. David Ulrich is the first and foremost the father of
modern HR (Worley and Mohrman, 2014). This model consider the employees and their roles at
prime position. He has majorly focused on the roles of people working in the organization. The
key components of this model are as follows:
1. HR business partner: It is the link between the employees and the management as well
as the outsiders such as shareholders, creditors, and more. The HR business partner
provides channel through which the internal members of organization will communicates
with the HR department. Along with this, the HR business partner provides feedbacks on
continuous basis to internal parties about the quality of their work. Apart from this, it
assess and search the top talents within the company, fill the job vacancies, set and share
HR goals and promote overall productivity and co-ordination in the workplace. TNT
have HR business partner to minimize the negative effects of rumours and provide better
co-ordination between all the areas of it.
2. Change agent: When an business plans to expand its business, the role of HR also gets
vast and expanded. In this role, the HR communicates the internal changes to all the
people working in the organization. Further, proper training programs are conducted for
developing the skills to adapt the changes and work towards the growth of the
organization. TNT can achieve its objectives by imparting training to its existing
employee by making them understand and assess the capabilities and meet the
deficiencies. Further, it can provide more job opportunities and enable them to work as
per the defined roles of them.
3. Administration expert: This role is responsible for different types of goals. In this, HR
make himself aware about the changes in the legislation, regulation, healthy and safety
standard and rules, any any other trade or labour laws and to make effective arrangement
to comply with these laws/rules and regulations. TNT may use Human Resource
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Information system to monitor, update and secure the information in order to balance and
comply with such changes.
4. Employee champion: It is the core responsibility of the HRM to assess and understand
the interests of the employees and protect them. In this, HR emphasize employees morale
and satisfaction and use the information for creating a healthy and positive working
environment. Further, the fairness and equitableness of managers are identified.
However, TNT has strict HR policy, which provides for the flexible working,
performance management and 540 degree appraisals. All these have positive effects on the
employees of TNT. The employee turnover has reduced which shows that employees are happy
working in this company (Shirey, 2013). Furthermore, it has been placed in the Britain's Top
Employers, which has added to its goodwill. This has attracted new candidates in huge number.
TNT should appoint a HR business partner who will provide feedback on the productivity of the
employees, along with this the person so appointed shall be responsible for conducting training
sessions and job opportunities. Further, he should provide and incorporate legal changes in
company policies governing employees and resolve disputes in just manner.
ACTIVITY 3
Evaluate how appropriate change management models support HR strategy in application to
relevant organizational examples.
There are three models that can be applied. These are
 Kotter Model of change
 Lewin's Three Step Change
 Nudge Theory
Kotter's 8 step of change model: This model is a process of change. It is not necessary
that, such changes will always bring desired results. According to John Kotter, there are 30%
chance of organizational change success. This model was introduced to improve an entity's
capabilities and performance to change and to increase the probability of its success. A company
can follow the 8 steps as shown in the diagram above to avoid failures by adapting the changes.
A change observed by an employee does not always mean to bring something positive. The
initial three steps are for creating right culture for change, next three steps are for creating a
connection the change with organizational activities and last two steps are for implementation
such changes.
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Diagram 1. Kotter's 8 steps of change
Source: Google image
Lewin's Three step model: This change model was developed by Kurt Lewin in 1940s
and is still being used by the business in current situations. The model is divided into three
categories viz. Unfreeze, change and refreeze. In the first phase, the employees will resist to
adapt the change, therefore, the company should create an awareness about the current level of
acceptability before implementing a change. After unfreezing, an entity will move towards a
new state by transitioning itself through implementation of change. In the last step, the
environment due to the changes will be stabilized. It is to make sure that employees do not take
their steps back from the changes made (.Arno and Thomas, 2016.).
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Diagram 2. Lewin's Three Step model
Source: Google image
Nudge theory: This theory is about behavioural economics of organization. A nudge is
crucial to the organization as it guides the behaviours of people in the entity. The HR take
decisions by taking into account the psychological, emotional, social and other important factors.
HR achieve the goals of the company by designing the HR policy, communicating it, training the
employees, manage the change and so on (Laosirihongthong and et. al., 2014).
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Diagram 3. Nudge Theory
Source: Google image
Organizations can use these and other related models for getting positive outcomes from
the changes that occurred in the business for getting success. TNT may use Kotter's model to
improve its current efficiency of delivery services across the globe. The HR should provide and
make the employees aware about various changes that may occur due to any reasons ranging
from expansion to economic crisis. This model will help to maximize the chances of success by
giving training to employees as this will make TNT more competitive. Lewin's model can
provide advantages in its own way (Carroll and et. al., 2013). The HR may use the steps to make
the employees comfortable and confident with the changes, process them in way that can be
appreciated and easy to understand by existing employees and motivate them to keep working
towards such changes in order to multiple the profits of the company. Nudge Theory can be used
to influence the behaviours of the people working in the organization in a positive way. This
attitude of people will build an environment that will be liked by all. Employees will feel
motivated, which will ultimately increase the productivity of the company by accomplishing the
targets on time. However, there are some drawbacks of this it excludes the informal changes
such as personal change, tactics lacks clarity of vision and strategy etc.
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ACTIVITY 4
Explain how HR outcomes can be monitored and measured and apply this to a specific
organizational situation.
Company measure the performance of HR to a specific situation by applying various
methods, one of them is Benchmarking. TNT wish to hire the right people with high skills and
qualification who can carry its work smoothly. Further, it wants to provide adequate
opportunities for its employees to progress in the firm.
Benchmarking: It is the performance assessment, which evaluate the competences of a
company against the best standard set by other companies i.e. competitors. The performance of
HR can be assessed from the efficiency of employees. It is of two types; internal and external. In
the case TNT, HR can hire the employees who will work effectively in the global network and in
all areas of an organization. It can see the HR strategies of its rivals to evaluate and identify
where it is lacking for attracting and retaining the customers. After this, it can use the exact
policies of its competitors or can make certain modifications. TNT should frame the
compensation to appraisal of the employees. It must take the basis of that company, which is
providing the best services in the UK market and carry out the possible and necessary activities
to meet its goals.
Further, it can use key performance indicator to measure the performance of HR. The
objective of such indicators is to provide a base for a particular situation to achieve the objective
which the company wants to achieve. TNT can evaluate the performance on the following basis:
 Retention of talent: This allows the company to evaluate the average number of
employees that it is able to retain in the existing workforce culture.
 Average time for recruitment: Whether the HR is efficient enough to complete the whole
recruitment process within the specified time (Booth and Carroll, 2015.).
 Training: The time taken for imparting the training and how effectively employees are
understanding and responding to the knowledge given by the HR.
Checklist of HRM:
1. Time: There is a fixed working hours in every organizations. If an employee comes and
leaves on time then productivity will be increased. Whether HR is motivating employees
to come on time or not.
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2. Uniforms: There is a dress code in most of the organization, especially, service
companies like TNT. Hence, whether employees are wearing their uniforms on daily
basis or not.
Discuss and evaluate how effective HR management and development can support sustainable
performance and growth to meet organizational objectives.
Every company carries business for sustainable development by growing through
meeting its objectives. A company can evaluate it from “best fit” and “resource-based view”.
Best fit and competitive advantage: It is an approach of strategic human resources
management that identifies the close relationship between the strategic management and HRM
by taking into account the nature of influence and vertical integration. The company can assess
the level of competition in the market by conducting an analysis. The entity may implement
various competitive strategies which can be a part of HR policies. The alignment in strategies
with HR practices will help the company to make retain employees by providing them with
opportunities. It will reduce the cost, clear and defined distinction between roles of employees
which will increase their efficiency. Along with this, it will increase the brand image of TNT
when strategies are implemented effectively (Kotter's 8 steps change model, 2017).
Resource-based view: It is an approach which emerged in 1980s and 1990s. This
provides lights that organization should evaluate the sources of competitive advantage instead of
looking to carry business at competitive environment. A company can easily exploit external
opportunities by using the available resources. TNT may use the updates in the existing system
to improve the HRM quality so that a better co-ordination can be formed between various
departments. Also, the firm may search the candidate with high skills to carry its work.
CONCLUSION
From the above report, it has been concluded that, a business must have defined strategies
in order to attain its objectives. Human resource is the most important asset of the company as it
can not carry business without employing them. HR department is responsible for the
management of the labour and for this purpose various strategies are implemented for proper
management. Further, strategic HRM is necessary to keep the employees motivated to work in
the company for long-term. There should be a co-ordination between the companies overall
strategies and HR policies in order to retain the existing employees and attract new candidates to
join the company. This co-ordination will bring competitive advantage for company.
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REFERENCES
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