Human Resource Management: Nature, Characteristics, and Strategies for Competitive Advantage

This article discusses the importance of human resource management in organizations and how it can help them gain a competitive advantage. It explores the nature and characteristics of HRM, people management strategies, and the contribution and criticism of HRM in organizations. It also delves into the current trends in HRM in Google and the tourism sector.

Running Head: Human Resource Management 0
Managing people

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Human resource management: nature and characteristics
In today’s time, almost all the authors have stated the importance of human resource
management for business success. Vozaa (2018), stated that it is a strategic approach that
helps in managing the human resource of organization in an effective manner. Marchington,
Wilkinson, Donnelly and Kynighou (2016), believe that human resource management helps
the company in getting competitive advantage. Human resource manager in every
organization is required to effectively manage its human resource for business success.
Human resource management is an important function of manager that helps the manager in
recruitment, selection, development, and training of employees in the organization Noe,
Hollenbeck, Gerhart and Wright, (2016).
By criticising this, Bianca (2018), stated that for ensuring the success of human resource in
organization, is essential to treating the human resource as an important asset. Same as, the
chosen organization Google also indulges in various activities of human resource
management for the smooth functioning in the organization. Through effectively managing
the human resource, individual in the Google brought together to achieve the goals in
effective manner. In this way, it is based on the individual skills, knowledge, and talent in the
organization. By considering all the elements of human resource, Bratton and Gold (2017),
believes that for smooth functioning results are necessary not rules. Therefore, it mainly
focuses on the result rather than focusing on rules. Human resource management is future
oriented as it helps the organization in achieving the goals by proving the motivated as well
as competent employees. Besides this, it also helps in maintain the coordination among
people who are working at different levels in the organization.
There are various Characteristics of Human resource management. Firstly, it is both science
as well as art. It is an art because it helps in managing the people by taking innovative
approaches. However, Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher and Garavan (2018), believed that it is
science because of the application of various theories. Besides this, it is a pervasive function
of management by covering all level and kind of people, operational staff, and management.
It is required in all kinds of organization whether it is profit making or non-profit
organization. Human resource management in organization is a continuous process that
begins with the planning and continuous with recruitment, selection, training and ends with
performance appraisal. HRM provides the equal opportunities to each employee without

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doing any sort of discrimination. Human department of every organization ensures the quality
work by coordinating the different departments in the organization. HRM in the organization
ensures the regulation friendly environment in the organization.
Barney, (1991), highlighted that after the evolution of SHRM, various differences occurred in
human resource department. As Human resource management does not have specified rules
in the organization but in strategic human resource management, there are certain set of rules
for each field in the organization that every people is required to follow. Besides this,
strategic HRD ensures that right and talented people must present in the organization to meet
the current as well as future needs of the organization. Same as HRM, strategic HRM also
uses various methods for motivating the employees and their productivity. Then most
important characteristic of human resource management is that it establishes the positive and
strong relationship between management and labour. The human resource department in
every company is responsible for maintaining the good relations among all the staff of
organization and maintain team building. Goggle has also effectively managed the relation
among all the staff of organization and it contributes in the success of organization. HRM
department also arranges the time-to-time meeting so that any deficiency come to notice and
can be solved. In Google, HRM department timely conduct the meeting of its staff and upper
level management (Nankervis, Baird, Coffey and Shields, 2016). Suggestions and ideas are
also invited on the part of lower level people so to develop their skills to take decision.
People management strategies to achieve competitive advantage in the workplace
It is true that firms can gain the competitive advantage by managing its human resource in an
effective manner. There are various techniques used in the organization to achieve the
competitive advantage in the firms. According to Vozza (2018), Employment security is one
of the important tools that help in achieving the competitive advantage in the workplace.
Employment security helps the employee in assuring a long-term agreement with the
organization. This helps in generating the loyalty, willingness and commitment and extra
efforts on part of employees. Google also uses this strategy by keeping its employees
connected with the organization for the long time. As compare to this, (Renkema, Bondarouk
and Bos, 2018), stated that high wages is also one such tool or strategy used for gaining the
competitive advantage in the organization. By keeping the wages high, firms can attract the
better, talented, and qualified people in the organization. It is the important basis of the
organization success by keeping its employees happy with the good pay. By criticizing this

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statement, Power (2015), stated that besides wages various other strategies can also help in
achieving the competitive advantage. Among those, Google also assures good amount of pay
to its employees so that they work more hard for the organization. In addition to basic pay,
incentives are also given to the employees in the organization for extra efforts. For
employees, this practice is just and fair. Google believes that incentives are essential by
providing value to the employees by paying extra for their efforts. Information sharing is also
one such people development strategy to remain competitive. It is necessary to provide
information regarding the productivity, operations, and profitability to the employees.
Information sharing helps the organization to know how much the interest of employees and
organization are related to each other.
By keeping the people development strategies, Mohdin (2015), founded that Google is rated
as top employer due to its best culture by treating the employees as an important asset. It has
created a culture in which each one is allowed to share their ideas. This helps the company to
maintain a supportive environment by working in a team. In addition to all this,
empowerment and participation of employees is an important people development strategy
that is helpful in achieving the competitive advantage. It is essential to include the employees
in decision-making. In today’s complex business environment, it is required by the
organization to maintain coordination among the employees and permit the lower-level
employees for enhancing the performance. Training is also an important aspect in the
organization to maintain the competitive advantage. There are varied of task that an employee
is required to handle in the organization and training help’s in increasing the skills of the
employees. Expertise in different field makes the work more interesting as well as flexible for
the employees. For example- it can also replace any absent employee from the one who is
capable to perform the duty. Training in Google keeps a great important at the workplace.
The practices of human resource management put more emphasis on the training programs in
Google. It uses different tools to support the innovative workforce. It regularly conducts
training programs in order to make the employees expertise in different fields. Besides this,
workforce management is also an important tool to gain the competitive advantage in the
workforce. It is the main function of HR manager for every company and requires the proper
attention. It actually covers every single process that are related to the employees. It is
significant part for the success of the organization. Hiring and training are the two most
important aspects. There are some steps that companies are required to follow in order to grab
the competitive advantage in firm. For this proper job description is necessary so that

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employees are aware of their responsibilities and what are expected to them. Giving
responsibility is not only enough. Allocating time for every task is also necessary to know the
skills of every employee. In this way, people development strategies play an important role in
the organization to gain the competitive advantage. Google is successful in today’s time as it
is effectively making use of these strategies (Brewster, Chung and Sparrow, 2016).
Contribution and criticism of HRM in organization
HRM plays an important role in the organization. All the successful organization’s creates a
favourable and positive environment for employees by keeping its employees productive and
happy. Through the help of HRM practices, organizations reward the desired employees.
(Collings, Wood and Szamosi, 2018) stated that by keeping the separate department of
human resource in organization, it ensures the positive working environment for all the
people on organization. The chosen organization, Google also get various positive benefits by
keeping the checking the performance of employees time-to-time. Human resource
management practices also helps in satisfying and encouraging the employees by contributing
in a positive manner. It is true that skills and knowledge of employees helps in increasing the
competitive advantage in business, Organizations like Google capitalize on the positive
impact of HRM by improving the employee’s performance. As per Boxall (2003), Proper
working of human resource department is essential for getting the results. Same as, HRM
department in Google seeks to provide the various positive contributions to employees. It
provides the resource for the training and education of employees as well as chance to use the
knowledge. It is true that workers I today’s time expect the several conditions. Moreover, US
workers are too diverse. There are also various older workers as well as workers with
disabilities. Therefore, the impact of HRM on diverse workplace is flexible (Hassan, 2016). It
is because organization wants to retain the workers for long time. For this, they provide
flexible schedules, assignments, work locations, work environment, as well as flexible
communication format. Human resource activities such as recruitment, selection, and
development of employees and eventually retaining the employee’s affect the general
performance of company in positive manner. Training, education, and development of
employees also put the positive impact on business by ensuring the flexible working
environment in organization (Ribeiro and Gomes, 2016).
The valuable HRM practices help the company to deal the problems of human resource in an
effective manner. It also allows the work force to provide quality services in spite of external

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and internal difficulties to the company. Appropriate human resource management policies
also facilitate the organization to prioritize its whole business strategies. HRM is a key
function of management that contributes immensely in the success of the organization
(Sheehan, Grant and Garavan, 2018). The work force is truly the most important asset
because employees are the one who are required to be well involved and enables the
decision-making. Therefore, it is accepted that employees are most valuable assets in the
organization; it is necessary to properly identify the human resource practices and policies
and can bring the success in the organization. Human resource management has become an
essential tool in the 21st century. HRM has contributed effectively in the Google and it is
making effective use of HRM. It has taken innovation as its main aspect and worked upon it.
For this, it has “employee centred culture” whose main work is the empowerment of
employees. All the functions of HR are strategic partner in the company that focused on the
core operations through hiring as well as retaining the best people in company. Human
resource is the main reason behind the success of the Google. With the passage of time, it
becomes famous for its friendly environment that is required in every organization. In this
way, human resource management has contributed in the success of various organizations
including Google.
In addition to the benefits, (Bashshur and Oc, 2015), said that HR also has various criticisms.
Some of the criticism occurs when HR manager make the inappropriate strategy or goal. Due
to this, employees are not able to effectively work in the organization and as a result, they
criticize the HR department. Besides this, inappropriate training is also one such thing that is
criticizes on the part of staff in the organization.
Current trends of HRM in Google and tourism sector
In recent time, Google is one such company who is effectively using the human resource in
its organization. In this regard, Lombardo (2017), stated that it makes use of various
strategies to address the needs of diversified workforce. However, the diversification enforces
various challenges to the managers of human resource in organization. HR managers in
Google mainly focus on effectively use of forecast information in order to minimise the
shortage of employees in the organization. In Google, surveys are not just used for checking
the increment of workforce rather than it uses the survey for improving the HR practices in
organization. A survey conducted by HR marketer to check the viewpoint of respondents. As
a result, it is founded that 48% believes that employee survey do not give a true picture and

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assessment. On the other hand, 31% believes that survey depicts the true picture (Maier,
2016). In the past year, managing the human resource was quite simple but in today’s time,
workforce is diverse. It includes different gender, values, culture, age, education, religion,
lifestyle, marital status, ideologies, and values. Therefore, the current Human resource
department requires certain changes through creativity and innovation. Current HR
department requires innovation and creativity that help the organization remain competitive.
Among all, friendly environment is one such important by including the flexibility in work
schedules. The Google Company effectively uses all these trends by ensuring the flexibility
in work schedules (Maier, 2016). In Google also, diverse people from different cultural
background works that requires the proper attention on the part of HR department.
After the survey of Tourism sector in Sri Lanka, it is founded that it is fourth largest foreign
earner. In 2007, tourism sector of Sri Lanka earned the $384.4 million (Ichniowski, Shaw and
Prennushi, 1997). In recent time, tourism sector has been acing several problems related to
HRM. Due to weather changes in several areas, tourism sector is not able to get the required
workforce. This is one of the major problems that is being faced by Tourism sector related to
human resource management.

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