Essay on Strategic Human Resource Management

This essay discusses the role of strategic human resource management (HRM) in achieving organizational goals and gaining competitive advantage. It covers the use of balanced scorecard, analysis of how HRM strategies are related to wider management strategies, and how HRM strategies can enhance organizational capabilities and performance. The essay uses Morrison, a British international retailing company, as an example. Course code, course name, and college/university are not mentioned.

Strategic human
resource management

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................3
Role of strategic HRM by using balanced scorecard..................................................................3
Analysis of how HRM strategies are related to wider management strategies...........................5
How HRM strategies are used to enhance organisational capabilities and performance............6
CONCLUSION ...............................................................................................................................7
REFERENCE...................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is one of the most essential part of an organisation which
manages employees and other essential resources of an organisation to achieve their goal and
objectives (Collins, 2021). One of the most essential factor of companies success is the
performance of their employees which further help them to expand the business globally. HR
department of a company is responsible for fulfilling the requirement of employees by hiring
new employees, providing them training for the enhancement of their skills and knowledge and
many others. Morrison is a British international retailing company which is founded in 1899 by
William Morrison. It is headquartered in Bradford, UK. The following report covers role of
strategic HRM by using balanced scorecard, analysis of how HRM strategies are related to wider
management strategies and HRM strategies used to enhance organisational capabilities and
performance.
MAIN BODY
Role of strategic HRM by using balanced scorecard
Human resource management is the practice of handling manpower and other resources
of an organisation in such a way which will help their company to achieve their organisational
goal and gain competitive advantage. Hence, every company aims to manage their manpower
and other resources effectively and efficiently to achieve their aim (McClean and Collins, 2019).
There are various kind of HRM roles for an organisational benefit which are given below-
Recruitment and selection- This is one of the most essential role of an HR manager for
the development of their organisation where they analyse the requirement of employees and hire
new employees in case they found that their organisation is facing lack of skilled manpower.
Here, HR manager focuses on skills and talents of candidates and hire those candidates only
which are best suitable for their vacant job role. This will help them to have skilled and talented
workforce to conduct their task with full efficiency in their organisation which further help them
to gain competitive advantage. In context of Morrison, their HR manager hire employees by
checking their skills and talents personally in interview. Different kind of job roles require

different kind of skills. Hence, they hire employees according to their skill which matches the
offered job role.
Employees development- HR manager of an organisation also have a role of focusing
upon employee's development by providing them appropriate training on regular basis. This will
help them to enhance the skills of their employees and prepare their manpower for resolving
organisational challenges (Harrison and Bazzy, 2017). On the other hand, providing development
programmes such as promotions, hike in salaries and many others to good performing employees
are also help to develop their skills and roles within the organisation. In context of Morrison,
their new hired employees get on job training so that they can learn how they are supposed to
work within stores and how they can handle different behaviour of customers effectively to gain
customer satisfaction.
Meaning of balanced scorecard- It is a well structured performance measurement tool
which is used by a manager to report the performance and all actions which is impacted by the
performance of employees within this score card. It is one of the most effective way to measure
employees performance from each aspect to identify their overall performance within the
organisation. Here, managers can also suggest their employees for their performance betterment
so that they can enhance their skills.
In context of HR manager in Morrison, they make strategies with the help of balanced
scorecard like they measure and record their employees performance as well as other aspects of
business like financial status, marketing status and many others in balanced scorecard. This will
help them to analyse all those factors which acts as an obstacle for the company to grow rapidly
(Han and et. al., 2019). For example, there are lack of IT skilled employees in Morrison which is
analysed by their balanced scorecard and this analysis will help HR manager to make strategies
to hire at least 2 IT experts within their each store. This will help them to manage their technical
issues as soon as possible without taking external help. There are four perspective of balanced
scorecard which are the main focuses of Morrison to achieve success. This balanced scorecard
helps them to utilize overall performance of their organisation. These four perspectives are
mentioned below-
Learning and growth- Here performance of an organization is measured on the basis of
their infrastructure, technology, human capital and culture. It is essential for an organization to
have positive and ethical culture which further motivation their employees to develop their

performance. In context of Morrison, they are having good technological tools and machines to
operate their functioning but few tools are outdated which is required to replace as soon as
possible for organisational benefit. It also consist whether the technology is utilized effectively
or not in context of an organization. This perspectives help Morrison to analyse how well the
knowledge of their employees are implemented in their organisation to achieve competitive
advantage.
Internal business process- This perspective is used to analyse how well organisational
process are conducting to achieve their goals (Harvey and Turnbull, 2020). This perspective are
used to analyse any gap or delay in the organizational operating process. In context of Morrison,
their balanced scorecard shows a little operational process issue regarding their outdated
machines and tools. Hence, they are suggested to change their machines and tools to achieve
greater efficiency within their different operational processes.
Customers- This perspective is used to analyse how well an organization is able to
manage their customers and stakeholders effectively. In context of Morrison, they fulfil their
customers needs and wants effectively by introducing new product portfolio every year to offer
diverse products so that their customers will gain all kind of home products at a single store. On
the other hand, Morrison also share dividends to their stakeholders on timely basis to gain their
interest and they provide all true financial information to their stakeholders.
Finance- It is most effective and essential perspective of balanced scorecard which
indicates the financial status of a company (Wright and Ulrich, 2017). The backbone of every
company is Finance and they are unable to perform any task without appropriate amount of
funds. Hence, in context of Morrison, their employees reduce unproductive activities from their
Organization so that they will not spend much on such activities.
Analysis of how HRM strategies are related to wider management strategies
Wider management strategies are those strategies which help to analyse how an
organization is going to complete their tasks for achieving their organizational goal. There is
interlink between wider management strategies and HRM strategies which are mentioned below-
Customer Intimacy- It is most important wider management strategy which defined that
organization must maintain good and close relationship with their customers to achieve success.
Hence, to achieve this goal HRM strategies help by providing training to their employees in such
a way which will help employees to maintain their good relationship with customers. In context

of Morrison, they train their employees all the ways to handle different kind of customers to
achieve their satisfaction. They train their employees to be polite and helpful to their customers
in any situation so that customers will feel free to share their feedback to employees about the
brand and products. Hence, this will further help to analyse changes to gain competitive
advantage.
Lowest total cost- This is another wider management strategy which help the company
to gain competitive advantage from financial status in the market. Here, companies keep
lowering their costs so that they can set low prices for customers to purchase their products. This
will further help a company to gain more customers (Wassell and Bouchard, 2020). In context of
Morrison, their HR manager hire those employees who are having innovative skills to provide
some good ideas to minimize cost for the organization. Beside all this, their main focus is to
maintain their products quality in better condition. For this, they implement a strategy of having
comparison card in their stores which they hand over to their customers which mentioned the
prices of their products and prices of similar products of other retailing company so that
customers will make a decision of purchase. On the other hand, they also focus on managing
their raw material effectively and efficiently. Their waste management strategies are very
effective that it does not allow to waste a single unit of their raw material. This will further help
then to maintain the cost of production as lower.
How HRM strategies are used to enhance organisational capabilities and performance
There are various HRM strategies which help an organization to enhance their
organizational capabilities and performance which is explained below-
Recruitment and selection- It is one of the most effective practice of HR manager where
they attract talented and skilled candidates to their organization by advertisements and many
other ways (Kasemsap, 2019). In context of Morrison, their HR manager recruit candidates for
fulfilling their vacant job roles. They select best candidate from various alternative of candidates.
Hence, hiring skilled and talented employees will help them to achieve their organizational goal
faster by reducing uncertainty within their organization. HR manager of Morrison conduct face
to face interview in their recruitment and selection process to personally identify skills of that
candidate which they are hiring for their organizational betterment. Skilled employees will help a
company to increase their productivity and profitability. This is how hiring of skilled workforce
will enhance organizational capabilities and performance.

Development programmes- There are various kind of development programmes which
is opted by a HR manager to enhance the skill of their employees. In context of Morrison, they
provide training sessions on regular basis to their employees so that their skills and knowledge
for adopting recent trends will develop so that they will contribute to work hard in improvement
of productivity of their organization. They train their new hired employees and they provide on
job training to their so that they will learn the ways of handling customers in actual job role by
observing other employees in stores. Secondly, providing promotions to good performing
employees will motivate them to perform better to get more promotions (Nyaema and Wambua,
2019). This will also encourage to low performing employees to work hard and help their
company to achieve their goal as soon as possible so that with the help of their developed
performance they will get personal benefit of promotion and hike in salaries. These two training
and promotions help employees to perform well so that their overall organisational performance
will get developed.
Creating well being environment- Another essential strategy of HR manager is to
maintain their organizational culture in a good and positive condition so that they will gain
employees satisfaction by providing them well being environment. In context of Morrison, their
HR manager manages their employees and make sure that they will have all those resources
which is required to complete their task. They also makes sure that their employees will not have
too much work Burden or stress within their organisation to maintain health of their employees
because for organisational performance it is essential to maintain both physical and mental health
of employees. Hence, well being working environment will help Morrison to gain customer
satisfaction and when their employees get highly satisfied then they will increase their
performance to achieve organisational goal (Ismail, Abdelrahman and Abdul Majid, 2018).
CONCLUSION
From the above information it is concluded that HR strategies are made for managing
employees and their activities to gain higher productivity and performance of their employees
which further help organisation to achieve their objective. Balanced scorecard is a tool of
measuring performance of overall organisation and identifies which factors will affect their
company positive as well as negative so that they will take actions for negative factors. This will
help them to achieve competitive advantage in market. Lowest total cost strategy of HR is one of

the most effective and commonly used by many organisations where companies focuses to
reduce their overall production and operational cost.
REFERENCE
Book and journal
Collins, C.J., 2021. Expanding the resource based view model of strategic human resource
management. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 32(2),
pp.331-358.
Han, J.H. and et. al., 2019. The goldilocks effect of strategic human resource management?
Optimizing the benefits of a high-performance work system through the dual alignment
of vertical and horizontal fit. Academy of Management Journal, 62(5), pp.1388-1412.
Harrison, T. and Bazzy, J.D., 2017. Aligning organizational culture and strategic human resource
management. Journal of Management Development.
Harvey, G. and Turnbull, P., 2020. Ricardo flies Ryanair: Strategic human resource management
and competitive advantage in a Single European Aviation Market. Human Resource
Management Journal, 30(4), pp.553-565.
Ismail, A.I., Abdelrahman, S.E. and Abdul Majid, A.H., 2018. Closing strategic human resource
management research lacunas with mediating role of employee creativity. Academy of
Strategic Management Journal, 17(1), pp.1-18.
Kasemsap, K., 2019. Promoting strategic human resource management, organizational learning,
and knowledge management in modern organizations. In Advanced Methodologies and
Technologies in Business Operations and Management (pp. 879-891). IGI Global.
McClean, E. and Collins, C.J., 2019. Expanding the concept of fit in strategic human resource
management: An examination of the relationship between human resource practices and
charismatic leadership on organizational outcomes. Human Resource
Management, 58(2), pp.187-202.
Nyaema, W.R. and Wambua, P., 2019. Strategic human resource management practices and
employee retention in Commercial Banks in Nairobi City County, Kenya. Journal of
Human Resource and Leadership, 4(2), pp.73-89.
Wassell, S. and Bouchard, M., 2020. Rebooting strategic human resource management:
integrating technology to drive talent management. International Journal of Human
Resources Development and Management, 20(2), pp.93-113.
Wright, P.M. and Ulrich, M.D., 2017. A road well traveled: The past, present, and future journey
of strategic human resource management. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology
and Organizational Behavior, 4, pp.45-65.