Strategic Human Resource Management

This article discusses the concept of strategic human resource management (SHRM) and its importance in organizations. It explores the role of HR in adding value to the organization and addresses the challenges faced by HR teams. The article also discusses strategies for managing employee retention and improving HR teams. It relates the concepts of SHRM to a case study of a correctional home's HR team and provides insights on how to enhance the team's performance.

Running head: STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Human resource management refers to the systematic approach towards the effective
management of work force in a specific organisation and this in turn helps the organization to
gain an advantage in the competitive market. HRM can be considered as the building block of
any organization as its main function is to enhance the performance of the employees and to
focus on the organizational policies. Strategic Human Resource Management, in addition to
the responsibilities of HRM focuses on development of both the employees and the
organization (Hollenbeck & Jamieson 2015). SHRM’s main aim is to attract, develop, reward
and retain individual employees and the organization as a whole. SHRM is another way of
approach of HRM that addresses the challenges related to the organization and contributes
directly to objectives in the long run. The primary objectives of SHRM are improving the
performance of the business and enhance a culture that encourages innovation and performs
relentlessly to achieve an advantage in competition. SHRM is one step ahead of the
traditional concept of HRM. Every organization may it be small or big has a HRM body and
the role of HR plays a vital part. I have joined as a human resource manager in a private
correctional home and the team consist of three members including me. The team consists of
payroll officer and human resource administrator and the whole team reports to the senior
management. This paper will discuss on some shortcomings of the HRM team of the
correctional home with reference to some articles.
Article 1
Summary of the Article
The article considered is a thorough discussion about the present situation of the HR
department on global aspect. The authors Dave Ulrich and James H. Dulebohn has stated in
their article that over the decades HR department has evolved and got developed from having
the functionality of maintenance and administration of lower level to getting promoted to be

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the core business functions of many organisations and to be the strategic business partner
between the companies. The whole motive of the article is to find out whether HR sector is
“there” yet. This there is described as the extent of the development of the HR section. The
author also presented a question that if the limit has been reached regarding the development
of HR then what is waiting for it in future. It was found that the emergence of HR took place
mainly because of the fact that these people always try to add value to the organisation in
terms of production and efficiency which are the basic parameter for the development of the
organisation (Vanhala & Ritala, 2016). Hence, the organisation focussed more on this section
and the emergence took place. Later in the period of post WWII, this addition of the value
was ceased towards the company which later resulted into the demotion of the group towards
handling the maintenance and administrative functions (Masud, Daud, Zainol, Rashid &
Afthanorhan, 2019). The existing inside-outside approach of HR was now confined to inside-
only approach. Again, from 1980s the transformation among the HR is felt and once again
they were seen adding the value to the organisation by indulging themselves into
inside/outside approach (Cook, MacKenzie & Forde, 2016). The prime findings of the article
is that if HR section wants to develop themselves and wish to be in one of the top controlling
sectors of an organisation then all they had to is to add value to the organisation, because
adding value to the company is the sole way to provide benefit to the company. To add value
addition to the company the most important requirement is to always develop the
outside/inside approach which benefits more to the company in reality. Once HR will be able
to benefit both sides of the stakeholders, the development of HR sector is certain (Järlström,
Saru & Vanhala, 2016).
Critical Analysis of the Article
A detailed and researched paper by Dulebohn and Ulrich lacks demerits. Intensively
researched, this paper is a good source of information and the overview of the methods HRs

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should apply is also precise. Absence of unnecessary lengthy description makes the paper
interesting to read. Graphical illustrations presented is also something worthy to be
mentioned as some detailed ideas get easily described. Good amount of references validates
the argument that authors presented and discussed. On the contradiction, in spite of
mentioning various methods, the author kept confined themselves to the discussion of one
point only. The other points are not provided with considerable amount of discussion.
Besides, all the data collected are secondary data based on the readings of the existing
journals and articles. Although the journals and articles are accepted worldwide hence, we
can say that the data presented there are authentic but somehow the primary data based on a
survey would be much better in understanding the present situation.
Relation of the SHRM with the Case Study along with its Implication
In this article the ways which can lead to a better HR management team is being said
to have an outside/inside approach that would result into the development of the stakeholders
of the organisation from both the sides. The case study where the newly appointed HR
manager identified a situation where the operation of the team is not up to the mark as it
should be can be well justified using the article. As said in the discussion of the article that an
HR management team should be well-recruited as various ideas when work for similar
interest then the outcome always becomes productive and innovative (Ladkin & Buhalis,
2016). Similarly, the main weakness of the management system in the case study is it
comprises of only three members including the newly appointed HR manager, a payroll
officer and an HR administrator. Besides the system also helps to identify another weakness
that an inside/outside approach is somewhere missing from the management team of the
organisation. Comprising of three members, the team is small enough to provide support to
the senior management as well as initiate communication with the external stakeholders of
the facility. To get the HR management team promoted to upper level it is important for the

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team to have more members so that all of them together can serve for the similar interest and
thus adding more value to the organisation. Finally, it can be figured out from the strength of
the management team that the investment for HR development has not been done in a proper
manner.
According to the 7th proposition in the article it is said that HR management team will
not only focus on the alignment, integration and innovation for the facility but also should
focus into globalisation, risk and sustainability (Ulrich & Dulebohn, 2015). Rather than
measuring the training duration for the mangers or how many feedbacks has been submitted
regarding a given questionnaire, it is much more important for the team to measure the
parameters that would affect the customers, stakeholders and the investors. As long as these
stakeholders remain unattended no value is going to be added to the existing value of the
organisation. Another parameter that would make the HR team more efficient is the
investment towards it. Proper investment regarding the recruitment, training and the funding
of the procedures the HR managers want to perform for the sake of the company should be
done, keeping it at top priority (Mansor, Abu, Abashah & Mohd Kassim, 2018). Bigger team
would reflect huge addition in values as the whole team will be working for similar interests.
Providing the team with much exposure will let it to realise the scenarios of the company that
needs immediate addressing and remedy. This much attention to the HR management is
necessary for any organisation because they are the one who make the company work
following the guidelines and with ethics (Watson, 2018). It is HR team’s duty to take over the
administrative control as well as of the stakeholders of the company as the human resources
management as described by its name has the potential to recruit the best for every category
of task that the company is able to or desires to perform.
Article 2: SHRM and managing retention in an organization

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The problem of attrition in any organization is a huge issue and the human resource
management is responsible to keep a check and help the organization retain the employees. A
systematic approach along with analytics can give an organization advantage in relation to
the competition in the market. The article referred to for the discussion deals in the various
ways to handle attrition rate in employees (Phillips & Connell, 2003). The attrition rate of an
organization cannot be always externally driven as there are many internal factors leading to
the employee’s dissatisfaction resulting in attrition. The issues related to managing retention
have been explored and different steps have been taken into consideration to focus on the
accountability of the issue of the retention of employees. An organization cannot operate
properly if the employees frequently leave work as human force who are diligent in their
work are the need of an organization to help reach its goal. In an organization it is the duty of
the HR team to intervene into a matter due to which an employee resigned. The HR team is
responsible to communicate with the employees facing an issue and resolving the same as
fast as possible so that the employee’s trust on the organizational values is retained (Deery &
Jago, 2015). The strategies such as regular motivational sessions and appraisals must be
implemented to boost the energy of the employees. The HR team must bring in incentive
schemes so that the competition between employees helps them excel in their work. A
strategic accountability approach is the model that has been discussed mainly in the article.
The advantages of the approach have been listed in the article and various key issues have
also been discussed. The problems related to existing approaches have also been discussed.
The old approaches have created many problems and have made a new issue altogether.
There are organizations that develop huge incentive packages so that they can keep their
number of employees intact but hardly do they think about how this will put financial burden
on the organization (Delery & Roumpi, 2017). This is the reactive approach and is
detrimental to the health of the organisation and in the same way if too many measures are

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taken to prevent employee attrition then also it creates problem. The solutions that have
worked for a different branch of the same organization may not be effective for the other
branch as well but some HR managers implement such solutions and fail in the attempt of
reducing attrition.
General Implications of SHRM
The evolution of SHRM is an outcome of firms’ strategic management inclinations.
SHRM yields higher firm performance by linking work methodology to strategies. When HR
department link their practices, strategies and processes with the strategies of that of the firm,
SHRM evolves. SHRM is a tool that helps an organization in achieving competitive
advantage. It is the well planned and structured deployment of human resource and respective
activities that aid an organization to reach the goal it had set. SHRM vertically clubs human
resource activities to the strategies of the organization and horizontally helps in coordinating
and harmonizing HRM strategies and also practices it in itself. EO that refers to firm level
entrepreneurial activities is an emerging concept along with the strategic management. It is
defined as an organizations creativeness, risk handling techniques and proactiveness when
facing the rivalries in the competition market. The firms inculcating proactivity in them are
being expected to be the leaders of the market in days to come as they can easily adapt to the
change in situations and respond to it faster than that others can do. Strategic human resource
management prevents mismatch between the needs and the solutions that is such solutions are
implemented that address the requirement. In some organizations, too many solutions are
implemented but none address the real problem and the issue remains unresolved (Kryscynski
& Ulrich, 2015). One of the important aspects of strategic human resource management is
development of employees. The process of development starts when a firm is recruiting
deserving employees and is focusing on improvising the techniques associated with
interviews and successfully weeding out those who are not appropriate for the organizations

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work. Strategic human resource management is not only essential for large firms but is also
essential for the small firms. In smaller firms it may deal with just the manager assessing and
assisting employees everyday and keeping the higher authorities updated by providing
regular reviews (Ogunyomi & Bruning, 2016). Larger firms generally have a team of
members tagged as human resource department and they work together to meet the need of
the employees as well as increase the productivity of the firm and this in turn improves the
quality of the staffs. Strategic human resource management does not follow any such specific
rules or model and it encompasses the outdated human resource functions of hiring
employees and works for the overall strategies related to the organization that helps achieving
success.
Understanding of SHRM
In the competitive market today there is need to find and successfully retain best
employees and SHRM is the perfect tool for this. SHRM is a combination of employee’s
needs and company’s betterment and thus helps in retaining employees and at the same time
increase the revenue of the firm (Brueller, Carmeli & Markman, 2018). Benefits provided to
the employees are considered an important aspect to encourage them to continue with their
work but just for the sake of retaining employees, unnecessary bonuses and allowances
should not be given and this balance is maintained by strategic human resource management.
The strategic approach considers the issue of employee retention to be an essential part of
strategy. The reason behind retention being a strategic issue is that it provides the difference
between mediocrity and excellence related to financial matters (Voegtlin & Greenwood,
2016). The retention of employees is measured by the help of the bottom-line results and
accountability is considered in the whole process so that the persons involved in this get to
know about the cost of the issue and its solution and the potential and real impact of the
solution.

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From the critical analysis of the above two articles, the importance of strategic human
resource management in any organization is well understood. The implementation of strategic
human resource management is necessary and it has many advantages over the traditional
human resource management system. The concept of taking the employee as well as the firm
into its consideration all together enhances the productivity of the organization and helps
maintaining a two directional relation within the organization. The main pillar of any
organization is its human resource department and it is responsible to take care of the
stakeholders of the company and encourage employees to be a vital part of the company. The
HR department should consist of members who can relate to the emotions of people and
understand their perspective and must be strict as the same time to maintain a balance in their
attitude. Strategies should be well planned and the future outcomes should be thought of
before implementing any solution and solutions should ne problem relevant and not
irrational. An HR manager should be efficient enough to bring in strategic human resource
management into force and should have the quality to work for both the employees as well as
the organization’s benefit. The environment of the firm should be made employee friendly so
that they get positive vibes around their work environment and every deserving employee
should be awarded and acknowledged for his good work. Incentives should be introduced for
the ones working well and the scheme should be made keeping in mind the company’s
financial status.

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