Strategic Human Resource Management

This study focuses on strategic human resource management in the context of Carlsberg. It explores the strategic HR priorities pursued by Carlsberg, the rationale behind implementing the 'Winning Behaviours' strategy, its alignment with other HR practices, the difficulties faced in Malaysia, and an analysis of how well the strategy would work in an Australian context. The study provides recommendations for successfully managing the implementation of the strategy.

Running Head: Strategic Human Resource Management
STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Strategic Human Resource Management
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
1. Outline the strategic HR priorities that are pursued by Carlsberg...............................................3
2. Discuss the rationale of implementing the ‘Winning Behaviours’ strategy................................4
3. How does Carlsberg's 'Winning Behaviours' strategy align with other HR practices such as:
equity and diversity; workforce planning and development; social responsibility; and work-life
balance.............................................................................................................................................6
4. Analyse the difficulties the company faced when implementing this strategy in Malaysia........7
5. Provide an analysis of how well the 'Winning Behaviours' strategy would work in an
Australian context, along with recommendations for how such an implementation could be
successfully managed......................................................................................................................8
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................9
References......................................................................................................................................10
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Introduction
The term strategic human resource management involves typical components based on human
resource like payroll, discipline, hiring and also undertakes the overall working of the
employees. It denotes the working of all employees within a collaborative way for boosting
retention and quality improvement for work experience as well as maximizing a mutual benefit
regarding the employment of both the employees and the employers. Hence, the present study is
known to emphasize upon various strategies of human resource management for the organization
of Carlsberg. The company of Carlsberg is known to be a global brewer that was founded in the
year of 1847. It is headquartered in Denmark and serves drinks to the customers such as beers,
soft drinks, ciders and bottled water as well. The total revenue of the respective company was
62.6 billion in the year of 2016 (Buckley & Ghauri, 2015). Carlsberg consists of its own vision,
target and mission. Thus, the mission of the concerned organization is to be dynamic provider
based on quality beers along with exciting brand, committed teams and innovative culture that
brings all the people together and can add enjoyment within life.
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1. Outline the strategic HR priorities that are pursued by Carlsberg
According to Boon et al., (2018), the HR strategies are considered to depend upon the
organizational strategy. These strategies touch all of the key areas within the field of Human
Resource. These strategies involve learning and development, performance appraisal,
recruitment, succession planning and compensation as well (Napathorn & Kuruvilla, 2018).
However, there are certain strategic priorities of HR that are applied by the company of
Carlsberg. These are mentioned below:
Management of high performance
High performance working and management aims for making an impact within the
organizational performance in certain areas of quality, productivity, customer service along with
profits and growth (Collings, Wood & Szamosi, 2018). However, in case of the concerned
company, management practices of higher performance involves rigorous selection and
recruitment procedures, development activities related to management and training. Moreover, it
also involves systems of incentives and the processes based on performance management as
well. Hence, these performances are referred to as “high performance work systems” (HPWS)
that consists of several practices which may facilitate the involvement of employees.
High commitment management
This term provides importance for enhancement of mutual commitment. This is generally
described by Wood (1996), as; “A form of management which is aimed at eliciting a
commitment so that behaviour is primarily self-regulated rather than controlled by sanctions
and pressures external to the individual, and relations within the organization are based on
high levels of trust.” However, there are few approaches that are followed by the concerned
organization for achieving the higher commitment of the employees (Gutierrez-Gutierrez,
Barrales-Molina & Kaynak, 2018). These approaches are mentioned below:
 The development based on the ladders of carrier along with the emphasis over commitment
and trainability being as highly valued employee characteristics within the organizational
levels.
 Reducing hierarchies as well as the ending regarding different status.
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 A higher level of the functional flexibility in addition with abandonment for descriptions
those are potentially rigid.
 Heavy reliance within the team structure for dissemination of information that is team
briefing; problem solving which denotes quality circles and structuring work that provides an
effective team working.
Higher involvement management
According to Benson, (2006), “High-involvement work practices are a specific set of human
resource practices that focus on employee decision making, power, access to information,
training and incentives.” in case of the respective company of Carlsberg, this factor is generally
concerned with involvement and communication which means, to delegate dialogues within the
management and the team members for sharing each other expectation in relation with
organizational objectives, mission and values. This results in establishment of mutual
understanding for whatever needs to be achieved along with a framework regarding development
and management of people for assurance (Meyer & Xin, 2018). However, the practices of this
factor for the concerned organizational context involve systems of pay and incentives structure
as well as adequate training programs.
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2. Discuss the rationale of implementing the ‘Winning Behaviours’ strategy
Based on the views of Brueller, Carmeli & Markman, (2018), a corporate strategy is generally
formulated within the executive floors. One of the strategy that is “Winning behaviour”, is
considered as the concept that was developed for the initiative based on the top management of
the particular company of Carlsberg, regarding the improvement of global integration within the
multinational organization, was recontextualised. In this case, the local managers and the
expatriate tried to provide a sense of winning behaviours in different ways along with one’s own
ideals of local leadership that was brought by the employees for making preferred behaviours
along with turning them into regular practices (Soltis, Brass & Lepak, 2018). Thus, this is
referred to as a process for creating a new concept of strategy as well as making it suitable for
other contexts of socio-culture that have been facilitated by the staffs of headquarters within the
departments of communication and human resource of the concerned organization. Furthermore,
the implementation of this respective strategy had a significant role in the whole strategic process
(Nyberg et al., 2018). This was developed by the company as, it was known to face certain
challenges while developing effective HR strategies for the organization that might work for
global context. Nevertheless, the strategy of winning behaviours for the particular company
denoted various values that are mentioned below:
 It denotes the strength of their company being together
 This behaviour emphasized on the winning concept of the organization
 This is considered to be engaged with the society that is, to maintain the societal norm and
values
 This comprises the value of the customers to be the heart of the company for making every
decision
 It referred to the empowerment of the employees for making a difference
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3. How does Carlsberg's 'Winning Behaviours' strategy align with other HR practices such
as: equity and diversity; workforce planning and development; social responsibility; and
work-life balance
As per the views of Kasemsap, (2019), principles of equity and diversity involves the recognition
of value for individual differences within the educational setting and the workplace. Hence, this
includes the factors such as cultural background of the employees, age, ethnicity, language,
sexual orientation as well as the religious beliefs of the people. However, this can be associated
with the strategy of winning behaviour of the concerned organization (Kim et al., 2019). For
instance, the employees of the company interact with each other in a positive manner and
develop a healthy relationship among them. This practice undertakes the value of togetherness
for the particular strategy of Carlsberg.
Workforce planning and development is referred to as the process of forecasting, analysing
along with demand and supply of workforce planning, determining the interventions of talent
management and assessing the gaps as well for assurance of hiring the accurate workforce for the
organizational context (Cooke, 2018). Hence, this is another practice in relation with the winning
behaviours strategy. Training is the essential part for any company to make their workforce
develop. Hence, while providing an adequate training towards the employees of the organization,
the HR management makes the employees understand about their strategy of winning behaviours
so that, the employees can adjust in the environment of the company and can communicate with
the other people (Lee, 2018). The effective training that is provided by the organization helps the
employees to work as a team and collaborate with each other.
Social responsibility is referred to as the ethical framework that acts as per the benefits of the
society. Thus, it is considered as the responsibility of each of the individuals to perform in a
manner for maintaining an equal balance within the ecosystems and economy (Li et al., 2018). In
relation with the respective strategy of Carlsberg, it makes use of fair products of trade,
advocates the laws of child labours and according to the perspective of the employees, they
maintain individual honesty and integrity to have a positive behaviour towards the other people
of the organization (von Bonsdorff et al., 2018). Moreover, the company has recently adopted a
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plan to reduce its carbon footprint for ensuring the wellbeing of the society through following the
values of the society.
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4. Analyse the difficulties the company faced when implementing this strategy in Malaysia
There were certain difficulties that were faced by company in Malaysia while implementation of
the respective strategy of winning behaviours (Macke & Genari, 2019). These difficulties are
mentioned below:
Unsuitability within the current market
The strategy that was used in the Malaysian market was to push the products towards their
customers and this lasted for a longer period of time (Gill et al., 2018). However, the marketers
could not figure out about the challenges that were faced by the customers in case of delivery of
the product and hence, the company mainly focussed upon attracting new base of customers.
This made the company to lose their account and reputation, which eventually dropped its
position from the leader of the market to second position.
Social and ethical issues
These issues were created for the people who drove car and met with a road accident. Some of
the individuals were seen to get addicted for drinking beer until they faced any issue with their
health (Lee et al., 2018). These social and ethical issues made the company of Carlsberg
responsible for its bad reputation.
Hence, all these issues made the company face difficulty for implementing the strategy of
winning behaviours within the organizational culture (Paauwe & Boon, 2018). However, through
applying different techniques by the managing director of the company, this strategy was
implemented. The company assigned a new director for restructuring as well as establishing the
need for a new strategy within the company in Malaysia (Keegan, Ringhofer, & Huemann,
2018). The new strategy undertook the task for putting the distributor close with the salesperson
to understand the problem of delivery and supply of stock.
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5. Provide an analysis of how well the 'Winning Behaviours' strategy would work in an
Australian context, along with recommendations for how such an implementation could be
successfully managed
Culture of Australia
According to Järlström, Saru & Vanhala, (2018), the Australian culture is primarily referred to as
the Western culture that is somehow derived through Britain and is also influenced by unique
geography based on Australia along with the cultural input for Torres Strait and other people of
Australia.
Demography of Australia
The demography based on Australia is known to cover some basic statistics, religion and
ethnicity along with some populous cities (Longoni, Luzzini & Guerci, 2018). The linguistic and
cultural diversity of Australia has been reshaped in few years through migration. However, most
of the people are known to immigrate.
Based on the analysis of demography and culture of Australia, certain ways can be recommended
through understanding the recent change within the country (Shams et al., 2018). This might lead
to several factors related to change management.
 Change management is considered to be an effective policy of implementation of corporate
strategy.
 The application of strategies can be managed by the help of the employees through the
rational perspective of planning that provides importance to the role associated to change
agents.
 This might lead to a planned change that is an approach for managing the change within the
organization through the senior managers. As, the Australian market easily adopts new
changes, it may not be difficult for them to adjust with the implementation of new strategy.
Thus, with the help of some more techniques, the HR department of the Australian organization
can adopt with the implementation of winning behaviour strategy.
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Conclusion
Regarding the present discussion, the study has emphasized upon the concept based on strategic
HR management for the company of Carlsberg. However, it highlighted the winning behaviours
strategy that was implemented within the company for improving the global integration.
Relationship between winning behaviours and the practices of HR have also been highlighted in
the above study. Nevertheless, the techniques and process through which, Australian market can
also implement the respective strategy has also been mentioned in the present study. Hence, it
can be concluded that a strategic and effective practice of human resource department can make
everything possible for a company for its stability and growth in the market.
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