Strategic Human Resource Management in AstraZeneca: An Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of AstraZeneca's strategic human resource management. It begins by outlining the rationale for embedding HR strategies within broader corporate strategies, emphasizing the alignment of HR goals with overall organizational objectives. The essay then delves into how AstraZeneca specifically integrates its HR strategy into its corporate framework, examining the practical implementation of HR initiatives at the departmental level, including staffing, policy development, compensation, and training. Furthermore, the analysis identifies and discusses contemporary HR challenges faced by AstraZeneca, such as compliance, workforce development, and adapting to technological changes. The essay concludes by highlighting the impact of these challenges on the evolution of AstraZeneca's HR strategy, underscoring the importance of adaptability and strategic planning in achieving the company's long-term goals and maintaining a competitive edge. The paper references several academic sources to support its arguments.

Running head: STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Strategic human resource management
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Introduction
Corporate strategy is a strategy that clearly defines the vision of an organization, which is
set to seek the corporate value and focuses on the motivation of employees to implement the
proper action to gain customer satisfaction. It is a continuous process, which is engaged in
gaining the trust of the investors in order to increase the company's equity. HR strategy is a
strategy, which aims to create long-term plans in order to achieve the objectives in the field of
human resource management and human capital management in an organization. It emphasizes
on directing the behavior and action of an individual for their overall development in order to
meet the requirements of the organization. The following paragraphs of this paper will focus on
how HR strategies can be embedded in corporate strategy and how the organization may
implement their HR strategies at the departmental level. Additionally, the paper will discuss
what are the HR challenges faced by the ASTRA ZENECA and how these challenges have an
impact in the organization.
Discussion
ASTRA ZENECA is a multinational pharmaceutical company operated globally to serve
innovative medicines to the millions of patients’ worldwide. It was formed in 1999 by the merger
of Sweden’s Astra AB and UK’s Zeneca group plc (Comanor & Scherer, 2013). Their merger
shows the development of new products in a portfolio. The organization focuses on delivering
beneficial products to the patients, and it creates value for the shareholders and sets the value for
collaboration of employees' activities and role of their team partners (Mehralian, Zarenezhad &
Ghatari, 2015). The organization sticks to its value to work together and meets its integral

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behavior in order to achieve success. The value guides define the strong belief and decision
making in ASTRA ZENECA (Burtness et al., 2018).
Embedding HR strategies into broader corporate strategies
The corporate strategy of the company is based on creating the values for society and
discovering the benefits of the shareholders for developing the manufacturing and marketing to
contribute to human health. The strategy is set to provide the best products to its customers in
their therapy areas. The organization aims to set good governance and create a goodwill in the
market scenario (Purce, 2014). The HR strategy of the organization deals in providing active
support to their employees and brings out their skills and passion. The organization aims to
collaborate the teams in order to deliver quality productions to the patients and helps to explore
the skills and passion of the employees to broaden the opportunities and set their careers. The
embedding of HR strategies into a broader corporate strategy can be rationalized as the corporate
strategy is implemented in creating values for the society, for its shareholders and it makes a
contribution to human health (Stone, & Deadrick, 2015). Whereas, HR strategies deals in
management of the human resource in the organization it follows to provide active support to its
employees and developing their skills and passion. The organization drives to collaborate the
teams and employees to achieve efficient production. So the HR strategies can be embedded in
corporate strategy as both the strategies aims to attain the goals of the organization (Mason &
Simmons, 2014). The corporate strategy is a broader term in an organization, and it covers up the
overall requirements of an organization so embedding HR strategy into this broader corporate
strategy results in a rationalized way. It helps in achieving the overall goal of an organization
though it will result in attaining the employee's motivation as well as maintain relationships

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within the society and maintaining good governance relation for the long-term growth and
survival of the organization.
How HR strategy can be embedded in the broader corporate strategy of ASTRA
ZENECA
HR strategies can be embedded in the corporate strategy as by merging the goals of HR
managers to the purposes of corporate managers though the goals being set by both the managers
results in achieving the overall objective of an organization. The HR manager focuses on
contribution towards the employees' satisfaction and therefore motivation of employees resulting
in a positive response for the organization. The overall development is made to specify the skills
and passion of an individual and keeps them satisfied for their maximum contribution to the
organization. The corporate manager focuses on creating the values for society and discovering
the values of the shareholders to contribute to human health. The strategy is set to provide the
best products to its customers in their therapy areas. The organization aims to set good
governance and create a goodwill in the market scenario. So, by merging both the strategies of
the managers it can be broadened up in a long-term strategy and that includes all the plans,
values, challenges and outcome related to the highest achievement of ASTRA ZENECA. As the
HR team, as well as corporative teams, can collaborate with each other in their activities and
maintain a smooth functioning in the organization without any chaos or confusion (Nauta et al.,
2017). This integrates the internal as well as external factors and gives an outline in maintaining
the balance between both.

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Implementation of HR strategies at the department level
The organization may implement its HR strategy at the departmental level as HRM is
followed under the strategic plan of the organization. The implementation of HR strategy forms
under:-
Staffing:- The strategies implemented here is to determine the number of people to
be hired for strategic plans. The HR , therefore, starts the process of recruiting and selecting the
right person for the right job.
Basic workplace policies:- The strategies implemented here focuses on the
development of the policies in order to set the goals which are the primary aim of any HR
manager. After developing the plans the HR managers sets the schedules for vacation times, flex
times and safety and security for the workforce.
Compensation and benefits:- Other than the basic salary, plans, health benefits and other
perks the HR managers are responsible for planning for the benefits and compensation of the
employees which keeps them motivated (Noe et al., 2017).
Retention:- In order to strategize and recognize the best employee the HR managers
implement their strategies and maintain their existence in the organization by proper training and
development.
Training and development:- In order to unify the skills and knowledge of the new and
existing employees and helping them out in developing their skills for the requirement of their
job position the HR managers plays a vital role in the implementation of their strategies (Hafeez
& Akbar, 2015).

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Regulatory issues and worker safety:- In the regulation of update for the employees that
relate to the health care, labor unions and employee safety is followed by the HR managers, and
thus they implement their strategies to regulate issues in the workplace and workers safety
measures.
The HR challenges faced by ASTRA ZENECA
Compliance with Laws and Regulation:- The HR managers needs to set up the laws,
policies, and audits for the employees. This refers to as keeping up changes with the employment
laws and compliance with state, local and federal labor laws (Reddy & Rao, 2017).
Management changes:- Under the growth of the enterprise there should be the growth of
the structure, strategies and internal processes. As some of the employees face a hard time to cop
up with the changes this leads to decreased productivity and morale of the organization.
Workforce training and development:- The HR managers face a problem in training and
development of the lower level employees. The employees also face the lack of time in getting
the training, and they miss out of it (Nagendra & Deshpande, 2014).
Adapting to innovation:- As the frequent change in the technologies, the business must
adapt to these technological changes. The HR managers face a challenge in getting employees to
learn new techniques.
Recruiting talented employees:- The HR managers need to find a suitable person for the
job position at the right time. And the managers face a challenge to recruit the right person until
they are experienced for a long time.
These HR challenges have prompted in the development of the organization as these
necessity changes brought up in the organization have a positive impact in the development of

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employees as well as for the organization (Festing & Schäfer, 2014). Therefore, facing such
challenges in the HR strategies gives rise to achieve the overall objective of the organization.
Conclusion
The above paragraphs of the paper conclude that the HR manager of an organization
plays a vital role in the implementation of strategies and maintain human relationships in the
organization. The above essays discussed on rationalizing of embedding HR strategies into
broader corporate strategy and how ASTRA ZENECA HR strategies are being embedded to
organizational strategy. Additionally, the paper discussed the implementation of HR strategies at
the department levels as to how the HR managers follow up their departments with different
strategies. The challenges faced by the HR in ASTRA ZENECA has been discussed to know the
development in the workforce and their frequent changes due to training and development and
the impact of the challenges faced by the HR managers. The following essay considers the
required changes made in the organization to achieve the desired goals and maintain stability and
long-term growth and expansion of the organization.

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