Leadership and HRM: Evaluating Practices in a Changing Landscape

This report provides a detailed analysis of leadership and human resource management (HRM) practices within organizations. It begins by exploring the dynamic HRM landscape, discussing changes in HRM functions, and identifying current trends such as the use of analytics, social media in recru...Read More

Leadership and Human Resource Management 0
human resource practices
Changes in Human Resource Landscape
ABSTRACT
Employees are one of the most valuable asset of
a company and Human Resource Management
is the tool that will help and act as a supporter
to increase the competitive advantage with the
alignment of the strategies formed in an
organization for the sole purpose of reaching
goals.
LEADERSHIP AND HUMAN RESOURCE PRACTICE
IN ORGANIZATION

Leadership and Human Resource Management 1
Table of Contents
Introduction...............................................................................................................................................3
LO1-The Dynamic HRM Landscape...........................................................................................................3
Changes in Functions of HRM................................................................................................................3
Trends of Changing HR Landscape.........................................................................................................4
Initiation of Analytics-.........................................................................................................................5
Tool for Recruitment-..........................................................................................................................5
Close Relationship of IT and HR-.......................................................................................................5
HR Software-.......................................................................................................................................5
Feedback Performance-.......................................................................................................................6
Human Capital Assets-........................................................................................................................6
Value of strategic HRM...........................................................................................................................6
LO2-Evaluation of HRM Practices..............................................................................................................8
The Cross-cultural challenges faced by Leaders....................................................................................10
Overcome these Cross-cultural Challenges...........................................................................................11
Performance Management- The Best Practice.......................................................................................12
Objectives of Performance Management...........................................................................................12
References.................................................................................................................................................15

Leadership and Human Resource Management 2
Table of Figures
Figure 1 Changes in functions of HRM.........................................................................................................4
Figure 2 Dimensions of HRM practices........................................................................................................8
Figure 3 Performance Management Cycle................................................................................................13

Leadership and Human Resource Management 3
Introduction
The cross-cultural challenges that a HRM specialist face while attempting HRM practices in the
organization to bring changes and manage well the organizational performances in a
multinational organization. The changing scenario of human resource management is being
explained in the assignment. The importance of HRM practices to assist managers in order to
cope up with the challenges within an organization. The strategic values that HRM carries for
handling various activities like employee training, recruitment or performance management. The
implementation of HRM practices create few complexities and cultural tensions, to remove these
complexities there are organizational behavior tools to mitigate such challenges. The role of
leaders in management of change and the strategies which managers need to overcome such
resistance to change (Armstrong, and Taylor, 2014).
LO1-The Dynamic HRM Landscape
Over the past few decades the fundamentals of HRM landscape has seen changes in the way the
employees are being treated as the focus has been shifted more on the performance when the new
concept of treating employees introduce and then employee bring up to employers. Role of
human resource management in multinational companies has experienced a drastic change in
contemporary years, earlier what they use to do is more of clerical work includes record keeping
and maintenance of files (Berry, Bohn, and Mulder, 2016). Gone are the days when HRM relates
to personal management department now it is considered as critical strategic partner, who play
the role in building a good and passionate team of professionals in organization.
Changes in Functions of HRM
The change in administrative functions of HRM has been observed in different eras, there is a
decrease in administrative duties and it moves up to more of a strategic partner, a supporter of
employee at workplace. Their attention has been shifted from regular to strategic operations and
making Human Resource managers to improvise their practices which can match up the trends in
business environment in relation to HRM (Dickmann, Brewster, and Sparrow (Eds.), 2016). The
technology advancement made HR managers to adapt technology in maintaining the database of
employees, enrolling them in trainings as required and other benefits or purposes (Veloso,
Tzafrir, and Enosh, 2015). Technology decrease the work of record keeping and pushing papers
and engage employees so that they can handle their own by proving them online access to

Leadership and Human Resource Management 4
information related to training, benefits, tenure of service and salaries. Primary areas of focus
and other functions in the time frame of all these years:
Figure 1 Changes in functions of HRM
As shown in the table the change in functions of Human Resource Management has seen a
drastic change, the shifts took place from regular operations to strategic operations. The
functions of HR has moved from employee supporter to the member of team. Human Resource
has changed from the past years with regard to substantial changes of how organizations works.
The alterations can be seen with the evolution and bring challenges for HR department
(Iasplus.com, 2017).
Trends of Changing HR Landscape
With the evolution of technology, the landscape of Human Resource has experienced an
enormous alterations in their functions, roles and responsibilities (Kumar, 2015). Earlier it was

Leadership and Human Resource Management 5
counted as a supporter of employee but in today’s scenario HR plays a leading role in taking part
in business decision making (Davidson, 2014). The observations says out loud that there are
various trends that are shaping up the future of HR in the industry and form valuable business
strategies to reach organizational objectives. Some of the trends are as follows:
Initiation of Analytics- Human Resource teams are relying upon analytics in recent years which
will help the teams to make strategic decisions. The analytics will help determine the progress in
organization and put in highlight the areas where improvement is needed. The database is
sourced from all activities of staff performance, payroll expenses, recruitment process and
reports of tracking time (Horwitz, Budhwar, and Morley, 2015).
Tool for Recruitment- Most of the recruiters today use the platform of social media as there
recruitment tool to hire candidates. About 75 percent of employers hire there candidates through
online search and portals made by the company. It is suggested to businesses and recruiters to
put more effort and focus on social recruiting, having a marketing driven mentality which can
help create candidate driven experiences (Kowalski, and Loretto, 2017). The social recruitment
allows both party, job seekers and recruiters who can get a clear vision and shorten up the hiring
process, this platform gives a widespread reach and attract talent from every corner in a manner
which proves to be cost efficient.
Close Relationship of IT and HR- The reliance on technology in every business process can be
seen and to increase the productivity levels there is a great need to integrate IT and HR. The
dependency of each other are high and in terms of conversation, integration requirement are high
too. This is because with a smooth conversation the occurrence of errors in technology
implementation gets minimized and result in increased efficiency with decrease in costs. Human
capital management, training, payroll, roster, leave and many more. The interaction between
these two departments are increasing with the changing business landscape (Heikkilä, Rentto,
and Feng, 2017).
HR Software- Businesses and employees are becoming more independent because of the
allowance given by HRM whose availability has been increased with the time. The routine
transactional tasks can be carried out effortlessly when the business gets automated with the
human resource software.

Leadership and Human Resource Management 6
Feedback Performance- Many companies implement the practice of providing feedback which
proves to be a beneficial step for the company as well as employees. Managers too need to
provide feedback of the performance of their employees to make aware them of their
improvement or lacking behind from standard performance. This way employees can work
towards their goals and can make progress. With the healthy communication in the work
environment every personnel can excel in their profile and reach organizational goals. The
channels of feedback should be made available for employees in order to influence the
company’s idea, building healthy relationships with employees at work place will help improve
the whole scenario (Glaister, Karacay, Demirbag, and Tatoglu, 2017).
Human Capital Assets- Another trend in HR landscape is counting people as the assets of the
organization. To improve the efficiency, motivate employees, engage them in communication
and inspire all to perform the best out of their capabilities. Companies will build better team by
focusing on performances individually and based on the results when evaluated are being
rewarded for the values that they bring to the company. This trend is all about creating a healthy
environment where employee can contribute their best and improve efficiency (Warner, (Ed.),
2013).
Value of strategic HRM
A strategic HRM is a practice of retaining, developing and rewarding employees for a sole
purpose of reaching individual and organizational goals. Their practices involves management
decisions that may affect or influence personnel who works in the organization directly
(Bondarouk, and Ruël, 2013). This way strategic HRM works and is differ from HRM, the
values it provides to organization are much more than the regular HR which are as follows:
 Strategic HRM analyze the changes that may occur in departments and later support them
to overcome the weaknesses if any.
 It acts as a captain as the responsibilities of Strategic HRM are different from other
managers, there responsibilities and expertise are of high level if compare to others.
 The core responsibility for the management of human resource are with Strategic HRM
they mutually support HR interventions (Cascio, 2015).
 SHRM make attempts to merge the HR activities with the skill based performance
measures and with the business profits. It was not seen in regular activities of Human

Leadership and Human Resource Management 7
Resource so it explains the great significance it plays in the organization (Harvard
Business Review, 2017).
 The activities of SHRM help identifying and analyzing the external situation which is of
crucial nature for the success of organization (Indianmba.com, 2017).
 It provides a clear vision of the business strategies and make plans in the alignment of the
strategies formed.
 SHRM provides competitive advantage that is being used in the planning process of
forming strategies.
 The functions of SHRM includes recruiting, retaining, motivating, developing and
recollecting some highly competent candidates (Jackson, Schuler, and Jiang, 2014).
 SHRM ensures that issues related to development of personnel at workplace is handled in
a systematic way without creating any ruckus in between (Knies, Boselie, Gould-
Williams, and Vandenabeele, 2015).
 They provide information of internal factors includes strengths and weaknesses which
will ultimately help organization to overcome those weaknesses.
 Their functions help organization in meeting the expectations of the customers efficiently
and effectively by ensuring higher productivity (Kaufman, 2015).
These are the various values of strategic HRM which support organization and its personnel
to reach organizational and individual goals respectively. Application of strategic HRM
ensures of surplus in business. There are complexities in implementation of SHRM as it lacks
the strategy of growth and cooperation from bottom line. But the successful implementation
guarantee profitable results by keeping an harmonization in various departments of
organization and high competency in the industry as it is much diverse in nature and carries
more of an outward looking approach (Whatishumanresource.com, 2017).

Leadership and Human Resource Management 8
LO2-Evaluation of HRM Practices
HRM is defined to be a process of developing, applying and evaluating the policies and
procedures in the organization. It can be said that it is a highly vibrant process where few
elements force the management to adapt those forces and continue with it. The HRM practices
differs with the organizations and countries (Caligiuri, 2014). These HRM practices contributes
to the sustainable competitive advantage by assisting organization to develop, maintain complex
relationship and generate knowledge beneficial for organization. There are various practices
which organization employee in order to achieve knowledge. These practices can be
conceptualize into four dimensions as follows:
Figure 2 Dimensions of HRM practices.
The planning includes creation of teams carrying a skill-mix, hiring right people and creating
teams. To create innovative and effective team, the strategy of human resource planning analyzes
the needs for this purpose (Cooper, Liu, and Tarba, 2014).
Reward system includes liberty to do research, forming teams, run businesses, pay raises when
required, promote and recognition of rewards individually or in team. The strategy of reward
Human
Resource
Planning
Performance
Appraisal
Reward
Systems
Career
Management

Leadership and Human Resource Management 9
system is used to increase the productivity and profitability of personnel to reach organizational
goals.
Performance appraisal encourage personnel to take risks, innovate, generate and adopt new
techniques. Management perform functions of peer evaluation, auditing and evaluate innovative
processes in the organization. The strategy works for the appraisal on performances of individual
as well as teams so that it will lead to innovativeness and profitability of the organization. The
assessment of tasks and performance of employees are under whom also be determined under
this strategy (Wilson, 2014).
Career management includes activities of empowering people by setting examples, providing
training and educating them this will ultimately enhance their long term goals with the alignment
of organizational goals.
The adoption of HRM practices enhance the ability to innovate, improve quality and
performance, delegation of responsibilities and integration of functions so the adaptation is
expected to affect the performances of employees and teams overall much strongly (Rees, and
Smith, (Eds.), 2017).
In MNCs the HRM practices aim at the promotion of flexibility in providing innovation and
learning regarding organizational environment. The usage in these HRM practices in
organization offers flexible working environment which lead to better outcomes in performance
with the help of innovation. This is because:
 The employees who are flexible in adapting new experiences in their work tactics;
 By granting freedom to employees to innovate lead to increase in their multi skills and
cross-functional knowledge;
 The organization who are adapting such practices in their structure seems to be more
successful as they support a learning path to employees which creates opportunities in
near future and gain the commitment from their organization’s workforce.
In a fast-dynamic environment of business recent days, the dimension consist of people in
organizations who represents a factor which help improving the success of company. In this
increasing competitive business scenario the role of human know-how plays a substantial role.
The development of technology, communications and information have made organizations to

Leadership and Human Resource Management
10
look for ways of experimenting, innovate and provide solutions in order to improve their current
system of processes, systems and the technology used by them (Zibarras, and Coan, 2015).
The Cross-cultural challenges faced by Leaders
In this dynamic environment of business world leaders manage complex, uncertain and
ambiguous global environment which is essential for future prospects of MNCs’. There are few
cross-cultural challenges faced by leaders in applying HRM practices and they are as follows:
1. Difficulty in understanding behavior of people as the behavior depicts values. A manager
who manages a team other than cultural diverse team need to put their expertise to study
the norms and values of different culture in order to understand the behavior of people
working from around the world.
2. Sometimes rejection on the basis of behavior by predicting that their behavior with own
norms and values can result into frustration and angriness on part of managers. It is a
challenging task for leader to interpret the behavior of their employees to mitigate these
challenges leaders should uncover the facts underlying norms and values before forming
any perceptions regarding their employees (Yadav, 2014).
3. In a multinational company it is difficult to achieve the goal of desired efficiency levels
as it requires time to spend in clearing out the misunderstanding and set expectations by
making everyone in team to direct towards one goal. For example the decision making
process varies from person to person in multicultural teams some prefer taking decision
fast and move on with it by executing and other prefer the idea to analyze the whole
situation deeply later by consulting with other team members and take time to make their
decision. This way the desired level of efficiency decreases but if the decisions from both
perspective is taken then it can lead to increased effectiveness of organization (Renkema,
Meijerink, and Bondarouk, 2016).
Overcome these Cross-cultural Challenges
To overcome such cross-cultural challenges leaders need to understand own cultural values and
beliefs and how would they impact on others around. These are the ways that will help out
leaders to cope with the challenges:

Leadership and Human Resource Management
11
 The leaders need to understand different communication styles of different cultures and
further these cultures are divided into categories of two namely high context and low
context. High context culture include countries like Africa, China, India, Japan and many
more whereas low context includes Australia, Germany and US culture (Radke, and
Barlow, 2013). In these cultures the communication involves varies, high context is more
of a physical context and the meaning behind is not obvious in written or stated words on
the other hand low context is more of a direct or precise kind of communication based on
feelings. Some cultures are calm, factual basis and quite decisive and others are sociable,
courteous and good listeners.
 Need to understand the cultural values of the society based on a scale which carries five
dimensions to help understand the cultural dilemma. It is ensured that such dilemma is
recognized and efforts are made to bridge the gap in between. The dimensions of values
that are perceived are degree of equality and inequality, uncertainty avoidance,
masculinity and femininity.
 After getting through the whole scenario of cultures and values the need for right
competencies arise which involves a business leader carries a good and positive attitude,
a right frame of mind and skill set to manage things altogether. The cross cultural
competencies includes few traits that a leader must carry is tolerance for vagueness,
flexibility with varied cultures, personal traits including openness, agreeable and
thoroughness. In building leadership, a leader gain exposure from the foreign culture and
apply that in leading in their own organization without facing issues (Meijerink,
Bondarouk, and Lepak, 2016).
Performance Management- The Best Practice
Keeping the right people in the organization is the fundamental goal of HRM and it can happen
by reviewing the annual performance of employees. Such practice of reviewing is known as
Performance Management which is defined as a continuous process of monitoring and reviewing
the performance of employees in fulfilling their personal as well as organizational objectives and
the contribution they made to the organization. The performance of each and every employee is
assessed fairly by the end of their performance period (Kuvaas, Buch, and Dysvik, 2016).

Leadership and Human Resource Management
12
Objectives of Performance Management
A performance management system is prepared by keeping in mind a few objectives in the
organization, basic objectives are well known to almost everyone but the insights are quite
unknown they are as follow:
 An objective to review performance of the employee resultant the employee will learn
from where he/she is lacking.
 Ideas are being explored to improve the results achieved while reviewing the
performances.
 Another main objective of the performance management system is to support and assist
the job holders to make them realize of their own strengths and the need for development.
 The feedback is secured that the employee has been effectively managed and supervised.
 Use of standard performance review ensure that evaluation and treatment of staff is done
on fair and equity basis.
 Assistance must be provided in decisions regard to staff retention and sub-standard
employee performance as such assistance support allegations made for unfair dismissal
and illegal judgment (Shields et al., 2015).
 A performance management system is also prepared to update the personnel record for a
sole purpose of providing familiarization to new managers (Paauwe, and Farndale, 2017).
There is a set performance management cycle which explain the phases of a continuous
process namely planning, monitoring and reviewing and they are aligned with the
organization’s culture and strategies (La Rocca, and Snehota, 2014).

Leadership and Human Resource Management
13
Figure 3 Performance Management Cycle
The first phase is planning phase which is a combined effort of both the manager and employee.
In this process the review of employee’s job description is done in order to know what an
employee is currently doing and it must be updated from time to time if any such changes are
made in their job description. The links between job’s descriptions of employee are being
identified and review their work plan, goals and objectives. The training objectives and key
performance objectives are identified which will help employees to grow their skills and
knowledge (Van Dooren, Bouckaert, and Halligan, 2015).
Second step in the cycle is monitoring where the progress of employees are monitored whether
they are meeting performance objectives or not. If they are not meeting those objectives then the
barriers are identified and how they can overcome those barriers. Feedbacks are shared on the
progress of employees and the decision is taken if employee can take on new responsibilities or
not. An extra support is provided from the manager and assist employee to reach their objectives.
The third and last step of cycle is reviewing where performance appraisal are reviewed and
summarize the overall performance of employee for the whole period. Discussion on unforeseen

Leadership and Human Resource Management
14
barriers in the achievement of organizational objectives is carried on and after such identification
and discussion, employee and the supervisor signoff on the form. And the new performance
management system cycle begins (Yeo, 2014).

Leadership and Human Resource Management
15
References
Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S. (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management
practice. Kogan Page Publishers.
Berry, A., Bohn, T., & Mulder, N. (2016). 17. The changing landscape of global trade in
business services and value chains: Are emerging economies taking over? Research
Handbook on Trade in Services, 448.
Bondarouk, T., & Ruël, H. (2013). The strategic value of e-HRM: results from an exploratory
study in a governmental organization. The International Journal of Human Resource
Management, 24(2), 391-414.
Caligiuri, P. (2014). Many moving parts: Factors influencing the effectiveness of HRM practices
designed to improve knowledge transfer within MNCs. Journal of International Business
Studies, 45(1), 63-72.
Cascio, W. F. (2015). Strategic HRM: Too important for an insular approach. Human Resource
Management, 54(3), 423-426.
Cooper, C. L., Liu, Y., & Tarba, S. Y. (2014). Resilience, HRM practices and impact on
organizational performance and employee well-being: International Journal of Human
Resource Management 2015 Special Issue.
Davidson, P. (2014). Keynote address: aligning HR with a changing business landscape.
Dickmann, M., Brewster, C., & Sparrow, P. (Eds.). (2016). International Human Resource
Management: Contemporary HR Issues in Europe. Routledge.
Glaister, A. J., Karacay, G., Demirbag, M., & Tatoglu, E. (2017). HRM and performance—the
role of talent management as a transmission mechanism in an emerging market
context. Human Resource Management Journal.
Harvard Business Review. (2017). Survival Strategies in a Hostile Environment. Available at:
https://hbr.org/1980/09/survival-strategies-in-a-hostile-environment [Accessed 2 Dec.
2017].

Leadership and Human Resource Management
16
Heikkilä, J. P., Rentto, O., & Feng, Y. (2017). Aiming for Strategic e-HRM: Motives and
Consequences of e-HRM Implementation in an MNC. In Electronic HRM in the Smart
Era (pp. 173-199). Emerald Publishing Limited.
Horwitz, F., Budhwar, P., & Morley, M. J. (2015). 21. Future trends in human resource
management in emerging markets. Handbook of human resource management in
emerging markets, 470.
Iasplus.com. (2017). Conceptual framework — Presentation and disclosure; elements of
financial statements; capital maintenance (IASB only). Available at:
http://www.iasplus.com/en/meeting-notes/iasb-march-2013/cf-2 [Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].
Indianmba.com. (2017). Managing Cross Cultural Differences: Strategies to Overcome
Differences. Available at:
http://www.indianmba.com/Occasional_Papers/OP252/op252.html [Accessed 2 Dec.
2017].
Jackson, S. E., Schuler, R. S., & Jiang, K. (2014). An aspirational framework for strategic human
resource management. Academy of Management Annals, 8(1), 1-56.
Kaufman, B. E. (2015). Evolution of strategic HRM as seen through two founding books: a 30th
anniversary perspective on development of the field. Human Resource
Management, 54(3), 389-407.
Knies, E., Boselie, P., Gould-Williams, J., & Vandenabeele, W. (2015). Special issue of
International Journal of Human Resource Management: Strategic human resource
management and public sector performance.
Kowalski, T. H., & Loretto, W. (2017). Well-being and HRM in the changing workplace.
Kumar, A. J. P. (2015). EMERGING SCENARIO IN HRM OF CORPORATE
SECTOR. Trends, Challenges & Innovations in Management, 8.
Kuvaas, B., Buch, R., & Dysvik, A. (2016). Performance management: Perceiving goals as
invariable and implications for perceived job autonomy and work performance. Human
Resource Management, 55(3), 401-412.

Leadership and Human Resource Management
17
La Rocca, A., & Snehota, I. (2014). Relating in business networks: Innovation in
practice. Industrial Marketing Management, 43(3), 441-447.
Meijerink, J. G., Bondarouk, T., & Lepak, D. P. (2016). Employees as active consumers of
HRM: Linking employees’ HRM competences with their perceptions of HRM service
value. Human resource management, 55(2), 219-240.
Paauwe, J., & Farndale, E. (2017). Strategy, HRM, and Performance: A Contextual Approach.
Oxford University Press.
Radke, H. R., & Barlow, F. K. (2013). Solving Unsolvable Conflicts: Review and Commentary
on Coleman (2011). Social Justice Research, 26(2), 218-225.
Rees, G., & Smith, P. (Eds.). (2017). Strategic human resource management: An international
perspective. Sage.
Renkema, M., Meijerink, J., & Bondarouk, T. (2016). Advancing multilevel thinking and
methods in HRM research. Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and
Performance, 3(2), 204-218.
Shields, J., Brown, M., Kaine, S., Dolle-Samuel, C., North-Samardzic, A., McLean, P., &
Plimmer, G. (2015). Managing Employee Performance & Reward: Concepts, Practices,
and Strategies. Cambridge University Press.
Van Dooren, W., Bouckaert, G., & Halligan, J. (2015). Performance management in the public
sector. Routledge.
Veloso, A., Tzafrir, S., & Enosh, G. (2015). How employees perceive HRM practices:
Differences between public and private organizations. Human resource management
challenges and changes, 19-36.
Warner, M. (Ed.). (2013). Managing across diverse cultures in East Asia: issues and challenges
in a changing globalized world. Routledge.
Whatishumanresource.com. (2017). Strategic human Resources Management - Human Resource
l Concepts l Topics l Definitions l Labour Laws. Available at:

Leadership and Human Resource Management
18
http://www.whatishumanresource.com/strategic-human-resources-management
[Accessed 2 Dec. 2017].
Wilson, J. P. (2014). International human resource development: Learning, education and
training for individuals and organisations. Development and Learning in
Organizations, 28(2).
Yadav, R. (2014). The role of HRM in changing environment.
Yeo, R. K. (2014). Looking beyond the shores: emerging HRM and HRD trends in the Middle
East. International Journal of Human Resources Development and Management, 14(1-3),
1-16.
Zibarras, L. D., & Coan, P. (2015). HRM practices used to promote pro-environmental behavior:
a UK survey. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 26(16), 2121-
2142.