Strategic Human Resource Management Course Assignment 1 Report

This report, prepared for the International Business Academy of Switzerland's MBA Strategic Human Resource Management course, addresses key aspects of strategic HRM. It begins by exploring the impact of organizational structure and culture, emphasizing the importance of a strong foundation for employee engagement and performance, and examines the influence of financial resources on HRM strategies, including salaries, training, and development. The report also identifies factors affecting HRM within a named organization, along with the impact of government legislation on HR practices. It then delves into different strategic human resource management models, including the standard causal, Harvard, Warwick, Guest, and Fomburn, Tichy, and Devanna models, and explains how HRM contributes to organizational goals and performance. The report further assesses factors for preparing HR strategies, detailing key elements and the impact of internal and external factors. Finally, the report includes a case study on Starbucks, outlining a strategic human resource management strategy, its alignment with business objectives, and potential barriers to implementation.

International Business Academy of Switzerland
MBA
Strategic Human Resource Management Course
Assignment 1
Salah Sadaka
IBAS.MBA.21091911
2021

Contents
Task 1 ................................................................................................................................... 3
the effect of the structure and culture of organisations .............................................................. 3
the importance of financial resources ...................................................................................... 4
the factors affecting human resource management in a named organisation ................................. 5
Task 2 ................................................................................................................................... 5
the impact of government legislation ...................................................................................... 5
Task 3 ................................................................................................................................... 6
the different models of strategic human resource management ................................................... 6
how human resource management contributes ......................................................................... 7
the different models of preparing strategic human resource management plans ............................ 7
Task 4 ................................................................................................................................... 8
assess the factors to be considered when preparing human resource management strategies.......... 8
the key elements of a human resource management strategy ...................................................... 9
how internal and external factors impact ................................................................................. 9
the model used by an organisation in the development of its HR strategy .................................. 10
Task 5 ................................................................................................................................. 11
strategic human resource management strategy for Starbucks .................................................. 11
how the human resources management strategy support achievement of the business objectives.. 12
the potential barriers to the implementation of a human resource management strategy.............. 12

Task 1
the effect of the structure and culture of organisations
Building a strong culture and structure for any organisation is a sustainable way to reach the
success. Organisations with strong culture will take advantage of several things such as
increasing employee engagement, decreasing turnovers, healthy team environment and top
performers. Moreover, creating culture starts from clarifying company’s mission, vision, and
values.
While our vision is defined as the company’s future goal, the vision will be the direction to
achieve our big dream. When we want to create a vision, we consider it to be unique, to
represent our ID and to reach a high level of qualification. To reach our vision, we will be in
need a mission statement highlighting what works and what should be changed to increase our
performance, also we must consider our position in the market.
The culture of an organisation should be based on believes and values. Those values will lead
our employees to be on the same page regarding how to behave in the workplace. By setting
values, we have to assume them to be a pure reflection of our company in order to give a
positive environment and help our company to gain a best HR talent.
The second factor affecting our HR management strategies is the structure of organisation. The
structure of organisation is the shape of the company’s positions that explain how the
company’s different departments work together and who reports to whom. Setting up a good
structure can give a start on the way to achieve the best communications mood and create a
positive environment to be able to attract high skills people. There are many common
organisational frameworks that we should analyse before we set our structure.
First, horizontal, or flat organisation structure is one of the simplest frameworks, everything
will be connected to a one person in the end, so that we will not have middle managers in this
organization. And we might have some problems in the decision making.
Second, hierarchical organisation structure is the pyramid shaped chart. Each employee will be
connected to a chef and those chefs will be connecting to the head of the departments then all
of the departments will be reporting to the CEO on the top of the pyramid. In this chart,
everything will be clearer for the employees on whom they should be reporting. And chance
of promotion will an advantage, too. On the other hand, less of creativity and bureaucracy will
be a challenge in the organization.
Third, functional structure is a chart of people sharing same major, so generally this kind of
structure will be used in the departments inside of a big organisation such as accounting
department, marketing department etc.
Forth, for divisional structure, the divisions will work independently, thus it will increase the
decision-making speed. But communication and information change between the departments
might be reduced naturally.

Fifth, Matrix structure is an axis cross chart that allows any employee from any department to
work with other departments for example one from the technical department will be work with
the marketing team on the project. In this chart we will have the flexibility between different
departments, and it facilitates sharing information and knowledge. Yet, we have to be aware of
the disadvantages such as the authority issue and controlling the system.
Finally, the virtual / network organization is very centralized depending on outsources business
so that it will help the head of the company to focus on what it’s best and by using outsourcing
we could decrease the costs. we should not forget the difficulties in managing such as an
organization.
References:
https://www.business.com/articles/why-hrs-organizational-structure-matters-
2/#:~:text=HR's%20organizational%20structure%20matters%20because,and%20retain%20to
p%20HR%20talent.
Katarina Babnik/ Kristijan Breznik - The mission statement: Organisational culture
perspective / 2014
https://www.achievers.com/blog/organizational-culture-definition/
https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/tools-and-
samples/toolkits/pages/understandinganddevelopingorganizationalculture.aspx
the importance of financial resources
From our CEO’s statements, we can feel the urgent need of increasing the productivity of our
performance while considering the budget limitation. Furthermore, I would like to explain you
the impact of the financial resources on HRM strategies and how we can build an impactful
strategy with limited sources.
At first, salaries and rewards are vital factors attracting new employees with high profile to our
company and keeping our existing employees. So financial resources is an important tool that
should be considered when we want to set the payrolls.
The second point that will be affected by the financial situation is the learning and development
opportunities. For an organisation to ensure its employees talent and skills, it should work on
a complete strategy for learning and development. For example, in our situation we have to
choose a budget-friendly training technique. With on job training, our new employees will
learn by themselves while they start their job with minimized outsource hiring . Also, we could
consider a cross training option so our employees will be able to fill each other places in any
need time.
Finally, the financial issue is important to have more options when we want to set our HR
management strategy yet there are some technics, we can use them to avoid dependency such
as using internal recruitment and etc.

the factors affecting human resource management in a named organisation
In Easiclean we have many factors that should be considered before developing our human
resources management strategies to reach our CEO goal, to do better and strengthen our product
portfolio.
We have to start from SWOT analysis, SWOT is a shortcut for strengths, weakness,
opportunities and threats. By learning our weaknesses and threats we should build our plans on
our strengths and nor miss our any opportunity.
Evaluating the different environment factors can help us in decision making for our HRM
strategies. In a global company like Easiclean, the differences between each market should be
taken in consideration such as following:
 Social and cultural factors including the health awareness, growth rate age distribution
and etc.
 Technological factors such as the level of technology used in the environment the
different techniques of research and development.
 Economic factors having many affects like the inflation and interest rates the
economic growth.
 Legal factors affecting the employment policy by different employment laws and
different social and security systems.
Task 2
the impact of government legislation
As laws and rules affect every aspect of the business, legal considerations had impact the
human resource management strategies many time in the last century.
Wages was one of the issues that has many acts in the past. So we cans see it in many events
such as:
1. 1931 Davis bacon act put laws that make the limits for minimum wages, overtime
rates and benefits,
2. 1936 Walsh-Healey public contact act contain limits for salaries and set working
max hours, also establish time and a half pay for extra work hours.
3. 1935 social security act: this act supports the workers unemployed by not thier own
fault and provide them compensations untile 26 weeks.

4. 1938 fair labour standards act: next to minimum salaries, maximum hours, equal
and overtime pay that est the child labor provisions in addition to cover the workers
who work in agricultural and large retails and service companies.
5. 1963 equal pay act became to support the equal pay between the males and the
females.
6. 1964 Title VII the civil rights act: this act works on to stop the discrimination
between different races and colours.
7. In 1967 the age discrimination in employment act; applied to more than 20
employee’s companies and forbid the discriminations against the people who are
more than 40s.
8. 1974 the employee retirement income security act (ERISA): to protect employees
from any employer failures. Its set a financed corporations to help the employees
and give the right to any employee to transfer from one company to another.
9. 1990 Americans with disabilities act: that act force the workplaces to be modified
to be used by disabilities people.
There are also many more acts that should be listed as the affordable care act, immigrations
laws , workplace safety laws , the federal wage garnishment law, the family and medical leave
act and workers’ compensation laws. All those acts were aiming to protect the employees and
to provide more effective workplaces.
Task 3
the different models of strategic human resource management
In the human resources management field, there are five main models for strategies.
First, the standard causal model is the most known model, started in 90’s and early 2000’s.
Simply this model is a standard chain that starts with the overall strategy and going through
human resources activities and ends with improving the financial situation.
Second, in the Harvard framework, we can notice that the strategy starts from the stakeholders
then they will affect the HRM policies who lead to HRM outcomes and to long term of outputs.
At the same time, we can see how the stakeholders will affect the all of the model.
Third, the Warwick model was built closely to the Harvard model by two researchers from
university of Warwick. This model includes five elements. Those are; outer context (macro
environmental), inner context (micro environmental), business strategy content, HRM context
and HRM content. This model is heading to get the best performance by analysing the macro
and micro contexts.
Forth, the gest model has done by David Guest in the 90’s, and this model includes six stages
as following; HR strategy, HR practices, HR outcomes, behavioural outcomes, performance
results, and financial consequences. It is based on HR practices and HR outcomes that give

many kind behaviours such as motivations, loyalty, co operations and etc. Then it bring us to
improve the performance and to get the profits.
Finally, the Fomburn, Tichy and Devanna model, the oldest framework, started in the 80’s.
which based on four points; selection, appraisal, development and rewards. Moreover, those
four points will be directly affecting the organizational performance. Unlike the Warwick
model this model ignores any outer or inner context and focused only on its four functions.
References:
http://hrmpractice.com/the-warwick-model/
how human resource management contributes
The strategic plan is what an organisation consider as a roadmap in order to reach their goals.
These strategies can be divided into three main levels; corporate, business and functional types.
HRM has many functions such as job analyses, planning labour needs, recruiting, orienting,
and training, employee relations, performance appraisal, employee services etc. HRM could be
managing turnovers, cascading goal, evaluating employees not performing and improving
profits and performance. HRM could take a place on solving many kind of organisational issues
such as changing in structure and culture, organisational effectiveness and performance,
matching resources to future requirements, management of change and etc. Building a good
human resources strategy can also improve our organisation performance via hiring high level
employees form the market or re-hiring people from inside. Also training and developing
methods could improve our performance to reach our achievements. As conclusion, the
organisation is trying to get the best performance from its employee to get the maximum
customer base and get more profits. Human resources stand as the key for this achievement by
hiring, motivating, and developing of our employees.
References:
https://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/strategic-planning-important-organization-4103.html
Strategic Human Resource Practices and its Impact on Performance towards Achieving
Organizational Goals / Md Yusuf Hossein Khan
Human Resources Management, Gary Dessler
the different models of preparing strategic human resource management plans
In our situation I think using hierarchical organisational structure will be suitable for our
organization. In general, the hierarchical structure is a pyramid chart with the CEO on the top

of it. Because using the globally most common type of structure will help our new employees
to adapt easily in the system.
In the hierarchical chart, the authority level will be clear, and everything will be connected to
the top of the structure. That will help us to monitor everything while we are growing.
Thus, it will divide our organizations to departments such as marketing, productions, HR,
financial and etc. and that will put a manager on the top of them.
In this structure it will be easier to hire from inside of company by promoting people to a
higher level. In addition, we will get more chances to develop our employee’s skills by
monitoring them through their managers.
This kind of structures have some disadvantages that we have to consider. Bureaucracy and
decision making will be the biggest problems that might be faced in the operation. In order to
avoid those obstacles, we have to more focus on developing our managers communication
and decision-making skills.
As conclusion, in an organization like Easiclean intended to go global yet having an issue
with its budget, I believe to go with the most common charts will save us from a number of
risks.
Task 4
assess the factors to be considered when preparing human resource management strategies
Before starting to set our human resources management strategy, we have some points to be
clarified in order to get the best strategy.
First of all, by analysing the type and strategy of the organisation, it can provide us
information about number of employees, the type of departments, the future strategy and etc.
For example, in our situation in Easiclean, our plan to go global can give us the need of hiring
new people.
Secondly, financial situation can also impact our HRM plans. For instance, if we have an
unlimited budget, that might help us to do more effective methods of training and learning
which could provide rewards and good salaries to attract high quality personnel.
Thirdly, looking into the existing labour market can give us information about the available
human resources such as the age and educational level, employability level etc.
Moreover, when we are planning a strategy, we have to consider its time line, six months
plan will be different from the long term ones.

Finally, the micro and macro environment factors should also be considered while we are
setting our strategies.
References:
https://www.managementstudyhq.com/factors-affecting-hrp.html
the key elements of a human resource management strategy
Any HRM strategy should be based on tools facilitating to achieve its goal. After analysing
the situation and reach the needs in our target organisation. We have to set the best tools to
get the best performance.
First, by doing training and developing activates we can improve the skills and the ability of
our team and also find their talent. Use the most effective techniques for our organisation
such as lecture on job training, virtual trainings and so on can give us the best performance.
Recruitment is also a key tool to improve the performance. Both of insource and outsource
recruitment should be done according to a good analysis. Selection tools such as interviews,
tests, background check, etc will be helpful.
Last but not the least, a good reward system such as benefits, work-life balance, personal
development, and opportunities etc. are so important to motivate our people and attract new
candidates with high portfolio to work with us.
how internal and external factors impact
As the micro and macro environment factors became important for all. Those factors can be
dived into internal and external. According to the research, we can notice that changes in
economy, legislations, quality of employees and priorities of the top management are the top
of the list.
Change in economy is one of the external factors; the economy can directly affect the
recruitment power of the organisation. If we were in an economic crisis, hiring will be
naturally harder than other times. It is also important to notice that both international and the
national economy can affect the strategy in different levels.
Another external factor is legislation and regulations, law power had effect on the human
resources management many times in the history. For example, the Turkish constitution has
been supporting people with the disabilities and given the rights to every worker to have a
rest and not to work in jobs which are not fitting their age, gender or strength in addition to
retirement law that supporting the disabled people.

The quality of employees is important factor affecting our strategy externally and internally.
So before setting any strategy analysis, the existing quality of our people can give us idea
about the strength and weak points, therefore we will be able to focus on our training and
development on those points.
In the top of internal factors list, we can find the top management priorities. We can notice
these factors in the vision of the organisation. The vision will be a reflect of what the top
management want and, on this vision, the HRM strategy is established. Moreover, the top
management may affect many points such selections, recruitment, salaries, development
policy and etc.
As conclusion, there are culture and traditions, competitors, educational system and
technology level that could be defined as external factors. On the other hand the
organisational type and structure, size of the organisation, and history of the organisation are
the internal factors. Both external and internal factors should be analysed and considered in
order to get the most effective HRM strategy.
References:
Environmental Factors Affecting Human Resources Management Activities of Turkish Large
Firms – article - BY Kurtuluş Yılmaz Genç - Giresun University
https://bizfluent.com/info-8612477-internal-factors-affecting-human-resources.html
the model used by an organisation in the development of its HR strategy
Starbucks Corporation can be an interesting example to look at in detail because of many
reasons. As we know, Starbucks is established in the early 70s but in the 80s it started to
expand globally and they grow so quick to reach more than 15000 branches in the world
wide. Starbucks depends on a good human resources strategy in order to grow fast and keep
the product quality and the costumer experience in the high level.
Starbucks makes their working experience different from others, by working in their shops it
will be like working with their friends kind of experience also Starbucks supports diversity.
As benefits, Starbucks provides their employees and their partners heath care including
dental, vision hypnotherapy, naturotherapy etc. Also Starbucks became the very first
company to offer the same benefits to part-time workers as offered to the full-time.
For training, Starbucks hold an open forum events by its senior leaders. In this event the
employees can find answers to their questions and concerns. Starbucks also cares to give
knowledge of it values to their employees. Employees will be aware of the history of the

company, and they will learn the communication skills and also it promotes a good
relationship between the employees and their manager.
Starbucks cares about its quality so they keep their employee updated by training. For
example, in 2008, they closed most of the stores to hold ‘Perfect the Art of Espresso’ event
and teach their employees how to evaluate the product (is it the right colour, is it the right
time etc.)
For Starbucks, recruitment and hiring employees were a big problem. For company that
growth fast will be in need to hire more employees. In 2007, because of the accelerated
growth, the company added around 200 employees. The company was not having the right
plan to engage that big number of employees into the system so we can notice that the
company started to lose focus on the products quality and get a poor performance in 2008.
To improve the recruitment strategy, The HR management of Starbucks started to plan their
strategy by adding social recruitment to their online site to reach more audience and focusing
more on the benefits and promoting work-life balance. That make Starbucks between the best
100 companies for work in 2013 according to “100 Best Companies,” n.d.
References:
Starbucks' Human Resource Management Practices by Aron Blesch University of Rochester
Task 5
strategic human resource management strategy for Starbucks
There are many factors that have to be considered by the HRM team. Starbucks example will
be helping us to explain those factors.
First of all, we have to check our organization’s vision, missions and goals. Vision is our
lighthouse which leads us to achieve our dream. Starbucks current vision is “to establish
Starbucks as the premier purveyor of the finest coffee in the world while maintaining our
uncompromising principles while we grow.” We can notice mentioning their goals to produce
the best quality while keeping the principles and highlighting growing as a goal. This vision
is inspiring the employee to do better but I think we do edit it to give a direct massage to the
consumers. For example, add something like ‘to make your day better’ or ‘to start better’ that
will add motivation to our consumers and our employees to deal with the costumers in better
way.
After checking mission statement of Starbucks, we can notice that they focused on their own
business philosophy, and they make it applicable in the future. But their statement missed
some points such mentioning target customers and the target markets. To have better relations

between the organization and the consumers i think we could focus more on the target market
and the target consumers.
By focusing of the target markets more, it will help our organization to attract more local
employees to our company and that will help us to reach our vision’s goal by growing. That
will help solving recruitments as the biggest challenge any growing organization will
eventually confronts.
In Starbucks, it holds many events to give its employees more information about the
company principles and also to improve their skills to prepare better products. Maybe also
using technology to provide that information will help us to give the coffee knowledge to our
employees and our customers.
As conclusion our human resources strategy should focus more on the target market while we
are growing, and we analyse each country that we operate in separately to get more talented
local employees to our organizations.
References:
http://panmore.com/starbucks-coffee-vision-statement-mission-
statement#:~:text=Starbucks%20Coffee's%20corporate%20vision%20is,Finest%20coffee%2
0in%20the%20world
how the human resources management strategy support achievement of the business
objectives
The proposed strategy will help us to avoid recruitments risks when we start in a new market.
To use technology could be benefited to get the people know more about our products
company principles and our strategies. So that it will increase our human resources and that
will make us grow faster in a healthy way.
By focusing on our employees and customers relation, it will improve the communication
skills of our team members. Moreover,it should be a priority to make our interior
relationships between employees and their manager more effectively.
the potential barriers to the implementation of a human resource management strategy
We have to consider the barriers that affects our HRM strategy’s operations. We have to be
sure that our strategy had the acceptance and the understanding from our employees. In
addition, the culture and the environmental factors should be considered not to affect our
strategy.

Recourses could affect our strategy such as finance, people and time. Any lack of resources
will impact on our training or benefits plans.
To get the success of any strategy, it should have accepted by top management and have their
support and they have to consider involving to play a main role in the operations.
Building our strategy according to the needs that will minimize the obstacles and we should
be sure that monitoring and evaluation are integral part of the the strategy’s operation.