Strategic Human Resource Management: Best Fit and Best Practice Report

This report delves into the realm of Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM), exploring the nuances of global HR strategies, including the interplay between standardized and localized approaches within transnational strategies. It contrasts the global HR strategy, which emphasizes standardized outputs, with the transnational strategy that blends global standards with local regulations, offering greater flexibility in attracting, developing, and maintaining human resources. The report also examines growth strategies, encompassing internal growth, conglomerate diversification, mergers, and strategic alliances, as well as retrenchment strategies such as turnaround, disinvestment, and liquidation. Furthermore, it addresses the challenges in aligning HRM policies with business strategies, highlighting issues such as differences in employee skills, attitudes, and satisfaction levels, the need for effective change management, the traditional and operational focus of HR roles, and conflicts arising from differing perceptions of HR's role within the organization. The report concludes by emphasizing the importance of understanding and addressing these challenges to enhance organizational effectiveness.

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

1STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Response to 1a -
A successful global strategy depends on the involvement of all the stakeholders. This
means that the organizations try to implement a number of policies and procedures to achieve the
goals and to centralize the systems. The stakeholders are given the utmost importance in this
approach and there are certain goals achieved by them through proper communications. Global
HR strategies might not be always suitable (Lepak, Jiang & Ployhart, 2017). Transnational
strategy is therefore introduced to cope up with the increased globalisation. This strategy means
the interplay between the global centralized standards and the local regulations. It can be defined
as the summation of the HRM policies that are used by the multinationals for attracting,
developing and maintaining the human resources including both global and local standards
(Hollenbeck & Jamieson, 2015).
It can be therefore said that Global HR strategy focuses on standardized outputs. The HR
policies and practices of the parent company are usually reflected in this strategy. Whereas, in
case of transnational strategy there are a mix of HR roles that includes proper selection and
continuous training, rewards and appraisals as well as evaluation of performances. It incorporates
both global and local standards showing greater flexibility.
Response to 1b-
Growth strategy generally results in the increase of the sales volume, market share and
the overall profit of the organization. It can be of four different types –
Internal growth refers to increasing the organizational efficiency and capacity without
entering into agreements or acquiring other firms.

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Conglomerate diversification means expanding the business into some unrelated
product segment by acquiring some unrelated business (Manjoo, 2013).
Merger means in order to take benefit of the synergy two similar kind of firms combine
into one single firm.
Strategic alliance refers to temporary partnerships for achieving a particular goal.
Retrenchment strategies are undertaken in order to help the firm from earning further
losses (Hardy, 2017). It can be of the following types –
Turnaround refers to the elimination of the unprofitable business, reduction in the
assets, reducing workforce and redesigning the product lines in order to prevent the company
from further losses.
Disinvestment means selling the shares of the business units to another business for the
purpose of revival.
Liquidation is the last stage where the company if has no other options will wind up.
Response to 2
There are usually problems in aligning the HRM policies with the business strategies
because of a number of differences among the people. There can be differences in skills,
attitudes, experiences, expertise and competencies. The degree of satisfaction also varies from
person to person. In order to imbibe the organisational HRM policies with the business strategy a
proper change management system must also exist. The human resource roles in most of the
organizations are much traditional and operational than strategic, which leads to dissatisfaction.
The human resources are more aligned towards the cost based strategy than the innovation based

3STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
strategy. Another problem is that the HR protects the company in real sense, but the people
within believe that the HR is there to protect them (Bailey et al., 2018). This therefore creates a
conflict. The problem also lies with the middle level management where most of the managers
are unable to understand their teams. Instead of convincing they use coercion at times that makes
the employees extremely dissatisfied with their work and reduces their productivity.

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References
Bailey, C., Mankin, D., Kelliher, C., & Garavan, T. (2018). Strategic human resource
management. Oxford University Press.
Hardy, C. (2017). Strategies for retrenchment and turnaround: The politics of survival (Vol. 18).
Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG.
Hollenbeck, J. R., & Jamieson, B. B. (2015). Human capital, social capital, and social network
analysis: Implications for strategic human resource management. Academy of
Management Perspectives, 29(3), 370-385.
Lepak, D. P., Jiang, K., & Ployhart, R. (2017). HR strategy, structure, and architecture. A
research agenda for human resource management, 23-38.
Manjoo, F. (2013). How Google Became Such a Great Place To Work. Slate. Magazine. Slate
Magazine, 21.