Companies, organizations and business enterprises across the globe rely heavily on the input of humans to achieve their objectives. These human beings who provide energy, ideas, and management functions to these organizations must, however, be under other humans to perform at maximum levels. This is where human resource management comes in. Any organization, company or business which is keen on maximizing output while minimizing input must invest in good human resources team to achieve this. Additionally, the human resource team must only adopt strategies which can work in achieving these objectives rather than have strategies which are mostly supervisory, operational instead of being strategic. When it comes to managing personnel, it is essential to put up strategic measures which focus on both short and long-term plans to ensure maximum productivity.
Analysis of the Human Resource Management Concept
Human Resource Management is an administration function dealing with handling human resources has a long history considering that humans have been the ones fuelling the activities of many organizations up to this time. According to Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2013), human resource management is referred to as a management activity which is usually undertaken by state corporations or enterprises, commercial firms or other organizations when it comes to recruiting, retaining as well as motivating their employees. Additionally, human resource management is a collection of programmes, policies as well as plans adopted by enterprises and organizations with the aim of ensuring that they make maximum use of the people who work in those particular enterprises (Coyle-Shapiro et al., 2013. The selection and recruitment techniques usually start relationships between the employee and the hiring enterprise or firm whereas separation policies dictate why, whether and when an employee can be dismissed. As such, it is right to say that human resource management concepts wide-ranging and this it is important to be clear about it if an organization is to achieve its set objectives.
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History, Evolution, and Development of Human Resource Management
Human resources Management is discipline with a long historical standing going all the way back when human beings started to work in unison to complete tasks that would be beneficial to a part or an entire society. People needed to be supervised to ensure that everything was in order although it was done without a scientific backup. Many scholars have made significant attempts to trace the history of HRM and have thus focused on various timelines to understand its evolution and development (Tubey, Rotich, & Kurgat, 2015). The authors, however, confirm that human resources management is a product of the human relations movement at the beginning of the 20 the century. Additionally, the evolution of human resource management has been studied in relation to time periods as well as countries of origin. As such, many countries including, the US Australia and the UK among others have varying theories concerning the evolution and expansion of Human Resource Management as a discipline. For example in Australia, there are four critical stages namely Administration stage (1900-1940s), welfare and administration stage (the 1940s–mid-1970s), SHRM stage (mid-1970s–late 1990s) and SHRM into the future (Beyond, 2000; Tubey, Rotich & Kurgat, 2015). These stages are however almost similar with the same stages in the US, UK, and the Pacific Asia evolutionary steps. One thing that is common in these stages is that they focused on how best to tap the energy and the potential of the employees to achieve the set objectives in the long run.
Human Resource Management Functions
To comprehend the prominence of human resource managers in adapting the use of strategic methodologies over operational and administrative, it is essential some of the critical functions which require being handled differently. Some of the human resource management functions include recruitment and selection which is the primary function. Here the human resource manager must be well aware of the kind of skills needed and how to find out if the applicants possess these skills. This way only the best of the candidates are chosen for the available slots to ensure maximum productivity. The next function is training and development of staff to keep them updated on latest improvements and technologies. As such, the human resource managers must ensure that their staff is continually trained ao that they can remain productive even the face of c competition. The last function of the human resource management is motivation and remuneration where employees are rewarded for their effort. Proper remuneration and motivation should be analyzed carefully to ensure that employees are not underpaid or overpaid. With knowledge, one can be able to come up with policies that ensure that these human resources functions are done accordingly to get the most out of the employees.
Strategies Employed in Human Resource Management
Human resource managers have the option of utilizing the various human resource management strategies to ensure that the employees are working in line with organizations objectives. HR strategies refer to those plans of action undertaken by human resource management teams to make decisions considering their personnel. These strategies are aimed at making decisions regarding the staff, and how they fit into the organizational strategies and objectives. The main strategies that human resource managers can adopt include operational, administrative, and strategic. As per Lovell (2009), human resource scholars and stakeholders have in turn identified five key elements in human resource management strategies which help HR managers to achieve their objectives whether they are using administrative, operational or strategic strategies. The five elements include leading, deploying resources, positioning, achieving success and maintaining a competitive advantage in the face of competition. When it comes to driving the HR manager should be at the forefront of ensuring that his or her staff are better equipped to achieve the organizational goals. More so the HR manager must secure and deploy resources to make this possible as well as putting the right people as per the task’s demands. Additionally, the HR manager must be success oriented to ensure that the staff achieve what they have set out to do even in the face of competition.
Administrative Roles
Human resource managers can opt to make use of administrative approach while dispensing their duties where they play the role of an administrator. According to Ingram (nd), the roles of an administrative, human resource manager include advisory, housekeeping, welfare, policy making, counseling and a legal consultant among others. From this, it is true that this role is facilitated by a need to keep the organization in check without much focus on the future which may not work well to set an organization on a forward path.
Operational Roles
Human resource managers have the alternative of taking up an operational role in trying to help their organizations achieve their objectives. The human resource managers deal with day to day operations of the organizations without giving much attention to future needs (Reynolds nd). In short, they deal with situations as they come such as ensuring interviews are conducted in time, payments are made promptly and other tasks that require daily attention.
Strategic Management
This type of strategy used by most human resource managers is much more encompassing as compared to both operational and administrative strategy. The reason for this claim is the fact that managers not only focus on the present but instead they are focused on the future with the aim of ensuring that the organizations future is secured (Reynolds, n.d). As such all the HR functions are tailored in such a way that they will meet the future needs from recruitment, selection, staff training, development, compensation, and motivation is made in such a way that will ensure present and future productivity.
Why HR managers should focus on being more strategic than operational and administrative
As discussed, HR managers have the option of using either administrative, operational or strategic strategy in their management as seen fit. However more and more HR managers are choosing to be more strategic as opposed to being either operational or administrative. In the face of increasing competition in the business world, it is apparent that there is need to embrace strategies which work in the long run. While operational strategies only deal with day to day activities of an organization without securing the future of an organization in terms of its productivity strategic management deals with the future possibilities and projections.According to Walsh (2010), strategic human resource management is all about making future predictions in regard to the personnel to ensure that an organization can have the requisite human capital to achieve its objectives. As such it is the work of HR professionals to focus on the bigger picture in regard to business growth by coming up with ways which have a direct impact and contribution for the long-term goals.
Fusing Strategic HR management practices with the other types of strategies that are administrative and operational is very important, but the managers should put more emphasis on the use of strategic management. This is so since strategic HR incorporates the other strategies to plan for the future of the business in regard to the employees. They want to know how many employees they require now and in the future to ensure continued existence. As such all, the administrative and operational activities regarding employee recruiting, selection, development, and training are fused together to ensure a better future outcome (Lovell, 2009). Additionally, the HR managers should be able to predict the financial requirements required in the future when it comes to staff development and training as well as compensation and motivation needs. To understand these estimates, these managers will rely on the current trends to make a precise future prediction to avoid being caught unawares. This future awareness is also critical as it helps such managers to come up with options which may be applied into the future in case there is a need to. For example by knowing their staff capabilities and the future expectations they can make decisions on whether to hire more staff or to make plans to outsource when need be.
In the face of technological advancement, the employee's are slowly getting replaced by machines with work which was previously done by humans being taken up by such technological gadgets. This is especially true in manufacturing industries where most processing, assembling and packaging work is done by machines to make the work more efficient. This, however, does not mean that employees are entirely out of the picture as there are some tasks especially managing and controlling the machines that lie entirely with humans. According to Walsh (2010), a Human Resource manager with foresight can know the technological advancements that are thee and that which may come the featured and this make decisions which will equip the staff with the requisite knowledge. This can be done through the organizing of training and development workshops to prepare the staff for future operations to ensure maximum output. This does not only apply to manufacturing sector but also the service industries including telecommunications, banking, and insurance (Walsh, 2010). These organizations are becoming digitized with new digital platforms coming up. A strategic manager will focus on the future and equip his or her staff so that they do not remain redundant when faced with new technology. Failure to do this will mean that his or her organization will not meet its objectives and might be overtaken by their competitors. As such managers should be up to the task by coming up with policies that are in line with future predictions and expectations.
Human resource managers who are strategic usually focus on the available ways of increasing the productivity of their employees so that in turn the organizations they work for can have increased return on its investment. They understand that the success of organizations lies squarely on employees who can translate their skills and energy to achieve the organization's objectives. This is however possible through careful selection of policies and strategies which will equip the employees now for the sake of future productivity. According to Coyle-Shapiro et al. (2013), to ensure that the company or organization will be in a better economic position in the future the HR manages are usually advised to consult with the staff since they can be a rich source of ideas which can prove helpful to the organization. This is true considering that the employees are part and parcel of an organizations dream and including them in the formulation of policies puts them at a better place in implementing the set policies to realize their future economic and physical objectives. The process of drafting future expectations usually include reviewing the current economy in line with the technical expertise available to understand the gaps. Once the gaps are identified, the HR manager can make recommendations on the way forward to seal such gaps (Coyle-Shapiro, 2013). Some of the suggestions that can be made in this regard may include restructuring if the employees as well as exploring new avenues such as collaboration with similar ventures. Whatever decision is made, it is aimed at ensuring that an organization will be able to weather future storms and remain productive.
Challenges Faced in Strategic Human Resource Management
Strategic human resource management is primarily concerned with two types of resources namely the human capital which is based on their skills, knowledge, and abilities while the second resource is the organization's systems which include the HR practices and policies. According to Walsh (2010), the main challenge facing HR managers keen on applying strategic HR strategies is the ability to transform the human capital to become a firms capability. This is so considering that human capital is naturally rare, valuable and hard to imitate. Another challenge for the HR is lack of knowledge on how to transform the organization's policies and practices into a cost-efficient package capable of helping their employees perform at their optimum. Moreover, the HR managers are faced with the challenge of determining how the organization's HR initiatives should work in unison with other policies to ensure that an organization meets its objectives (Walsh, 2010). However, when these challenges are handled well, usually companies are usually in a better place to achieve their set objectives and targets.
In conclusion, companies and organizations rely heavily on human efforts, ideas, abilities, knowledge, and skills to achieve their objectives. In return, the human beings rely on Human resource managers to chart their destiny in terms of recruitment, selection, compliance, compensation, and motivation. To ensure efficiency of this mutual relationships, the HR managers apply several strategies including operational, administrative as well as strategic approaches to achieve the set goals. While functional and administrative strategies are useful, they are usually short-term dealing with the daily running of organizations. As such more and more HR managers are taking up strategic Human resource management which is more futuristic to ensure that these institutions remain competitive into the future, to do this it is advised to work with the employees since they usually have rich and valuable insights. In as much as this option has challenges, it is one of the best approaches to adopt, but one should include the others to ensure that their objective is met exhaustively.
References
Coyle-Shapiro, J. et al. (2013). Human resource management. The University of London Retrieved on 24 October 2017 from http://www.londoninternational.ac.uk/sites/default/files/programme_resources/lse/lse_pdf/subject_guides/mn3075_ch1-4.pdf.
Ingram, D. (n.d). Why is it important for HR management to transform from administrative to strategic contributors? Hearst Newspapers, LLC. Retrieved on 24 October 2017 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/important-hr-management-transform-administrative-strategic-contributors-10236.html.
Lovell, K. (2009). Strategic human resource management: What does it mean in Practice? Southern Cross University. Retrieved on 24 October 2017 from http://epubs.scu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1131&context=theses.
Reynolds, M. (nd). Operational HR management vs. strategic HR management. Hearst Newspapers, LLC. Retrieved on 24 October 2017 from http://smallbusiness.chron.com/operational-hr-management-vs-strategic-hr-management-62125.html.
Tubey, R, Rotich, K.J. & Kurgat, A. (2015), History, evolution and development of human resource management: A contemporary perspective. European Journal of Business and Management, 7(9): 139-149.
Walsh, K. (2010). Key issues in strategic human resources. Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. Retrieved on 24 October 2017 from http://scholarship.sha.cornell.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1244&context=articles.
