Formulation Of Human Resources Strategy

The formulation of the organization's human resources Strategic Human Resource Management and Organisational Effectiveness strategy begins with basic questions concerning how employment will be structured, what corporate culture will be fostered, how careers will unfold in the organization, what sort of employees will be sought, and so forth. At the same time, the ability to see beyond conventional wisdom, to put together a human resources system that works especially well, is as potent a competitive weapon as one can imagine.- Implementation of Strategy and Policies. In this category we have in mind tasks that involve nontrivial judgment in fitting general policies and procedures to specific cases. Performance evaluation of individuals and teams, crafting job designs, decisions on whom to hire (and where specifically to look, although this could be construed as part of policy formation), decisions on whom to promote, decisions on training for individuals, specific layoff decisions, and the like all fit here.Ambiguity in these tasks is not particularly high if a well-formed set of human resources policies and practices is in place; however, outcomes are noisy and feedback can be substantially delayed. Interdependencies with other parts of the business can be substantial; decision-makers should have a fairly well-developed "big picture" of the organization or, at least, of the specific function involved. Because of reputation and social comparison effects, these tasks are predominately guardian roles, although especially when it comes to recognition of talent and accurate placement of individuals, some star aspects are involved.- Record Keeping, Compliance, and Personnel Service Delivery. Here we have in mind those tasks that, unfortunately, have come to dominate many line managers' perceptions of what the human resources Department does: compliance reports; keeping employee records; filling out forms for benefits and payroll; and so forth, on down to buying the beverages and pizza for the regularly scheduled employee beer blast.There isn't a lot of ambiguity here and performance is fairly easily monitored. The job is a mix of some guardian and mainly foot-soldier tasks: Screwing up compliance reports can get the firm in trouble with legal authorities, and a bad benefits office can reduce employee morale pretty quickly, but management that isn't completely asleep or complacent can usually avoid the big disasters in this realm.This enumeration of the tasks involved in doing human resources management helps clarify a root problem with how human resources is traditionally organized. In the traditional organization, this bundles together all these tasks, a small fraction of the activities account for a huge proportion of the value added by the function, by creating potential upside and/or helping the organization avoid downside disasters. In contrast, most of the activities conducted, measured by time expended or paper consumed, are the routine foot-soldier tasks, perceived as adding little value by managers and employees. Complying with rules and filling out forms imposed by central human resources regarding job searches, performance appraisal, or compensation and benefits - or being required to have a human resources representative present during a sensitive conference with a subordinate are frequently not viewed as helping matters very much. And employees, once they are hired, often interact with the human resources department only when they have a problem or concern, so they may not have an especially positive view of the function either.