Formulation Of Human Resources Strategy
Within this general category of tasks we include both organization-wide human resources strategy and the tailoring of that strategy to specific business units, regional units, functions, or divisions.Especially important in terms of organization-wide strategy are answers to the questions: How consistent should human resources Strategic Human Resource Management and Organisational Effectiveness policies and practices be throughout the enterprise? Where are distinctions in policies and practices (across locales or employee subgroups) desirable? How much latitude should particular organizational units be given in formulating their own human resources strategies?After the broad outlines of strategy have been set, questions about general policies arise, such as: What will be the broad base of compensation and performance management throughout the organization or in particular units? What tasks will be outsourced, and will the outsourcing be done via labor contractors or independent contractors? What training will be done in-house, and what will be outsourced, and to whom? It is hard to draw a line between strategy and policy, and we will not make any attempt to do so: In this category we will include any human resources related activity that sets rules for the management of human resources that apply broadly to groups of employees.Formulating strategy and general policies, it seems to us, is a managerial task of the utmost importance. It is fraught with ambiguity; there is no checklist of what to do or what to think about. The outcomes are noisy-how do you know if you've succeeded? Results often take a long time to be realized. Interdependencies with other parts of business strategy are tight.
At the same time, dependence on local environmental conditions can be important, so the local environment must be well understood by those who formulate human resources strategy and policies. Finally, the tasks here strongly mix guardian and star elements. Poorly aligned or inconsistent human resources policies and practices can be devastating for an organization. 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.
