Hi!
Today's bite is all about strategic
human resource management,
what it is and how you can make an impact
by using it in your organization.
Stay tuned.
Strategic human resource management
became increasingly popular in the 2000s.
This was triggered by Dave Ulrich challenge
for the HR profession.
According to Ulrich, HR had become
often ineffective, incompetent, and costly
and therefore, needed to be more value adding,
in other words more strategic.
This meant that HR strategy needed
to better align with the business strategy
in order to provide value.
Strategic HRM is the result of this call to action.
It aims to align the focus
of human resource management actions
with the focus on the business
and it's all about achieving business objectives
through smarter people management.
Let's now dive into five steps
you can use to make an impact
with strategic human resource management.
One, create a human resource strategic plan
that follows the business.
The first step towards making a strategic business impact
with strategic HRM is to create an HR strategy.
Remember, strategic HRM follows the business.
This means that the HR strategy
should follow the broader business strategy.
First, you need to understand
the broader business strategy.
Second, you need to align what you're doing in HR
with this business strategy.
The HR strategy should aim to build the capabilities
that are defined in the business strategy.
To help you create an HR strategy,
you can check out our in-depth article
that you will find in the video description.
But for now, let's go on with the next steps.
Two, align HR activities.
Once the HR strategy is set,
the real work starts.
All HR activities, including recruitment,
selection, performance management,
rewards and benefits, organization
and function design and more,
should be aligned with each other.
For example, the qualities that you evaluate
someone's performance on should also be
the criteria you use to hire people.
In addition, these should also be the qualities
you look to develop in your workforce.
This way hiring, performance evaluation,
rewards and learning and development
all align with what the business strategy
is trying to achieve.
Three, place more emphasis on data.
One of the key requirements of making an impact with HR
is being able to show that impact.
This is where data comes in.
An emphasis on data is key
in measuring the impacts of HR policies.
It is very common for the business
to track its success using
key performance indicators, KPIs.
KPIs are metrics that are aligned
with the strategy of the organization.
People analytics can be used
to measure which people policies
contribute most to these KPIs.
This can be the contribution
that HR makes very tangible.
It can also give you information
about which policies are more or less effective.
Four, remember HR's other responsibilities.
We started off by pointing out
that the push for strategic HRM
originated with Ulrich critic
of the lack of strategic contributions of HR.
This doesn't mean that HR
should only focus on its strategy,
there are other elements to focus on.
Ulrich defined four HR roles.
These include HR strategy,
enabling change, efficient administration,
and developing and engaging employees.
The risk of strategic HRM
is that we focus too much on the HR strategy
while forgetting other tasks.
The focus of HR shouldn't be too much on strategy.
Once the strategy is set,
the power lies in its execution.
HR should not forget to focus
on flawless employee operations
and employee intimacy.
Finally, five, take an outside-in approach.
A critical next step is taking
an outside-in HR approach.
Who are the customers of HR?
These are sometimes employees.
However, there're also other outside stakeholders.
These include customers, investors,
key suppliers, government agencies,
and communities.
This requires further integration.
Not only should different HR practices
be aligned with the business strategy,
but the strategy should also be aligned
with these outside stakeholders.
This is how HR will play a truly strategic role.
That's it for today's bite in which you've learned
that there's a lot more to strategic
human resource management than meets the eye.
Not only should HR align its practices
with the business strategy, to be truly strategic,
HR needs to understand where the strategy comes from
and connect with the various stakeholders
that strategy is made for.
Also, if you liked our video,
make sure you like and share it
and I'll see you soon in our next learning bite.