Jonathan Miller
Introduction
The course Aligning People and Strategy has helped me to recognize the importance of including human resources in the strategic management process, whether it is with respect to hiring talent, retaining talent or managing talent during an organizational change. Through the cases and articles discussed in class, I have also learned that Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a vital role in a company’s success. For instance, Cirque de Soleil would not be able to pursue its mission, which is to invoke imagination and emotion through its performances, without being able to find and acquire the right talent. The following paper will reflect upon my key takeaways from the course, and relate some of my previous experiences to the three modules we covered in the course.
A holistic approach to Human Resource Management
In my previous workplace, I found that our human resources (HR) department was reactive instead of proactive. The company appeared to follow a one-way linkage model, whereby HR followed the directives of management without providing any input into the decision-making process. This was evident during the credit crisis, when the company became overwhelmed with applications from businesses requesting Credit Insurance policies. HR was given the directive to hire additional employees to assist with the increased workload. The hiring process took approximately four months to complete. However, soon after the new employees had been trained, it became apparent that the upswing in demand was temporary and that the company was now over-staffed. If my former company taken a holistic approach to talent acquisition in the aforementioned scenario, they would have saved the company a lot of money and hassles. For example, had HR used an integrative model towards strategy formulation, they would have been able to share their insights with senior management regarding the external HR environment ex-ante. In conductingthis external analysis,
The course Aligning People and Strategy has helped me to recognize the importance of including human resources in the strategic management process, whether it is with respect to hiring talent, retaining talent or managing talent during an organizational change. Through the cases and articles discussed in class, I have also learned that Human Resource Management (HRM) plays a vital role in a company’s success. For instance, Cirque de Soleil would not be able to pursue its mission, which is to invoke imagination and emotion through its performances, without being able to find and acquire the right talent. The following paper will reflect upon my key takeaways from the course, and relate some of my previous experiences to the three modules we covered in the course.
A holistic approach to Human Resource Management
In my previous workplace, I found that our human resources (HR) department was reactive instead of proactive. The company appeared to follow a one-way linkage model, whereby HR followed the directives of management without providing any input into the decision-making process. This was evident during the credit crisis, when the company became overwhelmed with applications from businesses requesting Credit Insurance policies. HR was given the directive to hire additional employees to assist with the increased workload. The hiring process took approximately four months to complete. However, soon after the new employees had been trained, it became apparent that the upswing in demand was temporary and that the company was now over-staffed. If my former company taken a holistic approach to talent acquisition in the aforementioned scenario, they would have saved the company a lot of money and hassles. For example, had HR used an integrative model towards strategy formulation, they would have been able to share their insights with senior management regarding the external HR environment ex-ante. In conductingthis external analysis,