This essay discusses the role that HRM plays in the strategic direction of an organisation. |
What role does HRM play within the strategic direction of an organisation? Within this essay it will be discussed how the effective management of human resources positively impacts the performance and success and hence direction of an organisation. This opinion has been developed based on the review of numerous peer reviewed academic journal articles and other relevant resources. In order to be able to discuss this topic several key terms must be defined. So what is HRM? Human Resource Management ‘involves the productive use of people in achieving the organisation’s strategic objectives and the satisfaction of individual employee needs’, Stone (2010, p4). Strategic direction is the strategy used by an organisation which identifies the direction it intends to move and the framework for action by which it intends to get there, Stone (2010, p.14). The HR manager plays a pivotal role in linking the organisations most valuable resource of humans to the strategic direction of the organisation and does so through the use of strategic HRM policies and practices.
Chung et al (2008) proposed that the purpose of HRM is to manage one of an organisation’s most crucial sources, its workforce, to gain and retain sustained competitive advantage in a strategic manner, with its overall corporate strategies. There are two contrasting approaches to HRM, the instrumental HRM which is the hard line approach to managing human resources and humanistic HRM (soft) which focuses on employee development, collaboration, participation, trust and informed choices, through the integration of HR policies and practices with the organisation’s business strategies, Stone (2010). As the role that HRM performs