The Strategic Importance of HRM

Understanding the strategic potential of human resource manage­ment in organizations is relatively recent phenomenon. In fact, the role of such management in organizations, as it is known today, has evolved through three main stages. From early in this century until the mid-1960s, HRM activities comprised a file maintenance stage, in which much of the emphasis was on screening applicants, orienting new em­ployees, recording employee-related data for personnel purposes, and planning company social functions (such as the company picnic).

The second stage, government accountability, began with pas­sage of the Civil Rights ACT of 1964 (which forbids employment dis­crimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin) and continued as additional laws, court rulings, and federal regulatory guidelines increasingly impacted various aspects of employment, such as hiring and promotion decisions, pension plans, and health and safety issues. Of course, some laws, particularly those governing rela­tions with unions, existed 1964; but the mid-1960s ushered in an era of accelerated governmental regulation of employment issues. As organizations attempted to gain greater control over activities that could result in legal difficulties and large financial settlements, the HRM function gained in importance. Indicative of the expense that can be involved, under a 1973 consent decree (a court-sanctioned agreement in which the accused party does not admit wrongdoing but agrees to discontinue a practice). AT&T agreed to raise the starting pay of women promoted to managerial positions so that their pay level would be equal to those of similarly promoted men, at a cost of more that $30 million.

The third stage, which began in the late 1970s and early 1980s, can be termed the competitive advantage stage. In this stage, human resource management is, increasingly viewed as important for both strategy formulation and implementation. Thus, under some circum­stances, human resources can comprise a source of distinct compe­tence that forms a basis for strategy formulation. For example, 3M's notes scientists enable the company to pursue a differentiation strategy based on innovative product. Under other circumstances, HRM activi­ties may be used to support strategy implementation. For instance, at Honda of America's Marysville, Ohio, plant, an emphasis on differ­entiation through quality is supported by such HRM activities as train­ing programs, developmental performance appraisal processes, and promises of job security. Human resource management often is an important ingredient in the success of such strategy-related activities as downsizing, mergers, and acquisitions. At the competitive advan­tage stage, then, human resources are considered explicitly in conjunc­tion with strategic management, particularly through the mechanism of human resource planning.

Дата добавления: 2015-08-20