Author: T.

Basahel week 2 Assignment After Reading the article:

Strategic Human Resources Management: Where Do We Go From Here?

Brian E. Becker1 and Mark A. Huselid2 Author Affiliations

1.

School of Management, State University of New York at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY 14260, bbecker@buffalo.edu 2 2. School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854
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Abstract
The authors identify the key challenges facing strategic human resource management (SHRM) going forward and discuss several new directions in both the scholarship and practice of SHRM. They focus on a clearer articulation of the black box between HR and firm performance, emphasizing the integration of strategy implementation as the central mediating variable in this relationship. There are direct implications for the nature of fit and contingencies in SHRM. They also highlight the significance of differentiated HR architecture not just across firms but also within firms.

Implications of Strategic Human Resource Management

Introduction: It is a certain fact that human resource management as a subject has drawn much attention in the last two decades both in the literatures and the practice. (Becker & Huselid, 2006). But there are certain challenges and issues which human resource management face. This is due to the fact that before we evaluate the impact of the human resource management as a strategic partner of a firm it is important analyze the diversities that the behavioral pattern of the employees have on the overall performance of the firm. According to some early scholars in the filed the behavioral elements of the employees should ideally alter according to the change in the pattern of strategy and objectives. The fact is, it is certainly not an easy task. The success of an organization mostly depends on the fact that how well the human resource managers of a firm actually can direct the attitude of the employees to achieve certain goals or put them align with the specific objectives of the company. (Eriksen & Dyer, 2004). Thus the basic challenge for the human resource management is that they have to work with the emotion and attitude of people and giving a strategic alignment to these components is certainly a steep task. Role of Black Box: The concept of black box actually attempts to explain the strategic logic between the human resource architecture and performance that it is delivering. (Becker & Huselid, 2006). The black box actually tries to translate the effort made by human resource or the

relative position into competitive advantage. It is an attempt made by the practitioners of the filed to link the concepts of human resource management with the strategic capabilities of the firm. They mostly argue on the fit which can be made out from the human resource capabilities and the overall strategy of the firm. (Becker & Huselid, 2006). Now the question of linking these two factors actually depends on few major changes in view of professionals. Firstly the human resource practitioners now measure performance of the organization on a whole and not individual performance of employees. Thus there is certain alteration in the view of the practitioners that is observable as they not confining themselves to individual departmental success but on the contrary aligning their success with the objectives of the overall organization. (Becker & Huselid, 2006). The second change in mindset is a result of the first one as now top management is expecting human resource managers to solve business level issue and problems and not just problems and issues of individual employees. That means the reliance on the human resource management is now more. These strategies are basically aimed at gaining sustainable competitive advantage and achieving desirable financial results. Actually these are the factors on the basis of which the black box describes the interrelation among the strategies and the human resource implications. The differentiated human resource architecture has firm specific dimensions to it which actually translate the overall strategies taken by the firm into human resource implication. (Becker & Huselid, 2006). The outcome of these differentiated human resource architecture is strategic implementation effectiveness. The employers hereby gets a clearer view on how to react to situation which will ultimately channel the emotion and positive attitude of the employees to the firm specific goals. In these market level strategies adapted by the top management of the company gets translated into specific human resource based actions and ultimately the objectives are gained. This overall transformation is an important factor considering the fact that human resources themselves are very complex and unique form of resources. Significance of Differentiated Human Resource Architecture: As mentioned in the above section the concept of this architecture actually tries to translate the strategic decisions made by the top management into specific human resource based actions. These actions in turn actually contribute to the overall performance improvement for the firm. The significance of adapting such measures lies in the fact that the basic objective of human resource management now is to develop more specific strategies which will help the management to use the resources optimally. (McGuire, Stoner& Mylona, 2008). While the company determines the proper range of strategic application the key issues which remains is that how to manipulate the resources to gain maximize competitive advantage. The optimal usage of the resources is what the focus is on. The capability thus which is expected from the middle level human resource managers is linking the management level strategy or the business strategy with the behavioral pattern of the employees and also their individual performances. (McGuire, Stoner& Mylona, 2008). It is an important aspect that the individual performances and contribution made by each of the employees must be well directed towards the strategic goals of the organization and should not deviate from that. This where the concept of optimality exists. The effort made by each of the employees should be directed towards organizational goal and ideally should not be wasted. (McGuire, Stoner& Mylona, 2008). Linking the people component with the business level objectives is the idea behind constructing the differentiated human resource architecture. At the end on the basis of the architecture the management of the firm should posses a clear idea regarding the areas in which the human capitals are allocated and also at the same time an idea regarding the expected returns from the allocated resources.

Conclusion: There are few basic aspects of strategic human resource management which contributes directly or indirectly to the performance of the firms. With time the concept of human resource management has evolved and most of the modern management bodies are considering it as a strategic component of the firm. The differentiated human resource architecture is certainly such approach wherein the business level strategies adapted by any firm are being linked with individual level performances. Once the proper range of application is being determined the only concern for the management will be translate the objectives into results and obtain the optimal level of support from the human capital allocated to work.

Reference: Eriksen J, Dyer L. (2004). Toward A Strategic Human Resource Management Model of High Reliability Organization Performance: School of Industrial and Labor Relations, New York, USA McGuire, D., Stoner, L. & Mylona, S. (2008): The Role of Line Managers as Human Resource Agents in Fostering Organisational Change in Public Services, Journal of Change Management, Vol. 8, No. 1, p. 7384. Becker, B.E. & Huselid, M.A. (2006) Strategic human resources management: where do we go from here?, Journal of Management, 32 (6), pp. 898925,