HR Strategies and

Business Performance
Week 11
Types of transformational strategies

 Four strategies for transformational change have been identified:

 1. a change in what drives the organization – for example, a change from being
production driven to being market driven would be transformational;
 2. a fundamental change in the relationships between or among organizational parts –
for example, decentralization;
 3. a major change in the ways of doing work – for example, the introduction of new
technology such as computer-integrated manufacturing;
 4. a basic, cultural change in norms, values or research systems – for example,
developing a customer-focused culture.
The strategic role of HR in organizational transformation

 HR can and should play a key strategic role in developing and implementing
organizational transition and transformation strategies.
 It can provide help and guidance in analysis and diagnosis, highlighting the
people issues that will fundamentally affect the success of the strategy.
 HR can advise on resourcing programmes and planning and implementing the
vital learning, reward, communications and involvement aspects of the process.
The strategic role of HR in organizational
transformation (Cont’d)
It can anticipate people problems and deal with them before they
become serious. If the programme does involve restructuring and
downsizing, HR can advise on how this should be done humanely
and with the minimum disruption to people’s lives.
STRATEGIES FOR CULTURE MANAGEMENT

 Strategies for culture management are about the achievement of longer-term

objectives either for changing the culture in specified ways or for reinforcing
the existing culture of an organization .

 Its values and ‘the way things are done around here’.
 Culture change strategies are concerned with how the culture of the
organization can be moved from a present state to a future desired state.
STRATEGIES FOR CULTURE
MANAGEMENT (cont’d)
 Culture reinforcement strategies are also based on an analysis of
the existing culture and how it supports the attainment of goals.
In so far as it is seen to be supportive, steps can be taken to
ensure that the desirable features of the culture are maintained.

 Culture change or reinforcement strategies should be based on an

understanding of the meaning of organizational culture and
climate and how they can be analysed.
STRATEGIES FOR CULTURE
MANAGEMENT (cont’d)
 Culture management often focuses on the development of shared values and
gaining commitment to them. These values will be concerned with the sort of
behaviour the management believes is appropriate in the interests of the
organization.

 The core values of a business express the beliefs about what management
regards as important with regard to how the organization functions and how
people should behave. The aim is to ensure that these beliefs are also held and
acted upon by employees.
The meaning of organizational culture

 Organizational culture has been defined as ‘the commonly held beliefs,

attitudes and values that exist in an organization; put more simply, culture is
“the way we do things around here”’.
 This pattern of values, norms, beliefs, attitudes and assumptions may not have
been articulated but will shape the ways in which people behave and things get
done.
 Values refer to what is believed to be important about how people and the
organizations behave.
 Norms are the unwritten rules of behaviour.
The meaning of organizational
culture(cont’d)
 The definition emphasizes that organizational culture is
concerned with the subjective aspect of what goes on in
organizations. It refers to abstractions such as values and norms
that pervade the whole or part of a business. These may not be
defined, discussed or even noticed. Nevertheless, culture can
have a significant influence on people’s behaviour.
The significance of culture

Culture represents the “social glue” and generates a “we-feeling”,

thus counteracting processes of differentiations which are an
unavoidable part of organizational life. Organizational culture offers
a shared system of meanings which is the basis for communications
and mutual understanding. If these functions are not fulfilled in a
satisfactory way, culture may significantly reduce the efficiency of
an organization.’
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace

 Scandals involving workplace harassment and poor treatment of workers have

highlighted what can happen when ethics aren’t integral to the way organisations
operate.
 With unique access to staff throughout their careers, as well as opportunities to
influence the organisation’s strategy and the way it manages its workforce, the people
profession is uniquely placed to embed principled decision-making into daily practice.
Ethics are at the heart of professionalism. To create cultures of transparency and trust,
practitioners should demonstrate strong standards of integrity when advising business
leaders.
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace(cont’d)

 Recent research shows that the business ethics environment is largely driven by a
combination of leadership practices, corporate culture and company programs. Given
these findings, HR’s role in cultivating an ethics-friendly corporate environment can be
placed into four broad categories.
 First, HR professionals must help ensure that ethics is a top organizational priority.
 Second, HR must ensure that the leadership selection and development processes
include an ethics component. After all, leaders at all levels of the organization need to
both model ethical behavior and communicate ethical standards to employees.
 The third major HR responsibility is ensuring that the right programs and policies are
in place.
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace(cont’d)

 Finally, HR must stay abreast of emerging ethics issues. This

doesn’t mean just following legislation, which tends to be
reactive rather than proactive. It means looking at the entire
social and business environment and spotting conflicts of interest
and other ethics problems before they develop into full-blown
scandals.
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace(cont’d)

 How can HR professionals increase accountability in an

organisation?
 HR is responsible for the movement of anyone entering or
leaving an organisation.
 The following remarks will help HR professionals align their role
to ethical practice, ensuring that decisions made place value on
the people moving into or through the organisation and honour
their integral human rights:
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace(cont’d)

• How can HR professionals increase accountability in an organisation?(cont’d)

• Keep your promises and commitments to people in the organisation
• Be deeply familiar with an organisation’s ideals and values, so that any hiring is made
in the knowledge that a new hire can live up to those ideals.
• Continuously evaluate your organisation’s culture with an impartial, critical eye. Are
company values inherent in decisions and behaviour?
• Have a competency framework that clarifies behaviour requirements, values and
rewards with regards to specific roles.
The Ethical Standards to Perform HR roles as Individual/team
Leader for Promoting Good Practices at Workplace(cont’d)

• Be prepared to work with the CEO to outline and embed solutions to protect
organisational values.
• Champion accountability at all levels of the organisation, so that individuals understand
from day one that they are accountable for their actions and responsible for reflecting
organisational values in everything they do.
• Encourage a focus on being accountable for outcomes and results, not just behaviours.
• Foster a company-wide understanding that accountability is a positive measure, not
aligned to punishment. It is a process designed to increase mutual trust and pride in the
value of one’s work and personal/professional development.
STRATEGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

 Knowledge management strategies aim to capture an organization’s collective

Expertise and distribute it to ‘wherever it can achieve the biggest payoff.

 The process of knowledge management

 Knowledge management is ‘any process or practice of creating, acquiring,
capturing, sharing and using knowledge, wherever it resides, to enhance
learning and performance in organizations’
STRATEGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT(cont’d)
 Knowledge management is concerned with both stocks and flows of
knowledge.
 Stocks include expertise and encoded knowledge in computer systems.
 Flows represent the ways in which knowledge is transferred from people to
people or from people to a knowledge database.
 The purpose of knowledge management is to transfer knowledge from those
who have it to those who need it in order to improve organizational
effectiveness.
 It is concerned with storing and sharing the wisdom and understanding
accumulated in an organization about its processes, techniques and operations.
STRATEGIES FOR KNOWLEDGE
MANAGEMENT(cont’d)
 Knowledge management involves transforming knowledge
resources by identifying relevant information and then
disseminating it so that learning can take place. Knowledge
management strategies promote the sharing of knowledge by
linking people with people and by linking them to information so
that they learn from documented experiences
Approaches to the development of knowledge
management strategies

Two approaches to knowledge management have been identified:

The codification strategy – knowledge is carefully codified and stored in
databases where it can be accessed and used easily by anyone in the organization.
Knowledge is explicit and is codified using a ‘people-to document’ approach.
This strategy is therefore document driven.
Approaches to the development of
knowledge management strategies(cont’d)
 The personalization strategy – knowledge is closely tied to the person who
has developed it and is shared mainly through direct person-to-person
contacts. This is a ‘person-to-person’ approach, which involves sharing tacit
knowledge. The exchange is achieved by creating networks and encouraging
face-to-face communication between individuals and teams by means of
informal conferences, workshops, brainstorming and one-to-one sessions.
Components of a knowledge management strategy

 A knowledge management strategy could be concerned with organizational people

management processes that help to develop an open culture in which the values and
norms emphasize the importance of sharing knowledge and facilitate knowledge
sharing through networks.

 The strategy could refer to methods of motivating people to share knowledge and
rewarding those who do so. The development of processes of organizational and
individual learning, including the use of seminars and symposia that will generate and
assist in disseminating knowledge, could also be part of the strategy.
THANK YOU