The Strategic Role of Human Resources Management in the Organization Essay

The Strategic Role of Human Resources Management in the Organization - Essay Example On the same lines, Mayer (2008) defined strategy as the actions that are undertaken by the organization to achieve success and competitive advantage in the market place. The human resources are the most important driving forces that affect the performance level of the organization and make the attainment of competitive advantage possible for the organization. The lack of consideration for the human resources department in the decision making of the organization creates differences between the execution and strategic plans; it is required to include the human resources department in the formulation of strategies so that the employees can be managed in a fitting manner. SHRM cannot be understood or addressed in a complete manner unless HRM is explained; therefore the reasons of inadequacy of the traditional HRM have been explained in the following section. 2.1 Reasons of Inadequacy of Traditional HRM Mayer (2008) stated that traditional human resource management mainly focuses at the d ay-to-day functioning of the organization thereby reducing the focus on the long term objectives of the organization. Taylor (2005) pointed out that HRM adopts a people-centered approach that diminishes the focus on the real business needs of the organization. The role of HRM, in other words, people management seems to be limited to the management of the following four objectives; staffing, performance, change management and administration. Human resource managers lack the knowledge about the business needs therefore the policies and procedures are not aligned with the direction and overall vision of the organization. It is due to these reasons that the prefix ‘strategic’ has been added to the idea of human... The Strategic Role of Human Resources Management in the Organization Earlier, human resource management was considered to be a mechanism to manage the people, policies and routine procedures in the organization. It bore no greater relevance than this paradigm. Human resource management was often reversibly used for personnel management or people management. It is due to the passage of years that the field of human resource management has evolved and its horizon has broadened. The demanding needs of the current markets and dynamic customer behaviours make it necessary for the human resource management to be aligned with the strategic goals and plans of the organization. The isolation of these aspects creates a gap between the execution of the goals and management of the company’s resources. The evolution in the field of HRM has made it come out of its narrow scope and has created the concept of strategic human resource management (SHRM). The traditional human resource management was considered to be ‘people management’ that mainly involved the basic HR functions of administration, staffing, controlling etc. The field of business has changed with time and people have become important assets in the competing world. Strategic human resource management promotes the amalgamation of HR practices with the organizational goals so that the human resources can be managed and hence directed towards the attainment of the objectives.