Human resource planning has evolved over the years to incorporate various business tools and make the management process measurable and certain. Nevertheless, the task of managing people to achieve a central organization objective remains challenging. The General Electric case study brings out the potential of tactical approaches to human resources, with a place for the majority of the business improvement tools available today.
It also highlights the challenges that organizations of a similar nature face (McLean & Reavis, 2006). Beyond improvements in HR practices and technologies, companies must account for their investments in HR, and clear metrics for evaluating individual employee performance eventually lead to tangible information for decision-making.
The case of Dow Chemical’s and Quantum Corporation provide evidence for this claim. However, when using an HR matrix, such as the balanced scorecard, firms will need different executions and designs (McLean & Reavis, 2006).
Planning and Staffing
Planning and staffing are a central component of HRM, and its outcomes lead to an optimal number of staffs directly under the management of an organization. The general rule has been to retain workers that perform duties related to the core functions of a business.
However, according to the Apple case, as presented in the case study, the choice to outsource or streamline operations also affects the overall staff numbers of a company. Besides, the orientation of a company will determine how well it can perform its HR function. In Apple’s case, the company used HR as a facilitator, and then focused on individual performance based on tools provided.
Training and Performance Management
A problem of relying on self-assessment and best practices of HR is that a firm can end up with an incongruent, value framework for line managers. In such as case line managers are considered core to the functioning in an organization, yet their subordinates are outsourced and working as different entities to the organization.
In many cases, as offered in the case study, organizations opt to rely on benchmarking as a performance criterion. The separation of duties for deciding who in the organization picks a metric for value addition should be encouraged (Avey, Wernsing, & Palanski, 2012).
HR can identify metrics based on knowledge of employee capabilities. On the other hand, business units or line input should handle metrics for other deliverables and, therefore, tell whether HR is doing well as its functions.
Managing Total Rewards
The case shows that strategic HR managers should know talent, act as coaches and mentors to talent. This conforms to the general findings in the companies presented in the case and the overall research that part of the reward system in a company could be ineffective alignment of employees’ skills and appropriate opportunities in an organization.
Rather than taking the role of managing compensations, strategic HR managers embrace a collective consultation with relevant internal stakeholders in the organization to ensure that compensations and severance packages align to long-term organizational objectives (Phillips & Gully, 2008).
Managing the Work Environment and Increasing Employee Engagement
The increase in employee engagement at Apple, as explained in the case study, led to an increase in organizational citizenship behavior and employee innovativeness. In fact, the acceptance of middle-level managers and ordinary employees into various leadership roles significantly enhances employee loyalty and motivation in a company.
The biggest factor to improved workforce product appears as the networking of employees across different levels to facilitate tacit knowledge sharing and increase the decision-making abilities of a firm at business unit levels (Chang & Chen, 2011).
References
Avey, J., Wernsing, T., & Palanski, M. (2012). Exploring the process of ethical leadership: The mediating role of employee voice and psychological ownership. Journal of Business Ethics, 107(1), 21-34.
Chang, P.-C., & Chen, S.-J. (2011). Crossing the level of employee’s performance: HPWS, affective commitment, human capital, and employee job performance in professional service organizations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 22(4), 883-901.
McLean, B. G., & Reavis, C. (2006). Delivering strategic human resource management. Boston, MA: Havard Business School.
Phillips, J. M., & Gully, S. M. (2008). Human resource management. Mason, OH: South Western Cengage Learning.