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Week 1: Welcome and Recap What is HRM  HRM is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating employees, and of attending to their labour relations, health and safety and fairness concerns.  The employee life cycle is used in practice to refer to the different stages through which...

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Notes – Advanced HR Week 1: Welcome and Recap What is HRM  HRM is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating employees, and of attending to their labour relations, health and safety and fairness concerns.  The employee life cycle is used in practice to refer to the different stages through which the employee progresses within an organisation and the role of HRM in that stage. NOTE: Starts with recruitment and selection – once employees have joined an organisation they are onboarded – involves socialisation process (understanding how the processes, communications and structures work, adapting to organisational culture etc.) – HR and line managers support this.

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HR and line managers are also responsible for rewards and performance management, identifying training needs, and training and developing employees. - Training and developing employees is closely linked to succession planning and consideration of career progression within the organisation. - EXAMPLE: planning for leadership roles, taking on more responsibilities in an expert role etc. HR also plays a key role in processes related to transitioning within and out of the organisation. - EXAMPLE: moving into a different area within the organisation, change management, retirement, employee deciding to move on, redundancies etc. HRM and line management are different, however. - Line managers have line authority – i.e. authorised to direct the work of subordinates and are responsible for accomplishing the organisations tasks. - HR managers have advisory and staff authority – i.e. they advise other managers and employees in HRM related matters – they have a coordinative function. Torrington et al suggest the key objectives of HRM are: - Staffing objectives (e.g. recruitment, selection, designing organisation structures) - Performance objectives (e.g. training & development, setting up reward systems, performance management) - Change-management objectives (restructuring, cultural change) - Administration objectives (record keeping ensuring compliance, adhering to legal obligations such as minimum wage) - Reputational objectives (e.g. avoiding damaging, negative media coverage on account of its employment practices) Today HR professionals need to ensure their skill set understands the business – cannot solely focus on HR and must understand the business.

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They also need to be digital savvy given the business climate – need to be able to use systems. Need to internalise the business and appreciate talent processes. Need to be open to learning themselves, be flexible when environments change and adapt accordingly – reimagine how to solve the employee experience. Have to be able to connect a customer/business issue and be able to solve these. Greater focus on diversity. Understand what people are doing within the market – understand different mindsets to inform the HR function.

How has the HRM function changed in organisations over time Ulrich, D., & Dulebohn, J. H. (2015). Are we there yet? What's next for HR?. Human Resource Management Review, 25(2), 188-204.

ANALYSIS  Ulrich and Dublebon discuss how HRM has undergone significant transformations, from administrative function to one that is strategic – this paper helps understand current discussions in HRM practice and strategic HRM.  This has included HR moving from being a lower level, administrative and maintenance-oriented function to operating in many organizations as a core business function and a strategic business partner.  They characterize HR's journey as having a singular direction and that is to add value to the organization. - To continue in this direction we propose that future HR will need to adopt an outside/inside approach where the external environment and stakeholders influence what HR does inside the organization. - From this, we discuss other specific actions HR will need, in order to add value, with respect to targets for HR work (individual, organizational, and leadership) and areas for HR investments (HR function, HR practices, HR people, and HR analytics).  HR originally had an inside/outside approach and a primary purpose to add value to the organization. - HR drifted from that approach and purpose during the post WWII period, during which time HR had an inside-only approach, became maintenance and administrative oriented, and non-value adding. - Starting in the 1980s, HR began to experience a transformation that involved three waves and a return to an inside/outside approach and a redirection and focus on adding value to organizations.  HR needs to have an outside/inside approach, and this is central to its ability to continue adding value to organizations. - An outside/inside approach connects HR to the broader business context, in which business operates, and to external stakeholders. - This approach allows HR to go beyond prior efforts to add value inside the organization, through serving employees and line managers, to creating value by aligning HR services and activities to meet expectations of external stakeholders including customers, investors, and community.  The outside/inside approach provides the most relevant target or benchmark to evaluate the appropriateness and effectiveness of HR activities inside the organization—in meeting stakeholder needs.

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Specifically, monitoring business contexts and stakeholders, enables HR to continually align its work with these outside factors and to assess how it is doing on this journey to add value. HR has travelled a long way since it first emerged as a field and profession and the journey toward HR contribution is on-going.

What trends have had an impact on HRM practice (Samia Khan Podcast) ANALYSIS  Digital transformation, technology and globalisation are ongoing trends optimises work processes and helps us achieve our business goals – demands HRM to be efficient and reduce costs. - HRM used to involve a lot of monotonous work (paperwork, calls etc.) – businesses want a more streamlined understand and support in bringing these trends to assist them in everyday practices. - Streamlined performance management, development etc. tools are facilitated through technological advances and globalisation (greater scope in recruitment). - The more data we have in terms of recruits and employees, the more understand we are of the business and what it needs.  These trends will continue to evolve and eventually streamline HR further to ensure we have the best talent for the role and that people fit within the role and are happy doing this role. - Talent management and selection processes are two-way processes – employers must consider what the applications want from the job.  Post-pandemic there has been a shift in graduates’ mentality – they present themselves to the criteria and ask employers whether this will fit for them. - Candidates are more stating – ‘show me your brand’ ‘what is your company ethos’. - BREXIT has been finalised and will shrink the talent pool relative to the open market – might be fewer jobs and candidates may revert back to the mindset of ‘I need a job’ rather than ‘impress me’ – might become an employer’s market again. What is the link between HRM and business strategy?  People are seen as critical for the success of a business – for performance at all levels (individual employee, teams, functions, the whole organisation) the competitive advantage of a business, for creativity and innovation. - HRM in organisation thus requires attention at the strategic level.  Tyson (1995) defines HR strategy as the intentions of the cooperation both explicit and convert, towards the management of its employees, expressed through philosophies, policies and practices. - Explicit strategies are documented and circulated – employees are aware of them. - Implicit strategies have embedded approaches, develops organically and is subject to change.  Business strategies and HR strategies can operate independently – this model is outdated and there is usually a priority to have alignment between the two. - The ‘fit’ model recognises the value of employees and the need to support them and have the right strategies in place for good performance and productivity.

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HR strategies are designed to elicit certain employee behaviours and attitudes that fit with business strategies – e.g. cost-reduction, focus on innovation. If the organisational strategy prioritises cost-cutting, the HR department may face cuts that harm their ability to do so. In the integrated/holistic model, employees are recognised to be key for competitive advantage – HR strategy is seen as critical in ensuring the success of the business strategy. - There is a growing expectation that these two are linked. In the HR driven model, the HR strategy influences the business strategy – suggests extensive training of its employees.

Taking HR seriously – an article to show resistance towards HR https://www.fastcompany.com/53319/why-we-hate-hr CASE STUDY  HRM is still that of a bureaucratic function rather than a strategic one.  HR is the corporate function with the greatest potential — the key driver, in theory, of business performance — and also the one that most consistently underdelivers.  Muckler describes leveraging internal resources and involving external resources — and she leaves her audience dazed. That evening, even the human-resources pros confide they didn’t understand much of it, either.  In a knowledge economy, companies that have the best talent win. We all know that. Human resources execs should be making the most of our, well, human resources — finding the best hires, nurturing the stars, fostering a productive work environment — just as IT runs the computers and finance minds the capital. HR should be joined to business strategy at the hip. - Instead, most HR organizations have ghettoized themselves literally to the brink of obsolescence. They are competent at the administrivia of pay, benefits, and retirement, but companies increasingly are farming those functions out to contractors who can handle such routine tasks at lower expense. What’s left is the more important strategic role of raising the reputational and intellectual capital of the company — but HR is, it turns out, uniquely unsuited for that.  Others enter the field by choice and with the best of intentions, but for the wrong reasons. They like working with people, and they want to be helpful — noble motives that thoroughly tick off some HR thinkers.  The gulf between capabilities and job requirements appears to be widening. As business and legal demands on the function intensify, staffers’ educational qualifications haven’t kept pace.  HR pursues efficiency in lieu of value. Why? Because it’s easier — and easier to measure. Dave Ulrich, a professor at the University of Michigan, recalls meeting with the chairman and top HR people from a big bank. “The training person said that 80% of employees have done at least 40 hours in classes. The chairman said, ‘Congratulations.’ I said, ‘You’re talking about the activities you’re doing. The question is, What are you delivering?’ ” - But human-resources managers, he acknowledges, typically undermine that effort by investing more importance in activities than in outcomes. “You’re only

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effective if you add value,” Ulrich says. “That means you’re not measured by what you do but by what you deliver.” By that, he refers not just to the value delivered to employees and line managers, but the benefits that accrue to investors and customers, as well. Human resources can readily provide the number of people it hired, the percentage of performance evaluations completed, and the extent to which employees are satisfied or not with their benefits. But only rarely does it link any of those metrics to business performance. - Typically, HR people can’t, or won’t. Instead, they pursue standardization and uniformity in the face of a workforce that is heterogeneous and complex. A manager at a large capital leasing company complains that corporate HR is trying to eliminate most vice-president titles there — even though veeps are a dime a dozen in the finance industry. Why? Because in the company’s commercial business, vice president is a rank reserved for the top officers. In its drive for bureaucratic “fairness,” HR is actually threatening the reputation, and so the effectiveness, of the company’s finance professionals. - Human resources, in other words, forfeits long-term value for short-term cost efficiency. Can your HR department say it has the ear of top management? Probably not. “Sometimes,” says Ulrich, “line managers just have this legacy of HR in their minds, and they can’t get rid of it. I felt really badly for one HR guy. The chairman wanted someone to plan company picnics and manage the union, and every time this guy tried to be strategic, he got shot down.” In their rhetoric, human-resources organizations embraced the language of a “soft” approach, speaking of training, development, and commitment. But “the underlying principle was invariably restricted to the improvements of bottom-line performance,” the authors wrote in the resulting book, Strategic Human Resource Management (Oxford University Press, 1999). “Even if the rhetoric of HRM is soft, the reality is almost always ‘hard,’ with the interests of the organization prevailing over those of the individual.” What’s driving the strategy disconnect? London Business School’s Gratton spends a lot of time training human-resources professionals to create more impact. She sees two problems: Many HR people, she says, bring strong technical expertise to the party but no “point of view about the future and how organizations are going to change.” And second, “it’s very difficult to align HR strategy to business strategy, because business strategy changes very fast, and it’s hard to fiddle around with a compensation strategy or benefits to keep up.” More than simply understanding strategy, Gratton says, truly effective executives “need to be operating out of a set of principles and personal values.” And few actually do. That’s where human resources is today. Stuck. “This is a unique organization in the company,” says USC’s Boudreau. “It discovers things about the business through the lens of people and talent. That’s an opportunity for competitive advantage.” In most companies, that opportunity is utterly wasted.

What HRM can do to address typical complaints and have more influence in organisations Cappelli, P. (2015). Why we love to hate HR… and what HR can do about it. Harvard Business Review, 93(7/8), 54-61.

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These feelings aren’t new. They’ve erupted now and in the past because we don’t like being told how to behave—and no other group in organizational life, not even finance, bosses us around as systematically as HR does. - We get defensive when we’re instructed to change how we interact with people, especially those who report to us, because that goes right to the core of who we are. - What’s more, HR makes us perform tasks we dislike, such as documenting problems with employees. And it prevents us from doing what we want, such as hiring someone we “just know” is a good !t. Its directives affect every person in the organization, right up to the top, every single day The complaints also have a cyclical quality— they’re driven largely by the business context. Usually when companies are struggling with labour issues, HR is seen as a valued leadership partner. When things are going more smoothly all around, managers tend to think, “What’s HR doing for us, anyway?” This doesn’t mean that HR is above reproach. Quite the contrary: It has plenty of room to improve, and this is a moment of enormous opportunity. Little has been done in the past few decades to examine the value of widely used practices that are central to how companies operate. - By separating the effective from the worthless, HR leaders can secure huge payoffs for their organizations. But it’s important to understand HR’s tumultuous history with business leaders and the economy before turning our attention to what the function should be doing now and in the future.

One of traditional HR’s biggest difficulties has been supporting business strategy, because it’s such a moving target these days. - Companies seldom have long-term plans with straightforward talent requirements. Instead they generate streams of projects and initiatives to address successive needs. But HR is by nature a long-term play. - Developing talent, heading off problems with regulations and turnover, building corporate culture, and addressing morale problems all take time. - Often, leadership teams and priorities change before such initiatives have paid off. And when companies don’t meet their performance goals for the quarter, those programs are among the first to go. - How can HR bring the long view back into organizations? By reconciling it with the immediate pressures that businesses face, which those one-at-a-time projects are designed to address.

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Even when company leaders say, “We will do this without our own employees, by outsourcing or engaging contractors,” HR folks should be involved, because they’re best able to assess whether those engagements will succeed. (After all, outsourcing is just paying to use another company’s human capital and becoming reliant on it.) - But meanwhile, HR should also keep stepping back to study those initiatives in the aggregate: What emerging needs do they point to? How do those needs map to the organization’s talent pipeline and practices? Which capabilities need shoring up? How are things likely to change in the marketplace, and what will be needed then? Why don’t we have the ability to handle those tasks internally? That’s the kind of analytic counsel the “new HR” should provide. Then its job is to help organizations act on the insights Consider the recent decision at Comcast to bring world-class IT capabilities in-house, which will allow the company to develop its own software for managing and delivering online entertainment. - The HR challenge there is clear: attracting and retaining the best talent in Philadelphia, which is not known as an IT centre. - But with HR’s guidance, the company is addressing that in creative ways, such as building and supporting an IT start-up community and targeting IT students and recent graduates raised in Philadelphia for internships and jobs. - This big bet on the future rests on HR’s ability to pull all that off. Tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Apple are now on the front lines of HR innovation, largely because they have an acute need for specialized talent. - Human capital is practically their only major asset; talent is in short supply; and competitors are eager to lure employees away. - There’s been some creative HR thinking in financial services as well, to predict and ward off unethical behaviour. - JPMorgan, for instance, is using an algorithm to identify employees who are likely to break the rules. No crisis or scandal is necessary for HR to transform its practices, though. Nor should the function focus solely on innovations in hiring. - Discretionary effort—by employees who are engaged and willing to give their best—is at the heart of organizational success and managing and developing people is the way to drive and sustain that effort. - So the time is ripe for reimagining human capital much more broadly. Business leaders will see that—if HR makes a compelling, evidence-based case for what matters, and jettisons what doesn’t.

Major approaches to strategic HRM  Three widely discussed approaches within strategic HRM, which help understand how and why the business strategy and HRM strategy should or shouldn’t be linked are: 1. The Best Practice/Universalist approach 2. The Best Fit/Contingency approach 3. The Resource-based a...