HRM

A NEW MANDATE FOR HUMAN RESOURCES

SUBMITTED BY
SECTION D GROUP 8

Gaurav Berry 2012PGP115
Rohitesh Sahu 2012PGP314
Nitin Verma 2012PGP233
Prakhar Porwal 2012PGP265
Chavan Chetan Yuvraj 2012PGP094
Simpson Selwyn 2012PGP364


DATE: 08 JANUARY 2013

SUMMARY
In many organizations, people view HR as a department which is ineffective, incompetent
and costly. These people having been asking the question as to Why HR department should
not be abolished? The author says that in todays scenario, HR is more necessary than ever
before.
Achieving organizational excellence must be the work of HR. This can be accomplished in
four ways:
HR must become a partner with senior and line managers
HR should be an expert in the way work is organised and executed
HR should be a champion for the employees
HR should become a change agent
This means that HR has a new agenda which is to move ahead from its traditional functions
and help the company to increase its shareholders value. Line managers and HR managers
must be partners in reconceiving and reconfiguring the functions.
Why HR matters more than before?
In todays dynamic scenario, companies face 5 critical business challenges where HR can
play a critical role in helping the organizations to meet the challenges.
1. Globalization: Organizations today are expanding globally and are required to
customize their internal systems suiting to the external environment(like volatile
political situations, contentious global ratios, fluctuating exchange rates and
unfamiliar culture). This requires that the organization should increase their ability to
learn and collaborate.
2. Profitability through growth: Achieving revenue growth through diversifying products
and reaching out to new customers requires an organization to be highly innovative
and creative. HR must create an atmosphere where this is possible.
3. Technology: Amidst a plethora of technological options available today, organizations
should choose technology which will be viable and helps in improving productivity.
4. Intellectual Capital: Knowledge management is becoming more important to
organizations these days. To ensure this, it must be ensured that not only the right
talent is acquired but also, efforts must be made to retain the same.
5. Change, change, and more change: The greatest challenge which companies face
today is how quickly they can adapt themselves to the rapidly and continuously
changing environment.
The HRs new role
To overcome the above challenges, HR must don new roles.

HR must become a partner with senior and line managers: HR should help the
organization in framing its strategy about how to do business. Once an organizational
architecture is made, the HR must conduct audits in order to identify the components
that must be changed to facilitate strategy execution. HR must also identify methods
to improve the parts of the organizational architecture. HR, apart from its regular
activities, should also set time to partner with line managers.
HR should be an expert in the way work is organised and executed: HR staff will have
to improve the efficiency of both their functions and also the entire organization. By
doing so, HR can build its credibility within the company.
HR should be a champion for the employees: In todays scenario, where more is
expected of employees by giving less, HR plays a very critical role in ensuring that
the voice of employees is getting communicated to the management. They also play
an important role in maintaining high morale among the employees.
HR should become a change agent: HR also has responsibilities to drive cultural
changes in the organization by acting as a change agent. They must remove the
inhibition to change amongst the employees and to create a sense of excitement and
resolve.
Of all the above, bringing about cultural change in the organization is the hardest challenge.
This can be done by following a four step process:
1. Cultural change must be first of all, defined clearly and in an objective manner.
2. Articulating why cultural change is key for business.
3. Doing a GAP analysis between the existing culture and the desired new culture.
4. Identifying alternative approaches to create cultural change.

Four Changes for the Line:
1. Communicate to the organization that the Soft Stuff Matters: Senior managers and line
managers need to show faith in activities of HR department. They must show seriousness
towards the measures suggested by the department and seek their inputs while designing
strategy
2. Explicitly define deliverables of HR and hold them accountable for the results: Such
measures will increase the probability of achieving goals set up by an organization.
3. Invest in Innovative HR Practices: Senior line managers should encourage conferences,
management literature and external analysis to learn innovative HR practices. Line managers,
while investing in new HR practices, should ensure that HR adapts to the new practices to
build competitive advantage for the organization
4. Upgrade HR professionals: Senior managers should constantly look for high quality HR
professionals who are well aware of the organization culture, reengineering processes and
various activities carried out at the line. Only such professionals can be effective change
agents.











CRI TI CAL REVI EW
About the structure of the article
Simple and effective language has been used
Organization of the article is good as each idea is clearly demarcated using
appropriate headings and sub-headings
Relevant frameworks and models have been given to explain the practical use of the
theoretical knowledge
Lack of sufficient number of examples to elaborate the points at many instances such
as when explaining the new critical business challenges and when explaining the steps
in HR becoming a partner in strategy execution.
Some of the images used in between seem to be not of much significance
About the content of the article
Article gives a completely new perspective to the role of HR department in the
organization starting from basic reason why the HR department exists at all.
Article aptly maps the key business challenges to the capabilities that organizations
need to acquire for gaining competitive advantage
Though it is good to emphasize the quantification of deliverables for HR department,
it is difficult to recognize small changes like 10% increase in the morale of employees
Article tries to transform the role of HR managers in the organization and making
them integral part of strategy execution. Thus, it makes HR profiles more lucrative
than at present.
As the article suggests making the HR managers an integral part of strategy execution,
their role is very likely to interfere with the functions of other department of
organizations. Thus, creating lot of resistance within the organization.
Finding such multi-skilled HR managers as the article suggests, will be a difficult
task and also an added cost for the company.