What is HR Strategies?

This simply means a way of putting policy in place in the right areas such as how to
recruitment the best employees, how to manage and retain the best employees, how to
terminate poor employees, also it does require thinking ahead, planning ways for a
company to meet the needs of its employees and the employees meeting the needs of the
company and achieving its goal and targets. However, it’s obvious that companies
who work very hard in meeting the needs of their employees can develop a work
environment favourable for productivity.

HR strategy as defined by Shaun Tyson (1995) as the intentions of the corporation both
precise and covert toward the management of its employees, expressed through
philosophies, policies and practices, typically, strategic HRM bridges business strategy
and HRM focuses on the integration of HR with the business and its environment.

A HRM strategy sets out what the organization intends to do about its resources
management policies and practices and how they should be integrated with the business
strategies and each other. However, they are described by Dyer and Reeves (1995) as
internally consistent bundles of human resources practices and according to Richardson
and Thompson, (1999) A strategy whether it is an HR or any other kind of management
strategy must have two key elements:

There must be a strategic objective i.e.(What the strategy aims to achieve)

There must be a strategic plan of action i.e. (The means through which such proposed
objectives would be met)

We must understand that fundamental types of HR strategies can be identified as follows:

General strategies: This involves high-performance management, high commitment

management and high involvement management.
High-performance management strategy basically aims to make an impact on
performance of the organisation in the following areas, productivity, growth and profits,
levels of customer service, quality. However, it also looks at extensive and relevant
training and management development activities, recruitment and selection procedures,
incentive pay system and performance management process. These are called high-
performance working system which we shall be explaining on how they help employees
in problem solving and how it provides incentive to motivate workers to use their flexible
effort.

High commitment management as one of the major characteristics of HRM which lays
prominence on the importance of enhancing mutual commitment. However, it’s been
described by wood (1996) as a form of management which aims at eliciting a
commitment so that behaviour is self regulated rather than been controlled by sanctions
and pressures external to individual and relations within such an organisation is often
based on trust. It is worthy to note that there are many similarities between high-
performance and high-commitment. In fact, there is a common ground between practices
according to Sung and Ashton (1995).

High involvement management it’s a precise set of human resources practices that
focuses on employee decision making, power, access to information, training and
incentives. High involvement was used by Lawler (1986) to describe management system
based on commitment and involvement as different to bureaucratic system based on
control. The principle is that employees will increase their involvement with the company
if they are given the opportunity to control and understands their work. However, it was
claimed that high involvement works well because it acts as a synergy and has a multiple
effect. This approach requires treating employees as partners in the business whose
interest are highly respected and who have interest in matters that concern them,
concerned with communication and involvement. The practices included in a high
involvement system have sometimes expanded beyond this original concept and included
high-performance practices

In this today modern world, it’s believed that a great human resource strategy
provides an undeniable and persuasive business folder for aligning populace
and society with business strategy as well as it commands the awareness of
management and builds the required obligation for required resources and support for
execution. In business, Strategies create or build a sensitive intelligence of value in
business development, growth, size, strategic planning, and willingness to change for
better productivity.

In Human resource strategy, there is always a link that dovetails from the strategic
management process which includes the followings, strategic analysis, strategy
formulation, and strategy implementation.

The main rationale for strategic HRM thinking is that by integrating HRM with the
business strategy, rather than HR strategies being a separate set of priorities, employees
will be managed more effectively, organizational performance will improve and therefore
business success will follow, also Human resource in itself may not be effective but
integrating corporate strategy and HR matters into an organization and people strategy
may prove more successful.

We can also look at other Features of HR Strategies as follows:

Motivation Strategy

This is a conscious decision to direct effort in an activity to achieve goal that will satisfy
a predominate need. Also we could look at it as a way of motivating employee of any
firm/organization to achieve better/quality productivity and achieving the goals and
targets of the company in a business environ considering the fact that It’s obvious that
every organisation is operating in its own style of business to maximize profit and
minimize risk occurrence but the question ahead of us is that how can a

company motivate its employees in a working environment? Any company/organisation

can motivate its staff by the followings: letter of commendation, giving prize, gifts,
promotion, and review on increase in salary, required training etc.

Implementation Strategy

This is a strategy which any firm/organisation applies into their policy after and during
meeting decision which helps the company to align their strategies from the corporate
level to the shop floor workers to work in accordance with the aim of achieving the set
target goal and employees also need to have access to the resources and equipment to do
their work effectively.

We can also look at other Characteristics of HR Strategy as follows:

Performance management : As one of the characteristics of HR strategy that deals on

managing performance which is the key responsibility of line managers and any area
where a partnership between HR can be most effective and beneficial. However, HR can
be of tremendous help to managers to understand how to define roles in the light of
business drivers and how to identify the capabilities required to do the job. The key
performance indicators for each role should be derive from the business drivers in
making job role more responsive to the changing business environment.

Job security & Job design: In this context HR ensures that the right people are selected
for roles which dovetail into helping the employees to see for themselves if they have the
capabilities for new roles and HR can work with the line in developing self-assessment. It
is obvious that job responsibilities fall between the gaps and most job descriptions are not
current for more than a few months. In general, managers most often believe that what
workers want most from their jobs are extrinsic rewards such as good wages security,
promotions and good working condition but the employees, however, usually rank
intrinsic rewards, such as challenging work, recognition for good work, participation in
decisions that affects them and sympathetic understanding of personal problems higher
than job security and good wages. When they do not get these desire provisions from the
organisation they tend to go somewhere else to work.

Designing effective appraisal & development process : Appraisal requires excellent

interview and counselling skills if the process is to be motivating for those involved and
it relies on managers and employees having a relationship in which discussing
performance is not seen as a burden or a threat, however in many cases, managers do not
make the time to appraise people’s performance well. In many organisations the link
between personal development and the business strategy is atimes weak but with
appraisal being used as an annual administrative chore, which means that employees fail
to take personal development seriously but HR can help by designing process which are
simple to use and user-friendly. Appraising employee is a significant factor that identifies
the loose end of an employee & to re-adjust its stand.

Selection & Recruitment: A strategic approach to recruitment and selection needs to

incorporate a wider set of policies, such as reward, development and job design which
reflects an understanding of employee motivation and closely linked to trends in the
changing labour market. Recruitment is a part of an overall career management strategy
which is driven by the business strategy, getting the right staff for a specific job and
retention.

Remuneration : This is the comparing terms&conditions of employment and salary scales

including the structure of share options and to whom they are available, severance terms
in contract ,incentive and bonus schemes in terms of immediate and future commitments.
Strategic management skills especially understanding how to add value to both
employee’s productivity and the new business.
Change & Organizational structure: Being able to manage change means taking a
proactive measure rather than reactive role in bringing about change which involves
being able to understand how the organization works as a system, identifying where the
changes needs to occur to enable the organisation to achieve its goals and requires being
willing to assess how well the HR team is equipped to manage and being prepared to
improve the team’s capability as appropriate.

Training&development: Every company/firm needs training and development for their

employees for better improvement both in procedures that is cost effective. Training
helps in organizational development, increasing returns on investment, improving the
market share and increasing the levels of product innovation. However, it helps in both
awareness raising and skills development of the member of staff. Also certain drivers of
training are already starting to transform the employment landscape, by making the
employees to be offered roles which makes the best use of their

Talent and uplifting the employees to the right job. Training and development has done a
great impact in organization by employee adding value through their positive effect on
customers, who will in turn purchase more and produce a positive impact on the bottom
line and improve share holder funds