Strategic Human Resource Management (Case Study Sample)

N1561 Strategic Human Resource Management Name: Student No: Date of submission: Supervisor: Table of Contents TOC \o "1-3" \h \z \u 1. Introduction PAGEREF _Toc513192690 \h 22. Change Management PAGEREF _Toc513192691 \h 32.1 Kotter’s Model of Change PAGEREF _Toc513192692 \h 43. Employee Engagement PAGEREF _Toc513192693 \h 64. Conclusion PAGEREF _Toc513192694 \h 85. References PAGEREF _Toc513192695 \h 9 1. Introduction Human resource management a few years ago was thought to only deal with the management of people within the organization as the human capital or the human resource of the organization. This was a myopic approach that only focused on listening to the human resource needs of the employees and finding ways of responding to them in pursuit of making them happy and satisfied. Breaugh (2009) points out that human resource management in the 21st century challenged this approach basically as a result of the changing needs and preferences of employees. Organizations were faced with huge amounts of employee turnover basically because they did not know how to respond to these needs. This as described by Mitchell, Obeidat and Bray (2013) was mainly brought about by the management of personnel as opposed to having structures and policies that were concerned with the actual needs of a company’s employee base. The aforementioned therefore increased the need for organizations to reconsider how they can apply innovation when it comes to human resource management. Fazlzadeh and Khoshhal (2010) describe this as strategic human resource management which is a contemporary approach to the management of the human capital or the human resources of the organization while embedding it to the strategic plans of the organization in such a manner that the needs of the employees is reflected as part of the long-term strategic direction of the organization. Clampitt and DeKoch (2012) point out that effective leaders within an organization should look at the human resource as an edge that the company can gain over its competitors. In this measure, they should employ collaborative measures within the organization where they work with their employees to determine how best to improve the environment in which people work in. This also encompasses engaging the same employees within the strategic decision making process as they engage with the external environment on a daily basis and may have a better idea of consumer needs and capital projects that the company should engage in. The above is tied to effective employee engagement as a process within the organization that aims at aligning employees goals to those of the organization. It can also be linked to effective ways of managing change within an organization which also employs the involvement of employees with the aim of ensuring that these areas that affect strategic human resource management are handled effectively (Beer, 2017). Below is a further analysis of change management and employee engagement with a focus on Axle Engineering. 2. Change Management Axle Engineering amongst other organizations on a global scale operate in both internal and external environment that have various drivers or influences that bring about change within an organization. Karp and Helg⊘ (2008) point out that employees should focus on change that comes from the external environment as organizations usually do not have control over what happens in their macro-environment and its dynamic nature. Examples of such drivers of change in the external environment include technology and increased competitive rivalry. With the adaptation of technology and the immense benefits resulted by the same, organizations are continually investing in research and development to come up with better goods and services that will increase their market share and dominance within the market in which they operate. Therefore managing change in an organization is imperative in ensuring the organization retains its going concern status in a hostile macro-environment (Balogun and Hope-Hailey, 2008). At Axle Engineering, employees are finding it difficult to cope with change that emanates from the addition of new product lines as some are being replaced, the recruitment of new employees and the introduction of new working mechanisms. The fact that some employees are not okay with such changes and are willing to remain with old methods that they are familiar with shows that effective change management was not applied within the organization. 2.1 Kotter’s Model of Change The recommendations on how to address the above will be a reflection of Kotter’s model of the eight steps of change. The first step is to increase urgency within the organization by communicating to the employees that change is imminent. This communication should include the need for change and the drivers for change from both the external and internal environment. When leaders show their team that they need to have a change of mindset and adopt measures that will be beneficial to them and the organization in the long-term, this reduces the resistance that they have to change and draws them onboard the plans to adapt change (Ferrazzi, 2014). The next step is building a team that will guide the employees through the change process. This team should be made of people with the right experience, influence, skillset and leadership who are trusted by employees. Once employees see that their colleagues are on board, this also aids in reducing resistance to change (CIPD, 2015). The team should then work to come up with a vision, as a third step, that focuses on the future in relation to the company’s long-term strategic direction in line with the change. This vision should be easy to communicate and easy to implement within the organization. The fourth step is to communicate for people to get on board with the change needed in the organization. This can be done by having volunteer members who guide the communication process to enable employees get a better understanding of change needed within the organization. The fifth step is to empower action within the organization which is usually geared to eliminate any barriers to change. This can be achieved by asking the employees to support the process of change and use the vision to remove any obstacles that may include deficiency of skills needed for change and bureaucratic structures that make it hard for people to act. Kotter’s sixth step is to create short-term wins within the organization as successful change usually takes a while and it can be an enduring process which without effective motivation may increase the risk of resistance to change. The leaders of the organization should create achievements on an early basis such that employees who are able to achieve the same are rewarded. This is followed by maintaining the acceleration towards the achievement of change as a seventh place. The organization faces more risk of resistance to the change described within the vision as the years go by. They can therefore mitigate this risk by recruiting, promoting and carrying out training and development for their employees as means of motivating them and increasing the skills they need to ensure they carry out this process as described by Rosenzweig and Grinstein (2015). The final step within Kotter’s model is making the change process stick. This can be achieved by embedding the change to Axle Engineering’s organizational culture particularly the values they share and the behavior of people within groups. The most important thing to ensure during this change process is to work with the employees, gain their trust and build long-term relationships with them to reduce resistance to change as proposed by Alfes, Truss and Gill (2010). 3. Employee Engagement Effective employee engagement that is a reflection on strategic human resource management involves ensuring that employees within the organization are focused on the overall goals of the organizations and that as they work towards the achievement of the aforementioned goals they are able to have an enhanced sense of well-being within the organization. It is also described as the involvement and satisfaction of an employee that can be derived while having an enthusiastic view to work. Truss et al. (2014) points out that in defining employee engagement, a focus should be made on tying the engagement of the people to the strategic direction of the company, its stakeholders, performance, and sustainability in such a way that employees end up being motivated to deliver results in the aforementioned areas. The employees at Axle Engineering have low levels of engagement as they seem not to be familiar with what the organization stands for anymore. The feel of having a family within the organization seems to have gone. For a strategic human resource manager within the organization, they should look at the psychological state of the employees, focus on the individual attitudes present within the organization and the causes mentioned above that result into lower engagement with an aim of resolving the same and increasing morale within the organization (Coetzee, M. and Gunz, 2010). The resolutions that will be provided for Axle Engineering will mainly the role of SHRM in the above issue for Axle Engineering. The role of the human resource manager in employee engagement is also crucial as it should involve the design and effective measurement of practices that are proactive within the organization that will aid in attracting and retaining talent with the skillset needed to achieve sustainable growth within the organization. This as a first step ensures that the company has appropriate policies that are in line with strategic human resource management and focus on ensuring employee engagement is kept at a high with a long-term view. Looking at factors within the organization, the organization through their human resource management function should focus on...