Strategy for Human Resource Management

Lecture 3

Strategic Implications of a Dynamic HRM Environment

HRM 7651

Last Lecture

• Introduction to HRM Process and functions – Recruitment and selection– Orientation and Training – Performance management– Compensation and benefits– Career Development

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Learning Outcomes

• After reading this chapter, you will be able to:

• Discuss how cultural environments affect human resource management (HRM) practices.

• Describe how technology is changing HRM.• Identify significant changes that have occurred in workforce

composition.• Describe the HRM implications of a labor shortage.• Describe how changing skill requirements affect HRM.

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Learning Outcomes

• Explain why organizational members focus on quality and continuous improvements.

• Describe work process engineering and its implications for HRM.

• Identify who makes up the contingent workforce and the HRM implications.

• Define employee involvement and list its critical components.• Explain the importance of ethics in an organization.

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Introduction • The World of Work - continues to change, but at

an even more rapid pace. • HR must understand the implications of:

– globalization– technology changes– workforce diversity– changing skill requirements– continuous improvement initiatives– the contingent work force– decentralized work sites– and employee involvement

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Understanding Cultural Environments

• Today’s business world is truly a global village. This term refers to the fact that businesses currently operate around the world.

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Understanding Cultural Environments

• HRM must ensure that– employees can operate in the appropriate language – communications are understood by a multilingual work force

• Ensure that workers can operate in cultures that differ on variables such as– status differentiation– societal uncertainty– individualism

• HRM also must help multicultural groups work together.

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Understanding Cultural Environments

• GLOBE Dimensions:

– Future Orientation– Gender Differentiation– Uncertainty Avoidance– Power Distance– Performance orientation– Humane orientation

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Understanding Cultural Environments

• Cultural Implications for HRM– Not all HRM theories and practices are

universally applicable.– HRM must understand varying cultural values.

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The Changing World of Technology

• Has altered the way people work. • Has changed the way information is

created, stored, used, and shared.• The move from agriculture to

industrialization created a new group of workers.

• Since WWII, the trend has been a reduction in manufacturing work and an increase in service jobs.

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The Changing World of Technology

• Knowledge Worker - individuals whose jobs are designed around the acquisition and application of information.

• Why the emphasis on technology:– makes organizations more productive– helps them create and maintain a competitive

advantage– provides better, more useful information

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The Changing World of Technology

• How Technology Affects HRM Practices – Recruiting– Employee Selection– Training and Development– Ethics and Employee Rights– Communication– Decentralized Work Sites– Skill Levels– Legal Concerns

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Workforce Diversity

• Different people– Places– Languages– cultures. – Religions

• The challenge is to make organizations more accommodating to diverse groups of people.

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Workforce Diversity

• The Workforce Today – Minorities and women have become the

fastest growing segments– The numbers of immigrant workers and older

workers are increasing

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Workforce Diversity

• How Diversity Affects HRM – Need to attract and maintain a diversified work

force that is reflective of the diversity in the general population.

– Need to foster increased sensitivity to group differences.

– Must deal with the different• Values• Needs• Interests• Expectations of employees

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Workforce Diversity

• What Is a Work/Life Balance?– A balance between personal life and work– Causes of the blur between work and life

• The creation of global organizations means the world never sleeps.

• Communication technologies allow employees to work at home.

• Organizations are asking employees to put in longer hours.

• Fewer families have a single breadwinner.

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Summary

• Understanding Work World• Understanding Culture Environment• Technology • Work force diversity • How diversity affect HRM• Work Life Balance

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