Making People Management a Strategic Organizational Purpose

Pema Wangdhee, Faculty of CED, RIM

This article is only an attempt to illustrate the importance of human resource management, which in the Bhutanese context is often relegated to a functional status detached from the overall organizational purpose. None of the views expressed in this article belong to any individual or organization other than that of the author. It was initially written to serve as a reading note on short-term HRM course but given the scope and nature of the subject, it was later adapted for this publication only.

The contemporary business or service organizations consider human resource management (HRM) as the anchor of managing their people within their employer-employee relationship. HRM gurus and consultants have further expanded on its concepts and significance. It is now a-days termed as strategic human resource management (SHRM). In short, the SHRM focuses on the efficient and effective management of people in achieving the organizations vision or purpose. HRM in our civil service organizations is still in its formative stage. The human resource interests in the public sector such as recruitment, training, career development, performance evaluation and rewards to name a few, are vaguely aligned with their organizational vision and strategies. And many a civil service dasho or head of organization hardly ever attend to this important management task. Most commonly, aligning of HR functions to organizational vision in the Bhutanese context is either entrusted to the Royal Civil Service Commission (RCSC) or to the concerned civil organization, the former providing the civil-service wide leadership and national policy planning systems and support to government ministries, departments and agencies. Given their inadequate HR capacities, this may even serve useful today but in the long run, individual organizations should be able to chart out their own HR policies, strategies and practices within the broad civil service policy framework. For instance, the authority to form a training committee within every civil service organization has been allotted by the RCSC in good faith only. Interestingly, most of these committees lack full representation of their divisions and working guidelines, some are chaired by the head of organization or by the next closest in power and still some are committees only in paper. As much as the people management system tells us, which old nails need to be oiled or which type of new nails to be procured based on the specifications of the RCSC and the head of the organization, it is important that we know how to get the best from such nails. I use this nail-analogy to people since it is the main driving factor that gets processed in SHRM settings. So it is also important to decide whether we should be oiling such old nails or order the new ones at all. Every organization needs to grasp the whole organizational perspective and constantly focus on the whole collection of its nails, beyond mere oiling and procurement alternatives. Personnel departments across the civil sector are in principle expected to realign their HR functions to organizational vision or mandate. However, in practice many HR departments are seldom invited by their managements to provide their HR inputs in formulating appropriate HR policy and practices. So the personnel officers in our government sector have a vital role to play. They must understand HRM functions and responsibilities of both the RCSC and their organization as well as know how to link it to their organizational vision. Like the way they were involved and consulted in the recent Position Classification exercise carried out by the RCSC, heads of organizations need to consult their HR people. They must consider integrating the interests of their organization and employees with the overall vision of their organization.

Conceptually, the SHRM goes beyond a set of coordination functions and activities of an organizations human resources. One of the fundamental ideas underlying the SHRM theory is that the organization can create a strategic fit or synergy between its HR strategies and organizational strategies. In other words, the organization should be able to side with its HR strategies and policies with whatever their organization might exist for. SHRM if designed carefully can become the driving force for organizational success. For, it is the HR that stands in the key position to influence growth and development of any organization. Variables such as customers and stakeholders, the quality of

products or services, revenues or development outcomes are greatly determined by HR strategies and polices. The role of HR departments and personnel officers in our case is often relegated to civil service rule keeping. They are expected to process for promotions and trainings, maintain employee service files and work attendance. People management beyond these functions remains unexplored in most of the Bhutanese organizational lives. One of the precarious HR practices is that we are so used to considering this as a stand-alone system that is devoid of any meaningful relationships to other organizational functions and purpose. There are perhaps not much of latitudes left for HR departments in our present HR systems. The following are some of the HR functions, which I see would be critically important for HR departments and sections if the proposed Position Classification System were to be implemented: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. provide support services for the implementation of all service employee rules and regulations, performance management systems, job auditing, position reviewing, processing for promotions, transfer, leave, secondment, training, tours, etc. developing rewards, recognition and opportunities for employee career advancement communicating and sharing the common organizational vision and HR strategy provide advice and tactical direction for the organizations recruitment and employee training and development conduct organizational structure reviews and HR analysis including specific position descriptions & promote culture of quality service and work ethics by designing or off-shoring programmes or expertise on productivity improvement systems.

A conceptual framework is shown below (Figure 1.1) to help understand the HRM in any business or development organization: Figure 1.1 The SHRM Flow Model*

Organizations Vision
Rethinking Upward

Organizations Performance HR Strategy

Rethinking Downward

HR Policy & Practice HR Performance Results Organizations Performance Results

This SHRM framework was redesigned based on one of my class assignments on SHRM in a management school. It is simply an attempt to understand the overall essence and role of HRM. I shall be flattered if you call it Wangdheen-HRM framework!

Figure 1.1 shows a simple conceptual perspective on human resource management of an organization. The environmental factors, which I call the PESTE, SPCs and CUs, do play their part in shaping organizational strategies, which are crucial for formulating HR strategies and policies. Similarly, organizations do not exist in vacuum as well as their HR strategies. Read the boxes both upward and downward and you will see that the ultimate difference is the interconnectedness between organizational vision and organizational performance. Many organizations in our public sector are yet to realize the importance of linking their HR systems to their organizational purpose. And this SHRM framework depicts the correlation between human resource outcomes and organizations outcomes that is essential to such a linkage. This kind of interconnection is the key to all HR systems development. HR outcomes of an organization are measures or indicators such as staffing pattern (or ratios), wage rates, employee attendance, employee turnover and performance appraisal ratings that are produced due to its human resource policy and practice. These measures in turn affect the organizations outcomes, which may be productivity, quality of service (or service efficiency), size of customers, employee-customer ratios, household income, enrolment ratios, access to services, organizations image, etc. Such outcomes may differ depending upon the type of organization and nature of their existence. For instance, for a business organization its outcomes can be measured in terms of return on investment (ROI), return on assets (ROA) and market share. The HRM is thus an essential part of any organizations existence and management no matter whatever its size and nature. It is that part of management dealing directly with people. It is crucial to other functions such as information management systems, technology, marketing or public relations, research and development, procurement, and accounting or finance. But it is the HRM, which serves as the bridge to all other areas of management and functions. More dynamic is the organizations people management when it is built strategically to further its organizational purpose. It is a fallacy to construe and regard people management as something disconnected in its function. The HR as human resources job is only a myth now. People in workplaces should be managed based on their overall organizational purpose but not on its mere functions.

Source: dZinchong Rigphel (Bi-annual RIM Magazine) ISSN: 1726-4502, January 2003 Vol.1