Ques-Discuss strategic role of HRM in today’s competitive

environment ?

Ans-

The Changing Role Of Human Resource

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The role of the Human Resource Manager is evolving with the change in
competitive market environment and the realization that Human Resource
Management must play a more strategic role in the success of an
organization. Organizations that do not put their emphasis on attracting and
retaining talents may find themselves in dire consequences, as their
competitors may be outplaying them in the strategic employment of their
human resources.

With the increase in competition, locally or globally, organizations must

become more adaptable, resilient, agile, and customer-focused to succeed.
And within this change in environment, the HR professional has to evolve to
become a strategic ptner, an employee sponsor or advocate, and a change
mentor within the organization. In order to succeed, HR must be a business
driven function with a thorough understanding of the organization’s big
picture and be able to influence key decisions and policies. In general, the
focus of today’s HR Manager is on strategic personnel retention and talents
development. HR professionals will be coaches, counselors, mentors, and
succession planners to help motivate organization’s members and their
loyalty. The HR manager will also promote and fight for values, ethics,
beliefs, and spirituality within their organizations, especially in the
management of workplace diversity.

HR manager can meet the challenges of workplace diversity, to motivate

employees through gain-sharing and executive information system through
proper planning, organizing, leading and controlling their human resources.

Workplace Diversity

According to Thomas (1992), dimensions of workplace diversity include, but

are not limited to: age, ethnicity, ancestry, gender, physical
abilities/qualities, race, sexual orientation, educational background,
geographic location, income, marital status, military experience, religious
beliefs, parental status, and work experience.

The future success of any organizations relies on the ability to manage a

diverse body of talent that can bring innovative ideas, perspectives and
views to their work. The challenge and problems faced of workplace diversity
can be turned into a strategic organizational asset if an organization is able
to capitalize on this melting pot of diverse talents. With the mixture of
talents of diverse cultural backgrounds, genders, ages and lifestyles, an
organization can respond to business opportunities more rapidly and
creatively, especially in the global arena (Cox, 1993), which must be one of
the important organisational goals to be attained. More importantly, if the
organizational environment does not support diversity broadly, one risks
losing talent to competitors.

This is especially true for multinational companies (MNCs) who have

operations on a global scale and employ people of different countries, ethical
and cultural backgrounds. Thus, a HR manager needs to be mindful and may
employ a ‘Think Global, Act Local’ approach in most circumstances. The
challenge of workplace diversity is also prevalent amongst Singapore’s Small
and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). With a population of only four million people
and the nation’s strive towards high technology and knowledge-based
economy; foreign talents are lured to share their expertise in these areas.
Thus, many local HR managers have to undergo cultural-based Human
Resource Management training to further their abilities to motivate a group
of professional that are highly qualified but culturally diverse. Furthermore,
the HR professional must assure the local professionals that these foreign
talents are not a threat to their career advancement (Toh, 1993). In many
ways, the effectiveness of workplace diversity management is dependent on
the skilful balancing act of the HR manager.

One of the main reasons for ineffective workplace diversity management is

the predisposition to pigeonhole employees, placing them in a different silo
based on their diversity profile (Thomas, 1992). In the real world, diversity
cannot be easily categorized and those organizations that respond to human
complexity by leveraging the talents of a broad workforce will be the most
effective in growing their businesses and their customer base.

Organizations must consider many critical factors as they face the future.
Technology is advancing at a frenetic pace, especially in relation to the
transfer and accessibility of information and the increasing ease of
establishing communication-networking facilities. The continuing removal of
trade barriers and tarrifs, the consequent globalization of markets, the
volatility of consumer demands within existing markets, currency
fluctuations, and political upheaval are by now familiar characteristics of an
environment in flux. The capability of people to cope and manage within
such an environment is a vital element in the success of any business. The
new business context is prompting managements to take a greater interest
in the utilization of their organizations' human resources.
Because of this, the human resource function is playing a far more significant
role in corporate strategic planning than ever before. Today's top company
executives are increasingly looking to HR to improve the bottomline. The
traditional HR functions of staffing, recruiting, compensation, and benefits
are losing ground to a new generation of value-added core HR functions that
include career planning, executive development, training, succession
planning, and organization development. Insurance claims administration,
outplacement services, employee assistance programs, 401(k) plan
administration, dependent care assistance, and other nonvalue-added
functions are being outsourced by many companies in an effort to become
more competitive (Caudron, 1994).
Moving From Administrative Support To Strategic Business Partner
Tomorrow's competitive business environment will include HR as a strategic
business partner and a bottomline decision-maker. In contrast to its
traditional emphasis on personnel administration, HR's future role will be
supporting a company's competitive advantage by providing high quality
people and by helping business manager strategically plan the functions of
those people within the organization. HR must shift from being an
administrative support function to becoming partner in charting business
strategy. This requires transforming the HR function into a strategic business
partner that will positively affect a company's earnings.
HR must begin this transformation by understanding the company's business
direction. This understanding includes what the company's product is
capable of doing, the typical consumer of the product, and the company's
competitive position in the marketplace. Also, the HR function must change
from a staff function that delivers prepackaged HR services to a service that
helps managers create customized strategic plans to influence the
effectiveness of company performance.
A key factor in the process of integrating strategic planning with HR is
ensuring that the HR staff recognize their roles as change agents and
strategic business partners. This may be particularly difficult in a rapidly
changing organization where the lack of stability tends to leave people with
the feeling that they are victims of change rather than champions of it.
However, one key to creating a successful HR function is to organize the
chaos caused by change. This can be accomplished by forging ahead with
innovative strategic plans that add value to the company instead of
retreating into comfortable, traditional roles that will not effectively improve
a company's bottom line (Cipolla, 1996).

Effective strategic planning involves analyzing current data and identifying

trends that may affect a company's future performance. Next, it involves
mapping out a strategy that will most likely result in a company's success
over the long term. A study by Eichinger and Ulrich (1995) indicates that in
the next five to seven years at least 10 profound changes will alter the
course of businesses and the function of HR. They identify these changes as
(1) global economic and financial, (2) technological, (3) political, (4)
structural (to the business organization), (5) educational, (6) labor-related,
(7) social, (8) conflicts due to globalization, (9) environmental, and (10)
crime-related.
These changes are dominated by the shrinking world, as telecommunication,
travel, information, ideologies, partnerships, and businesses are becoming
global. As a result, businesses, regardless of size, must become global in
their thought processes to compete in a worldwide marketplace. As
globalization continues, businesses will find it increasingly necessary to
compete for scarce resources, requiring business managers to function in a
global financial arena instead of local or regional ones. Another issue of
globalization is the uncertainty in politicization of global markets. No longer
will Western rules apply in countries where power can be influenced by
religion, revolution, and single or dominant political parties. Learning to deal
with changing political scenes will be a new challenge for many Western
firms that try to compete globally (Coates, 1997).