Introduction

Human resource management can be defined as a practice in which the HR manager is involved
with the activities of recruiting, selecting, training and deploying new employees for the purpose
to make them efficient to achieve organisational goals. The study will place emphasis on both the
concepts of Hard and Soft practices in HRM. Further, the study will take two different
organisations into an account for the purpose of explaining hard and soft HRM concepts wisely.
At the end of this article, all the necessary activities that are involved in HRM would be clearly
determined.
Discussion

Definition and explanation of the Hard and Soft concepts of HRM

Hard concepts of HRM
Hard human resource management can be defined as the management system in which the
employees have been seen as a resource that is required to be controlled in order to achieve the
maximum profit margin along with various competitive advantages (Noe et al., 2017). The man
aim of hard HRM is to focus on cost controlling and achievement of business goals.
Importance of Hard HRM
The concept of hard HRM holds a greater importance in corporate sector. When the organisation
compares hard HRM with soft HRM, it has been seen that hard HRM has more importance in the
business operations even though it may not sound positive as soft HRM practices. This type of
HRM practices are basically task oriented which implies that they only make decisions which
can provide the organisation in achieving its objective effectively (Cascio, 2015). The decisions
which are made under hard HRM system are basically centralised which means that only the
leader will take corrective decisions which has to be followed by other team members. Higher
authority would be responsible for taking effective decisions under hard HRM system.
Autocratic leadership is the traits of hard HRM practices. It is well known fact that employees
get the wages for their performances to their respective jobs. However, the employees do not get
any extra employment benefits under this kind of HRM system which generally demotivates the
workers on a large scale. It is task centric HRM system in which they have a drastic need to meet
the consumers demand. However, the job opportunities are too high in this kind of organisation
who follows the hard HRM practices. But somehow, in today’s world the changes have been
occurred in the views of business sectors which are cost leadership in terms of marketing, have
the special policies for workers and their hardships.
Soft concepts of HRM
Soft HRM practices can be defined as the management system which is generally involved in the
activities of treating their workers as the most essential assets within the business organisation.
The soft HR manager believes that employees are the critical resources for the company who can
provide long-term benefits using various business strategies.
Importance of Soft HRM

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The concepts of soft HRM system has been practiced by all the organisational sector as it gives
higher importance to their employees which can help the company to achieve its business goals
and objectives (Sparrow et al., 2016). The manager treats their employees as one of the most
essential resources and provides them with many employment benefits. UNder this type of HRM
practices, the employees feel motivated as their value in the organisation has been taken into
consideration. It helps the company to improve the work efficiency of their employees which
results in higher productivity level. It generates higher profits as the production level is already
increased in the organisation due to the high practices of soft HRM system. As all the employees
are treated fairly in the organisation through implementing standardized procedures, which helps
to promote consistency in the workforce throughout the organisation. Apart from this, this type
of HRM system is engaged with the activities of recruiting and selecting new employees and
then provides training to them to improve their skills in order to increase their work performance
at workplace. According to Collings et al. (2018), the organisation who are more engaged with
soft HRM practices generally tries to maintain task as well as employees relationship equally so
that they can get better work performance from their workers. It is done through providing
various employment benefits such as incentives, perks and rewards. As per Zeng et al. (2015), It
has been observed that most of the international companies have been able to achieve success in
their business operation due to the fact that the job satisfaction is extremely high in this business
organisation.
Advantages and disadvantages of soft and hard HRM practices
Advantages of Hard HRM practices
The main advantages of hard HRM practices are as follows:
Centralisation of work - It is the most important advantage that companies get through
implementing hard HRM practices in their business operations (Kunc, 2017). It implies that all
the decisions and plans would be taken by higher authority and shared with employees which
have to be followed by all the other workers while performing their respective jobs.
Staff are well monitored - Under this HRM practices, all the staff are well monitored. It implies
that all the activities of the employees will be regularly monitored and measured which can bring
effectiveness in their work performance (Barak, 2016). It will ultimately helps the company to
achieve its business goals efficiently.
Disadvantages of Hard HRM practices

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The main disadvantages of hard HRM practices are as follows:
Job satisfaction is low - It is one of the biggest disadvantages of having hard HRM practices as
the employees under this type of organisation generally do not get satisfied with their respective
jobs as they are under controlled by the leader (Zhou et al., 2016). It tends to diminish the work
performance of the employee and may bring negative impact on the organisational operations.
Low productivity level - It has been observed that the organisation who adopts the practices of
hard HRM system, results in low productivity level (Rothaermel, 2017). As the values of their
employees do not get valued, it tends to decrease the level of productivity negatively.
Advantages of Soft HRM practices
The main advantages of soft HRM practices are as follows:
Higher motivation - This type of HRM practices generally motivates their employees which
ultimately bring positive results in the company’s operations. The HR manager motivates their
employees by providing various monetary benefits such as incentives and perks. Further, they
give value to the efforts of their employees which motivate the workers highly to perform their
respective jobs efficiently.
Employee’s collaboration - All the activities that are performed under soft HRM practices are
collaborative in nature. It implies that manager generally collaborate and communicate with their
employees wisely before executing any task (Bailey et al., 2018). They even take different
opinions of their employees and choose the best option among all. It increases the collaborative
skills in employees which helps the organisation to complete their tasks on time with more
perfection.
Disadvantages of soft HRM practices
The main disadvantages of soft HRM practices are as follows:
Cost of developing skills - Soft HRM practices are engaged with the development of various
skills which requires higher cost investments (Blatter et al., 2015). The training and developing
process is comparatively high in this type of HRM practices. The organisation needs to estimate
their expenditure incurred from implementing different skills into organisation such as on
boarding training and mandatory training.
Example of an organisation using a Hard approach to HRM
For discussing the hard approach to HRM practices, manufacturing industries would be the best
example to understand this approach effectively. The study have chosen a UK based

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manufacturing company namely “Sollatek Ltd.” which was founded in 1983 and its headquarters
is located in Langley. It is a small sized manufacturing company and operates its business
operation with more than two hundred employees approximately (Sollatek Ltd, 2019). The
company has become the leading manufacturer of some specialist goods in order to protect
customer’s industrial electrical equipment. Under this company, the workers generally get paid at
minimum pay rate on the other hand, the attrition rate is high. Payment to the employees is
completely based on their work performance. Moreover, no such programs are being organised
under this company for the purpose of improving the motivation power of their employees.
However, the company provides some of the basic benefits to their employees which includes
the payment of medical bonus and leave facilities and the act of trader union generally supports
the workers of this industry at a higher level. Due to the hard HRM practices, the employees of
this organisation feel demotivated. It is due to the reason that the company never give value to
their employees efforts which affects their emotions negatively. It leads to low productivity level
and low work efficiency. The employees of Sollatek Ltd. do not place extra efforts as they know
that company would not give any monetary benefits to them. As per Salas et al. (2015), hard
HRM practices leads the company to have less productivity level due to the high stress level in
the work performance of employees. The employees generally lose their concentration power
and get distracted which makes them unable to complete their respective jobs at best possible
way. It affects the company in positive as well as in a negative way
Power control - The Company assign the task to their employees in centralised way. The
manager generally do not discuss about the plans and strategies with the employees. It implies
that whatever the decisions have been taken by the managers have to follow by their employees.
The HR manager of Sollatek Ltd. thinks that centralised way of making plans would help the
company to save extra time which could be used in making further plans. On the other hand, it
sometimes demotivates the employees of this organisation as they feel bad as their opinions are
not even being listened to by the supervisors.
Employee’s satisfaction - Under this company, the satisfaction of the employees are
comparatively low. This is due to the reason that, company does not give importance to their
workers which makes them feel uncomfortable in the organisation. The employees of this
organisation are not happy with their respective jobs which tend to affect several areas of their

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performance and can affect their professional behaviour also. As a result the company would get
negatively affected hence; their productivity level will be declined.
Strong business planning - Sollatek Ltd. has adopted the practices of hard HRM system which
enable them to make strong business strategic plan regarding their resources. It implies that the
company is able to measure what actual resources they need to purchase and what will be the
best way to get those resources at minimum costs. It helps the company to save unnecessary
wastage of expenditures on their activities.
Management of workforce - According to Bender et al. (2018), it refers to the condition where
the company would be able to manage their workforce according to the given situation in order
to generate maximum profits through their operations. Sollatek Ltd. has adopted the hard HRM
practices which enable the organisation to identify clearly how the workforce is required to be
trained so that the business can achieve positive outcome at the end. For this purpose, the
managers generally provide training to their employees in order to develop their necessary skills
which will indirectly help the organisation to meet all the business requirements efficiently.
Low communication level - As per Kanki (2019), low communication leads to lack of team
coherence and wasted time and resources which results in failure of a particular task. The
communication level is low in Sollatek Ltd. due to the reason of centralisation of decisions.
Under this company, manager generally does not communicate with other team members
regarding making any effective decisions. The strategies made by the leaders are then shared
with the workers which would then followed by them with the purpose of completing the whole
task. It results in negative impact as the relationship between the managers with their employees
is getting damaged.
Autocratic leadership style - According to Iqbal et al. (2015), autocratic leadership style can be
defined as the style which is characterized by the individual's control in the overall decisions and
a little bit input from other group members. The leadership style of Sollatek Ltd. is autocratic as
the manager of this company make decisions based on their personal judgements and never take
advice from their followers. This factor is interrelated with the factor of power control.
But in real life, each and every company have some of the part of its HR in hard form just like
Sollatek Ltd. Upto some extent the hard HRM practices would be beneficial for the companies in
order to achieve organisational goal at shorter period of time. However, the effectiveness of these
practices would damage the relationship with employees which could give major disadvantages

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to the company. It would be better for the organisation to develop soft HRM practices so that the
company would be able to remain sustained in the competitive market.
Example of an organisation using a Soft Approach
For explaining the soft approach of HRM practices, the study have chosen a UK based private
company namely “Captify” which was founded in the recent year 2011 and its headquarter is
located in London. The company size is small and operates its business activities with the
number of employees more than four hundred approximately (Captify, 2019). It is marketing and
advertising company who insights information regarding the decisions for different brands across
the world through various analysis such as consumer behaviour and market analysis. The
company have adopted soft HRM practices which enables them to focus on both the task
oriented activities as well as maintaining good relationship with the employees. Soft HRM
practices have helped the organisation to connect positively with their employees and make an
inclusive and diversified workforce within the organisation. Captify Company always treat their
employees equally and never judge their performances as per the nationality and ethnicity. It has
encouraged towards the direction of achieving organisational goals effectively. However this
practice sometimes gives major disadvantages to the company which may include delay in
decision making process due to the long term discussion with the employees and huge
investments required in developing and training the employees on a regular basis. Soft HRM
practices have both positive and negative impact on the activities of Captify Company.
Following are the factors that have affected the company in positive and negative ways:
High productivity level - Soft HRM practices leads a company to increase its productivity level
as the employees working under the organisation are self motivated and encouraged to perform
the respective works effectively. In the Captify Company, the employees are self motivated
which enables them to work harder for the company to achieve organisational goal effectively.
The manager of this company treats their employees highly and listens to their problems
patiently. They always try to solve the employee's problem, as they think that employees are the
most essential assets in the company through which company’s requirements can be met.
Employees feel valued and put their best performance in the task to get a positive result at the
end. Encouragement and motivation to their workers leads the business organisation to increase
in their productivity. It helps the company to increase business growth and earn more profits at
the end of financial year.

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Delay in decision-making process - It is one of the biggest disadvantages that Captify Company
is having due to the implementation of soft HRM practices. In a dynamic environment, delay in
decision making process can lead other companies to take competitive advantages and achieve
success in their business. The company is a little backward in making quick decisions as the
power is not centralised. It implies that the manager of this organisation organise a meeting
where all the employees have equal rights to put their different opinions for a specific strategy
among which the best option would be selected. It takes a lot of time to make effective decisions
which can bring negative impact on the business operations.
Enthusiasm in work - When interest of an employee is increased towards his or her work then
they actively participate in that particular work and put their maximum efforts to achieve success
at the end. This can be termed as enthusiasm in work. Under this company, employees work with
full enthusiasm as they feel that the company tends to value their hard work and efforts. It has
been observed that the HR manager generally appreciate what the employees have been
performed greatly and also make them feel valued in the organisation. This made the employees
of Captify Company to perform work with great interest which is thereby helps the company to
meet all the organisational objectives effectively.
As per the above two approaches it can be clearly identified that soft HRM practices would be
more beneficial for the company in comparison with hard HRM practices. All the existing as
well as new enterprises should develop the soft form of HRM as it is more effective and can be
more profitable for the company’s operation.

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Conclusion

It is to be concluded from the study that HRM practices are essential to be implemented in any
organisation to get positive outcomes at the end. The study has discussed about the concepts of
hard and soft HRM practices in a detailed manner. Further, the study has selected two different
organisations in order to explain how these HRM practices have affected the business operations
of the companies. It has been observed both the concepts have positive as well as negative
impacts on the industry. In short, the study has been conducted to explain and discuss about the
different concepts of HRM practices on the companies.

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