Human Resources Management in

Canada
Fifteenth Canadian Edition

Chapter 1
The Strategic Role of Human
Resources Management

Copyright © 2023 Pearson Canada Inc.

 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process

What is Human Resources Management (HRM)?

• Management of people/employees in organizations to drive
successful organizational performance and achievement of
organization’s strategic goals.
• Responsible for:
• Finding and hiring the best individuals available.
• Developing their talent.
• Creating a productive work environment.
• Continually building and monitoring the human assets.
Human Resources Management and the
Management Process
Figure 1.1 Linking Company-Wide and HR Strategies

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 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process
Strategy and Human Capital
• Strategic plan: How the company will match its internal
strengths and weaknesses with external opportunities and
threats to maintain a competitive position.
• Strategy: Course of action the company pursues to
achieve its strategic aims.
• Strategic management: The process of identifying and
executing the strategic plan by matching the company’s
capabilities with the demands of its environment.
 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process
Strategy and Human Capital
• Human capital is the knowledge, education, training,
skills, and expertise of an organization’s workforce.
• HR practices contribute to development of embedded
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knowledge of a firm’s culture, history, processes, and
context.
• High performance HR practices have a positive
relationship with productivity and financial performance.
 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process

Why Is HR Management Important to All Managers?

• Mistakes managers don’t want to make:
• hire the wrong person for the job
• experience high turnover
• have employees work below performance expectations
• waste time with useless interviews
• face discrimination lawsuits
 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process

Why Is HR Management Important to All Managers?

• Mistakes managers don’t want to make (continued):
• be cited under occupational safety laws for unfair
practices
• have some employees think their salaries are unfair
relative to others in the organization
• allow a lack of training to undermine effectiveness
• commit any unfair labour practices
 Human Resources Management and the
Management Process

Shared Responsibility for Talent Management

• Current trends point to HR and talent management
becoming an everyday part of doing business.
• Figure 1.2 HR Activities: HR Professionals and Senior
Managers:
• Highlights core job requirements found in non-HR
roles.
• Traditionally limited to HR department.
• Evidence that HR skills permeate throughout the
organization.
• All managers need basics of HR management skills.
 HRM: Past, Present, and Future
Past: Brief History of HRM
• Historically any enterprise required attracting, selecting,
and training workers.
• Personnel tasks were part of every manager’s job.
• In later 1800s, labour problems began arising in post-
Industrial Revolution factories.
• In the early 1900s, the first “hiring offices,” training
programs, and factory schools were set up by employers.
• Union laws in the 1930s expanded role of HR.
• Equity-oriented laws in the 1970s and 1980s made
employers more reliant of personnel management.
 HRM: Past, Present, and Future
Past: Brief History of HRM
• Globalization in the 1980s made gaining competitive edge
through engaged employees increasingly important.
• Technological advances in the 1980s and 1990s resulted
in outsourcing many operational HR activities.
• Today economic and demographic trends make finding,
hiring, and motivating employees more challenging.
• Role of HR department has evolved to that of helping
organizations achieve strategic objectives.
 HRM: Past, Present, and Future
Present: The New HR Manager
• Defends HR plans in measurable terms.
• Understands strategic planning, marketing, production,
and finance.
• Formulates and Implements organizational changes.
•
•
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Drives employee engagement.
Redesigns organizational structures and work processes.
• Serves as subject-matter expert or in-house consultant.
• Needs to have broad-based business knowledge and
skills.
 HRM: Past, Present, and Future
Present: The New HR Manager
• Firms are changing how they organize the HR
function.
• New focus separates employees into segments such
as executives, technical employees, and rank-and-
file.
• Other HR configurations in use today:
• Transactional HR teams
• Corporate HR teams
• Embedded HR teams
• Relationship managers or HR business partners (H
RBP)
• Centres of excellence (COE)
 HRM: Past, Present, and Future
Future: What’s Next for the HR Manager
• Best practices include focusing on workforce growth, using
technology to evolve hiring practices, recognizing novel
employee expectations, determining how to brand the
organization to be the company of choice, establishing
ways to integrate employees, and figuring out how to
select recruits based on evolving job and company
requirements.
• Centralise new talent platforms.
• Post-Covid, determine best ways for employees place of
work, how to work and when to work.
• Manage diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
 Evidence-Based HRM
Evidence-based HRM is making decisions based on
data, facts, analytics, scientific rigour, critical evaluation,
and critically-evaluated research/case studies.
• Using the best-available evidence in making HRM
proposals, decisions, practices and conclusions.
• Measuring the value and impact of human capital and H
RM practices:
• Use metrics (statistics) to measure activities and
results.
• Provide critical information that can be linked to
organizational outcomes such as productivity,
market share, and profits.
 Evidence-Based HRM

Strategic HRM Tools

• Strategy map: A strategic planning tool that shows the
“big picture” of how each department’s performance
contributes to achieving the company’s overall strategic
goals.
• Balanced scorecard: Translates organization’s strategy
into a comprehensive set of performance measures.
• Financial measures tell results of actions already
taken.
• Operational measures drive future performance.
• Balance long-term and short-term actions related to
financial results, customers, business processes, and
human capital management.
 Evidence-Based HRM
Strategic HRM Tools
• Digital dashboard presents managers with desktop
graphs and charts to create a computerized picture of how
the company is doing on all the metrics from the HR
scoreboard process.
 Growing Professionalism in HRM

Characteristics of a Profession
1. Common body of knowledge.
2. Benchmarked performance standards.
3. Representative professional association.
4. External perception as a profession.
5. Code of ethics.
6. Required training credentials for entry and career
mobility.
7. Ongoing skill development.
8. Maintenance of professional competence.
 Growing Professionalism in HRM

• Certification is the recognition for having met

specific professional standards.
• Professional HR designation in Canada is changing.
• Ontario has formed its own association.
• New designation in all other jurisdictions:
• Chartered Professional in Human Resources
(CPHR)
• Specialized designations recognize expertise in
benefits, recruitment, payroll, employee benefits,
management professionals and certified training
and development professionals.
Growing Professionalism in HRM

Table 1.1 HR Associations by Province and Designation

Jurisdiction HR Association Designation Link
Chartered Professionals in Human
British Columbia and
Resources of British Columbia and CPHR www.cphrbc.ca
Yukon
Yukon (CPHR BC & Yukon)
Chartered Professionals in Human
Alberta, Nunavut, and
Resources of Alberta (CPHR CPHR www.cphrab.ca
Northwest Territories
Alberta)
Chartered Professionals in Human
Saskatchewan Resources Saskatchewan (CPHR CPHR www.cphrsk.ca
Saskatchewan)
Chartered Professionals in Human
Manitoba Resources Manitoba (CPHR CPHR www.cphrmb.ca
Manitoba)
New Brunswick Chartered Professionals in Human CPHR www.cphrnb.ca
Resources New Brunswick (CPHR
New Brunswick)
Growing Professionalism in HRM

Table 1.1 HR Associations by Province and Designation

Jurisdiction HR Association Designation Link

Chartered Professional in Human
Nova Scotia Resources Nova Scotia CPHR https://cphrns.ca/
(CPHR Nova Scotia)
Chartered Professionals in Human
Prince Edward Island Resources of Prince Edward CPHR www.cphrpei.ca/
Island Association (CPHR PEI)
The Chartered Professionals in
Newfoundland and
Human Resources Newfoundland CPHR www.cphrnl.ca
Labrador
and Labrador (CPHR NL)
L’Ordre des Conseillers en
Quebec CPHR www.ordrecrha.org
Ressources Humaines Agréés
Ontario Human Resources Professionals CHRP, CHRL, www.hrpa.ca/
Association (HRPA) CHRE
 Growing Professionalism in HRM

Ethics
• The principles of conduct governing an individual or group.
• For HR professionals abiding by code of ethics is a requirement
to maintain professional status.
• Organizational code of ethics provides a guide.
• Ethical issues in Canadian organizations today:
• Security of information.
• Employee and client privacy.
• Environmental issues.
• Governance.
• Conflict of interest.
 Growing Professionalism in HRM

Ethics
• Failure of ethics programs:
• Lack of leadership.
• Inadequate training.
• Positive outcomes of ethics programs:
• Increased confidence among stakeholders.
• Greater client, customer and employee loyalty.
• Decreased vulnerability to crime.
• Reduced losses to internal theft.
• Increased public trust.
 Growing Professionalism in HRM

Ethics
• Social responsibility is the balancing organizational
commitments to investors, employees, customers, other
businesses, and the communities in which the firm
operates.
• Mountain Equipment Co-op’s (MEC) social responsibility
perspective:
• Examine every aspect of a product’s life cycle.
• Consider resources that go into making and shipping
products.
• Aim for satisfaction of employees and customers.
 Environmental Influences on HRM

External Environmental Influences

Labour Market Issues: Workforce Composition
• Increasing workforce diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI)
• Canada’s workforce one of world’s most diverse.
• Includes demographic factors, values and cultural
norms.
• Canada - four protected employee groups: visible and
ethnic minorities, women, Indigenous Peoples, and
persons with disabilities.
• face lower pay on average, occupational
segregation higher rates of unemployment,
concentration in low status jobs with little positional
for career growth.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Labour Market Issues: Generational Differences

• 5 generations in the workplace.
• Values and beliefs shared within each of 5
generations - impact their approach to work and
working life.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Labour Market Issues: Non-standard or Contingent

Workers
• Workers who do not have regular full-time employment
status.
• provide flexible, on-demand labour without same
guarantees for continued employment, development or
benefits.
• Direct employment types: full-time, part-time, on call or in
limited-term roles.
• Contract work types: direct contracting, subcontracting
and gig workers.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

External Environmental Influences

Economic Conditions
• Affect supply and demand.
• Employment levels fluctuate with economy.
• Productivity improvement essential for long-term
success.
• Ratio of outputs (goods and services) to inputs
(people, capital, energy, and materials).
• Decline of primary, secondary sectors but growth of
tertiary (service) sectors.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Technology
• Digital technologies driving transfer of functionality from
HR professionals to automation.
• Mobile applications – monitor employee location.
• Gaming – used in training applications.
• Cloud computing – provide real-time feedback.
• Data analytics – applied to problem solving.
• Talent analytics – analyze traits of ideal candidates.
• Increasing use of social media tools to recruit new
employees.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Technology
• Affects nature of jobs.
• Dispersed workforce.
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Work anywhere.
• Line between work and family time is blurred.
• Concerns about data control, accuracy, right to privacy
and ethics.
• Monitoring of employee speed, accuracy, efficiency,
email, voicemail, phone conversations, computer use.
• Video surveillance of employee behaviour.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Government
• Impact of laws on employer-employee relationship.
• Complicated by federal and ten provincial jurisdictions.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Globalization
• Globalization - emergence of a single global market.
• Sustainability
• Increasing intensity of competition.
• Human resources - source of competitive advantage.
• HR professionals must become familiar with
employment legislation in other countries.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
External Environmental Influences

Environmental Concerns
• Environmental concerns motivating behaviour of
employees.
• Sustainability
• Climate change
• Global warming
• Pollution
• Carbon footprints
• Extinction of wildlife
• Ecosystem fragility
 Environmental Influences on HRM
Internal Environmental Influences

Internal Environmental Influences

Organizational Culture
• Organizational culture - core values, beliefs, and assumptions
widely shared by members of an organization.
• Conveyed through mission statement, stories, symbols and
ceremonies.
• Communicates what organization believes in and stands
for.
• Provides sense of direction and expected behaviour.
• Creates a sense of identity and consistency.
• Fosters employee loyalty and commitment.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
Internal Environmental Influences

Organizational Climate
• Organizational climate - atmosphere or “internal
weather”, and its impact on employee motivation, job
satisfaction, performance, productivity, and loyalty.
• Examples: friendly or unfriendly, open or secretive,
rigid of flexible, innovative or stagnant.
 Environmental Influences on HRM
Internal Environmental Influences

Management Practices
• Flat structures, cross-functional teams, improved
communication.
• Empowerment provides workers with skills and authority
to make decisions that would traditionally be made by
managers.
• Two-way communication.
• Open-door policies.
• Management by “walking around”.