Name: Manpreet Kaur

Student id: 2145195

Course: Strategic Human Resource Management

Submitted to: Nicole Parry

Reading: 2

CHAPTER 1 HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Ans1 The 4 initiatives required for a HR department to be strategic are:
1) Be transformational, not transactional
2) Think about your structure
3) Be credible – have educated, experienced, trained HR practitioners
4) Provide value for services

CHAPTER 2 BE TRANSFORMATIONAL, NOT TRANSACTIONAL

Ans1 Line department: This department is essential for the survival of the organisation. For example: In the manufacturing company, manufacturing department, finance department and the sales department are the line department and these department are essential for the existence of the organisation because manufacturing company cannot survive without these departments. As these departments manufacture the product and arrange the finance for the company and also sell the products.
Staff department: In contrast, Staff departments are the department, which exists to help the line department in its activities. The staff departments are to advise, counsel and assist the line departments. Like in manufacturing company, the department, which is not manufacturing department, finance department and sales department, is a staff department.
There is also one more point to contrast these department like if the company has to reduce the people or department then they would like to eliminate staff department rather than line department. This does not means that the staff department is not essential, it is essential but the line department is more essential and the company must have it at any cost.

Ans2 HR practitioners are not having any power; they are only used for advice, counsel and assist. This means that they cannot make a final decision for an organisation. Like HR department cannot take final hiring decision for new employees. They can only assist with the hiring. They can advertise, screen resumes and applications and they can also take an interview of leading candidates. Then they refer the best candidate to the manager who has a vacancy and that person take a final decision for hiring the candidate.

Ans3: Transactional HR functions are similar to administrative functions. Transaction HR Means that they are adopting the strategies or policies, which are running from many years in the organisation. They do not bring any changes in the strategies or in the policies. Whereas transformational HR department means that are making changes in the strategies, mission structure, activities or in the policies.

Ans4 The difference between equal and equitable is that equally means that all employees are treated as the same. Policies and practices are applied to everyone in the same way. If employees are not treated equally than they may be not motivated and there will be jealously feeling among the employee. On the contrast, equitable means that polices and practices are not strictly applied, it depend on the situation or on the circumstances.

Ans5: Self Service: Self-service concept is adopted by many organisations. This involves the introduction or upgrading of technology to allow employees to use Internet, upload or change their personal information. There are many benefits to the organization while adopting the technology for the self-service option. And it also removes the HR from the involvement in the administrative tasks. This allows privacy because there are some employees in the organisation that do not want to share their personal information with other employees.
Outsourcing: Outsourcing is the transfer of a process to an outsider service provider. For example: company A is an originating organisation, which contract with other company (company B) to provide a service that company a used to provide. And the employees of the company B are the employees of company B not company A. The companies may be located in the same or different countries. The biggest challenge is to select or to choose a right service provider. And other important thing to consider is about the location of the service provider.

Shared services: The share service concept can be use in different ways. Like it can take place within the organisation, where HR processes might be spread in different areas and later combine into one areas and shares the services by those different department. Another way to implement a shared service concept is that two or three organisations choose a provider that can be provide services to all these organisations.

Ans6 * Recruitment
A Strategic action: Adopting measures to identify the best sources in order to improve the on-the-job performance of hires.
A non-strategic action: Reducing the cost of hiring by using cheaper and low quality source. * Training A Strategic action: Adding new training programs where is significant measureable difference in on-the-job performance after an employee takes a class. A non-strategic action: offering the same training program or classes in each year as they become popular and well attended. * Retention
A Strategic action: Warning and alerting manager in advance that who is going to quit and what tools are more effective in retaining them.
A non-strategic action: Tracking and reporting a manager’s turnover rates after the fact.

* Compensation/remuneration
A Strategic action: Educating managers and providing them with compensation tools that have a direct impact on employee productivity.
A non-strategic action: Suggesting that a manager give across-the-board raises even though there is no evidence that they impact productivity or retention. * Interviews: A strategic action: Comparing candidate “scores” or ratings during an interview to their on the job performance and retention rate after they are hired.
A non-strategic action: Attending interviews and asking good questions,

CHAPTER 3 THINK ABOUT STRUCTURE – STRUCTURING THE HR DEPARTMENT

Ans1 There is many ways that a HR department can be organised and there are three formats like: * Specialist HR department: this model divides the HR functions among “speciality” areas. At the top there is hear of HR and under it there are managers for different areas recruiting, training, compensation and many more. In this model, line manager deal with a variety of people in the HR department. If a line manager need recruiting than they go to the recruiting area and if they have a need of learning and development than they go to learning and development area. The drawback of this model is that the HR practitioner becomes specialist in their functional area but they do not get experience in other areas of HR. * Generalist HR department: In this model HR practitioners are HR generalists and they work alone in small companies or in teams in large companies. Each team allotted to deal with specific line department. In this way manager and employee have a point of contact in the HR area. The challenge for this model is that HR practitioners must be knowledgeable and up to date with all aspects of HR functions and the teams must be acting in the same way as they operate them. * Ulrich 3-centres: Ulrich’s idea is that the HR function must be divided into 3 basic areas. One is the area that deal with the transactional activities in the department, the second is an area known as centre of expertise and third being the business partner whose job is to partner with the line managers to help them in achieving their HR goals. The first area is referred to shared service centre or service centre, where the fundamentals activities occur. The second area, the centre of expertise is collection of professionals who have very specialised, and who act as consultants to the people in the third area, business partners. The third area is called business partners. Ulrich refers to them as “Embedded HR”, who is HR Generalists. These GR generalists or business partners interface between HR and line management and help them with strategic HR initiatives.

CHAPTER 4: BE CREDIBLE – HAVE EDUCATED, EXPERIENCED, TRAINED HR PRACTITIONERS
Ans1The role of a HR practitioner in a transformational department is to be:
Internal consultant: One of the definition of the internal consultant is that “ an employee with specific knowledge and expertise who offer advice and business solution to other department within the same organisation. “Our working definition of internal consultant is that internal consultant is any individual or group that serves internal clients in an advisory capacity, including: * Bringing a specialised management consulting expertise to improve the bottom line performance of the company/organisation. * Working within the corporate structure to resolve business issues and implement solutions in areas that includes organisational effectiveness, strategic planning or process improvement. * Serving as a change agent, coach, educator or facilitator within your company”
Change leader: Jim Canterucci has described the change leadership in the following way:
“Change leadership is the ability to energize groups who are going to implement change projects that may or may not buy into. It is important for change leader to understand the need for change and demonstrate a high tolerance for ambiguity and a positive attitude. Change leadership also means to define a area for change, managing change initiatives smoothly by anticipating, preparing and responding effectively to barriers, receptive work environment and involving people at all levels in the change initiative”
“In order establish HR function, the HR leader must see transformation of the function as a personal mission and contribute towards the business success. The leader must identify the capabilities of the people that are necessary for the success and also build the capabilities that are missing in the HR people. The role of change agent is difficult but is vital to the successful transformation of the HR functions.
Project manager: the skill that HR practitioners needs is the ability to manage projects. Credibility increases if the projects are well managed, completed on the time and also deliver the expected results. Depending on the organisation, project management tools must range from Gantt chart written on a blackboard, to elaborate software programs, which include tools like critics path plans, PERT chart and many more.

Ans2
HR practitioners need to be skilled in five areas of HR work: * HR Delivery: the technical base of HR, from recruitment, through performance management, to organizational change, to HRMIS * Strategic Contribution: an awareness of how HR policies and practices contribute to the overall performance of the business in the long run. * Business Knowledge: clear understanding of how the business works as a whole * Business Technology: an appreciation of the generic technologies that power the business. * Personal Credibility: the capacity to build trust and have credibility with all major stakeholders.

In the HRINZ Competency model HRINZ define each competency area in terms of three levels at which HR practitioners might operate at different stages of their career like:
1) Developing * The focus is on learning and applying the HR competencies at an “entry” level, probably focusing on HR Delivery, and probably working under supervision * The HR problems faced are likely to be at lower levels of complexity, the HR practitioner is likely to be operating under supervision and the impact of decisions is likely to be restricted in scope

2) Competent * The focus is on independent application. The HR practitioner is expected to be able to operate independently as an HR practitioner * The HR problems faced are likely to be of moderate complexity. The HR practitioner can be expected to assume full responsibility for actions, and the impact of decisions taken can be expected to be at a “medium” level in terms of risk, potential cost and likely benefit.
3) Advanced * The focus is on professional leadership. At the apex of their career, the HR practitioner can be expected to operate at an advanced level in a senior role with organizational oversight, while making creative contributions and/or innovating in the field * The HR problems faced are likely to be highly complex, have organization-wide implications, while the HR practitioner is likely to have significant direct employee responsibilities, with high levels of potential impact

Ans3 Analytic thinking: Analytic thinkers are referred as “left brain thinkers”. This type of thinker is comfortable with details, logic and step-by-step processes that unfold in a predictable manner. The drawback of this type of style is that solving the problems without understanding the implications of the broader context of the problem.
Holistic thinking: Holistic thinkers described as “ Right brain thinkers”. Them may be described as systems thinkers who want to understand the context, the “why” of the situation before delving into the challenge of solving the problem. The benefit of this style is the ability to see the factors that connect to and many interrelate in the situation. Analytic thinking was and is needed for transactional activities.
Ans4 Jim Canterucci had described change leadership in the following way:
“Change leadership is the ability to energize groups who are going to implement change projects that may or may not buy into. It is important for change leader to understand the need for change and demonstrate a high tolerance for ambiguity and a positive attitude. Change leadership also means to define a area for change, managing change initiatives smoothly by anticipating, preparing and responding effectively to barriers, receptive work environment and involving people at all levels in the change initiative”
“In order establish HR function, the HR leader must see transformation of the function as a personal mission and contribute towards the business success. The leader must identify the capabilities of the people that are necessary for the success and also build the capabilities that are missing in the HR people. The role of change agent is difficult but is vital to the successful transformation of the HR functions

CHAPTER 5 PROVIDE VALUE FOR SERVICE Ans1 The difference between the HR keeping statistics and HR Analytics is that statistics will likely be kept of activities like absenteeism, turnover, hiring and others. But a more in-depth analysis ask question and answer far more questions like: 1) What levels in the organisation are experiencing the drop in turnover? Are we keeping entry-level people more? Or senior-level?
2) Is there a difference in the long service vs. new employee turnover?
3) Are we keeping the kind of employee that we need? Have we kept key employees? Do we have essential skills still in place?
Ans2 Sullivan identifies the benefits of metrics and these are follows: 1. Metric helps you ensure that you are meeting your goals and customer needs. 2. Metric tell you where to spend your money 3. Metrics remove confusion. 4. Metric can build coordination/ cooperation. 5. Metric can help to build self-confidence. 6. Metric can help to improve your relationship with CFO and CIO. 7. Metric tells you what to reward. 8. Metric can allow HR to provide evidence of its strategic impact. 9. They help to push continuous improvement. 10. Metric helps you to focus on your work.