GREAT
ZIMBABWE UNIVERSITY
FUCULTY OF
SOCIAL SCIENCES
DEPARTMENT
OF PSYCHOLOGY AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
NAME
MAIDZA TAFADZWA
REG
NUMBER M091309
PROGRAMME HUMAN
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
COURSE SHRM
COURSE
CODE
HRM 306
LECTURER MR MUPANI
DEFINE THE CONCEPT OF STRATEGIC
HUMAN RESOURCE ARCHITECTURE AND
DEMONSTRATE USING EXAMPLES
FROM
THE ZIMBABWEAN CONTEXT THE
LOGIC FOR SHRM ARCHITECTURE AND ITS
PREVALENCE.
DUE
DATE 23 MARCH 2012
COMMENT
MARK
Strategic Human Resource
Management is a new field of study and an emerging practice, especially in
Zimbabwe. The concept of Strategic Human Resource Management Architecture
encompasses various sub-concepts which transcends through the traditional
concepts of Soft and Hard Human Resource Management, to create a hybrid form of
Human Resource Management. The logic of Strategic Human Resource Management Architecture
in Zimbabwe is somewhat transparent as the disparity between various employees
of the same company is highly visible, in terms of compensation and benefits.
This discourse seeks to describe in detail the Strategic Human Resource
Architecture concept and then highlight its utility and rationale in Zimbabwe.
The loopholes associated with the concept in Zimbabwe will also be shed light
on.
A strategy is defined by
Porter [1988] as a course of action, a plan or a ploy. Strategic Human Resource
management is a detailed course of action that will be taken in respect to
matters to do with employees. In as much as it is related to employee matters,
the course of action should be aligned to the overall business objectives as
highlighted on the mission statement and the business Plan. Armstrong [2004]
defines Strategic Human Resource management as a process that involve the use
of over-aching approaches to the development of Human Resource strategies,
which are integrated vertically with the business strategy and horizontally
with one another. Strategic Human Resource Management dwells much on practices
that differentiates the firm from its competitors. In other words, Strategic
Human Resource Management is about trying to achieve a competitive advantage
through hybrid Human Resource Management practices.
Strategic Human Resource
Management Architecture is described by Lepak and Snell [1999: p31-48] ” Recognizing that not all employees
possess knowledge and skills that are of equal strategic importance, we draw on
the resource-based view of the firm, human capital theory, and transaction cost
economics to develop human resource architecture of four different employment
modes: internal development, acquisition, contracting, and alliance. We use
this architecture to derive research questions for studying the relationships
among employment modes, employment relationships, human resource
configurations, and criteria for competitive advantage”. The concept of
Strategic Human Resource Architecture entails designing and expertly crafting
policies that are in sync with each other, known as horizontal integration, as
well as being in tandem with the overall business plan, known as vertical integration
[www.newafricantimes.com ]. To architect Human
Resource practices and concepts one must craft relevant Human Resource
Management policies to suit the calibre of employees the policy is targeted to
affect. For example the salaries or benefits of employees in affirm cannot be
uniform because their contribution and strategic importance to an organisation
is not uniform. To architect proper Human Resource Management strategies one
must first familiarise with the various types of employees in the organisation
so as to establish which employees are critical, which are necessary and which
are the ones are ubiquitous [www.allafrca.com ]. This helps in crafting
and implementing policies tailor-made to address Human Resources issues in a
cost-effective manner [Porter: 1988]. For example the pecks given to the “top
brass” can not be the same as the ones given to the shop-floor workers as their
strategic value to the organisation is by far different.
Lepak and Snell [2002]
used the Human Resource Management Architecture to identify Human Resource
practices, employment modes and employment relationships for different classes
of employees depending on the extent to which their contribution is unique and
strategically valuable to the organisation. The four classes that they
propounded are knowledge-based employment, job-based employment, contractual
work employment and alliances.
Knowledge workers can be
viewed as resources of uttermost importance, as they are a source of sustained
competitive advantage [Lepak and Snell: 1999]. These strategically and
functionally important employees are also known as core-workers in an
organisation, because an organisation cannot function without them. Thus
commitment-based Human Resource configuration should be used when dealing with
such employees. Their services cannot be contracted or outsourced since their
skills are usually rare to come across [www.newafricantimes.com]. They can be
termed the ‘lifeline’ of the organisation. The Civil Aviation Authority of
Zimbabwe views its Air Traffic Controllers as a critical resource which is
vital for their survival and they cannot operate without such a calibre of
employees readily available. CAAZ have made sterling efforts to retain such
employees through lucrative reward strategies as well as flexible employment
arrangements that ensure the employees have time at their disposal to engage in
other activities. It would thus be rationale to put into place adequate Human
Resource measures to retain such employees, due to their strategic importance,
since just their departure represents a great loss to an organisation.
Blue-collar employees are
regarded as those employees whose skills are crucial for the functioning of the
organisation, even though the skills themselves are not rare on the labour
market. Most blue-collar enter organisations through apprenticeship training
because their skills are easily transferable. A lot of companies also hold
Training workshops to further enhance the skills of their blue-collar employees
so that they become more productive and efficient in carrying out their various
duties. This will be part of a productivity-based Human Resource configuration
aimed at increasing the overall productivity of the organisation. Human
Resource policies should be focused on increasing job-related skills of such
employees through coaching clinics and workshops. The potential benefits of
their development include greater stability and predictability of a firm’s
stock of skills and capabilities, better co-ordination and control, increased
socialisation, lower transaction costs and overly increased productivity [Pfeffer
and Baron:1988]. Hence it explains the prevalence of internal development in
Zimbabwe.
Contracting is also a
significant factor of strategic Human Resource Management which is literary
rampant in Zimbabwe. Many organisations across all sectors of the economy
practice some form of employee contracting as a way of militating against an
inflated wage bill by redundant employees. Employee contracting is a
cost-cutting tool prevalent in almost all companies, but most rampant in
numerically flexible firms. Contracting is highly prevalent in Non-Governmental
Organisations (NGOs), the construction industry, the manufacturing industry,
agricultural industry and some higher learning institutions. The rationale
behind contracting is that work might not always be there and there is no need
to have permanent employee who will be redundant, otherwise the wage bill will
exceed the best-practice level of 33% of total costs. Some organisations’
workload is seasonal and it is rational that they contract seasonally. The
departure of contract workers from an organisation do not represent any loss
whatsoever as their skills are ubiquitous. Thus the prevalence of contractual
work in Zimbabwe is quite justified by the financial rationale behind
contractual work.
Alliances or outsourcing
is another highly prevalent Human Resource Practice in Zimbabwe. This is
regarded as a collaborative approach to Human Resource Management. Outsourcing
allows organisations to focus much on their core activities and presents an
Opportunity to the Human Resource department to concentration developing the
core employees of an organisation. Outsourcing also allows firms to decrease
their overhead and administrative costs [Williamson: 1975]. Most Zimbabwean
organisations do not have a permanently employed financial auditor, but rather
they outsource the function to auditing firms because the services are only
required once in a financial year. Such is also the case with lawyers; their
services are only engaged when an organisation is engaged in a legal case. This
situation requires the use of compliance-based Human Resource configuration.
Such employees should only comply with the orders they would have been given
otherwise a new service provider is sought This has led to the success of firms
like Ernest and Young as well as Price Water House Coopers, both auditing
firms. Most organisations do not have permanent posts for supporting service
like cleaning and security and rely mostly on outsourcing. The prevalence of
this practice is largely premised on cost-cutting and avoiding administrative
hustles associate with having a higher employee contingent.
However laudable the
concept of Strategic Human Resource Management Architecture might be to the
field of academia as well as the highly ambitious practitioner it is not always
the case on the ground in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has the most educated people in
Africa coupled by very high levels of unemployment it automatically spells
employment disaster. This might mean that Zimbabwean organisations can only
practice fragmented Human Resource Management Architecture as there is no
apparent impetus to fully embrace an apparently expensive approach with no
quantifiable results. This has prompted some academics to argue that developing
countries are still practicing traditional personnel management under the
burner of Human Resource Management.
In as much as the concept
of Strategic Human Resource Architecture is regarded as a contemporary issue in
Human Resource Management it actually leads to sour industrial relations as
those regarded as blue-collar employees and contract workers can be disgruntled
by the large margin of disparity that exist between them and the knowledge
workers.
To sum up this discourse
it can be said that Strategic Human Resource Management Architecture is a
highly prevalent practice in Zimbabwe and even though there are a few instances
where it can be criticised there is vast logic in practicing it.
References
Armstrong, M. [2004]. Handbook
of Human Resource Management. London, Kogan Page Limited.
Lepak, D.P. and Snell,
S.A. [1999]. The Academy of Management Review. London, Academy of
Management.
Lepak, D.P. and Snell,
S.A. [2002]. Examining the Human Resource Architecture. London, Journal
of Management Sage Publication.
Porter, M.E. [1988]. Competitive
Strategy: Techniques for Analysing Industries and Competitors. New
York, The Free Press.
Williamson, P. [1981]. www.ithaka.com
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