Strategic Human Resource Management

In today’s intensely competitive and global marketplace, maintaining a competitive advantage puts a heavy premium on having a highly committed or competent workforce. Sustainable competitive advantage lies not just in differentiating a product or service or in becoming the low cost leader but in also being able to tap the company’s special skills or core competencies and rapidly respond to customer needs and competitor moves. In other words competitive advantage lies in management’s ability to consolidate corporate-wide technologies and production skills into competencies that empower individual businesses to adapt quickly to changing opportunities.

In a growing number of organizations, people are now viewed as a source of competitive advantage. Distinctive core competencies are obtained through highly developed skills, healthy organizational cultures, and collaborative management processes and systems. This is in contrast to the traditional emphasis on transferable resources such as equipment, capital, or land. Increasingly, competitive advantage can be obtained with a high quality workforce that enables organizations to compete on the basis of market responsiveness, product and service quality, differentiated products and technological innovation.

Strategic human resource management has been defined as “the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation and flexibility.” In strategic human resource management, human resource professionals become strategic partners in the formulation and implementation of the company’s strategies through recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel.

The strategic human resource manager translates business strategies into HR priorities. Translating business strategies into HR practices helps a business in three ways. First, the business can adapt to change because the time from the conception to the execution of a strategy is shortened. Second, the business can better meet customer demands because its customer service strategies have been translated into specific policies and practices. Third, the business can achieve financial performance through its more effective execution of strategy.

In brief, a strategic perspective of HRM that requires simultaneous consideration of both external (business strategy) and internal (consistency) requirement leads to superior performance of the firm. This performance advantage is achieved by:

• Marshalling resources that support the business strategy and implementing the chosen strategy, efficiently and effectively.
• Utilizing the full potential of human resources to the firm’s advantage.
• Leveraging other resources such as physical assets and capital to complement and augment the human resources based advantage.

Here is how Boogaert & Noll see the role of healthy attitudes towards sex, politics & religion at the office in Sex, Politics & Religion at the Office: The New Competitive Advantage

“A healthy work environment has some unmistakable characteristics. First, there are clear boundaries and even clearer expectations about those boundaries. Women are not sexual possessions; men are not lusted after or chased or even flirted with for personal advancement or gain.
Second, people are respected for who they are, not what they are. If people are hired into the company or promoted, it’s because they have talent, not because they are fodder for a manager’s sexual fantasy or worse. Similarly, people not blessed with great bodies or beautiful looks are not passed over, but are treated with as much dignity and respect as any other person.
Third, there is a healthy balance between individual initiative and team work. Competition is not rampant; collaboration is just as valued, if not more so.
Finally, people think about the consequences of their relationships with one another. The relationships and group cohesion are so valued that no one would intentionally desire to disrupt them by acting in unhealthy or inappropriate ways.
A sexy company embraces the innate sexuality and sexual energy of every person. Sexual energy is creative, expressive, and expansive. Tapping into it in a consciously healthy and respectful way is like plugging into a powerhouse of unlimited resources. And because the energy is acknowledged and valued, no repression occurs. The result:  A work environment that is alive and exciting, challenging and stimulating. People are not shut down. Nor are they forced to use their sexuality covertly for advancement or promotion. It simply becomes unnecessary because there are so many opportunities for self-expression.”