MGMT223 Business Strategy : About Organizational Culture

After having read the  why HR still isn't a strategic partner , draft a critique, outlining any areas of disagreement and agreement with the author.

Also, address whether or not this article impacts your view of HR as a  business partner.

Answer:

About the article-why HR is not a strategic business partner.

In this article the author depicts that the human resource leader of very few organizations play a strategic role. In order to play a strategic role in business, the human resource leader should always think if his action creates friction for the business or creates flow for the business. The author says that the human resource leaders often feel disconnected with the people who are in proximity with the customers as human resource department is close to the pinnacle of the organization and everyone reports to this department. The author also suggests ways on how human resource leaders can play a strategic role (Role of HR, 2017).

In my opinion human resource leaders can be a strategic business partner in many ways.

1) While planning strategies or everyday operational activities, leaders often lose sight of the mission and vision of an organization. The human resource leaders can enable alignment of strategies to the core principles of the organization, that is, its vision and mission statements by setting a foundation of vision and values in the organization.

2) The strategic plans can be implemented only when organizational culture evolves to support the strategies. The changing environment demands a change in business strategy and human resource leaders have huge role to play to manage change within the organization by developing performance management strategies, role designs etc (Ulrich et al. , 2013).

3) Strategies are about the big picture and often strategies can’t be implemented within the organization effectively due to lack of tactical planning. The human resource leaders have huge role to play in designing structure and roles within the organization. They can ensure proper flow of communication among all business units and ensure alignment of the overall business process to the new strategy of the organization.

4) The human resource team has access to people across all business units; they can engage people with the execution of the strategy they can take feedback from employees about what the business strategies truly mean to them so that operational efficiencies increase and strategies are properly executed. For any change within the organization like business restructuring or implementation of a new technology, the human resource department plays a huge role as a change agent (Armstrong & Taylor, 2014). 

The author mentions that while managing talent human resource department should try to identify the critical people who play critical roles in organization instead of investing equal time on all business units. In my opinion, this viewpoint is true as talent management can truly be considered as a portfolio of investments with unequal or disproportionate returns (Bratton & Gold, 2012).

This article impacts my view of HR as a business partner .In my opinion human resource leaders have huge role to play in bringing strategies to life. The financial goals of an organization and strategies are important but the human resource department can help build core competencies of the organization by identifying critical business units and critical people. The strategies should be articulated well among people so that the blueprint of converting strategies to actions is developed.

References

Armstrong, M., & Taylor, S., (2014). Armstrong's handbook of human resource management practice. Kogan Page Publishers.

Bratton, J., & Gold, J., (2012). Human resource management: theory and practice. Palgrave Macmillan.

Role of HR., (2017). hbr.org/2012/07/why-hr-still-isnt-a-strategic-partner. Retrieved 13 August 2017, from https://hbr.org/2012/07/why-hr-still-isnt-a-strategic-partner

Ulrich, D., Younger, J., Brockbank, W., & Ulrich, M. D., (2013). The state of the HR profession. Human Resource Management, 52(3), 457-471.