If HR is concerned – as it should be – with playing a major role in the achievement of continuous improvement in organizational and individual performance and in the HR processes that support that improvement, then it will be concerned withfacilitating change. Ulrich (1997a) believes that one of the key roles of HR professionals is to act as change agents, delivering organizational transformation and culture change.
Strategic HRM is as much if not more about managing change during the process of implementation as it is about producing long-term plans; a point emphasized by Purcell (1999) who believes that: ‘We should be much more sensitive to processes of organizational change and avoid being trapped in the logic of rational choice.’ In 2001 Purcell suggested that change is specially important in HRM strategies, ‘since their concern is with the future, the unknown, thinking of and learning how to do things differently, undoing the ways things have been done in the past, and managing its implementation’. He believes that the focus of strategy is on implementation, where HR can play a major part.
The importance of the human resource element in achieving change has been emphasized by Johnson and Scholes (1997).
Organizations which successfully manage change are those which have integrated their human resource management policies with their strategies and the strategic change process... training, employee relations, compensation packages and so on are not merely operational issues for the personnel department; they are crucially concerned with the way in which employees relate to the nature and direction of the firm and as such they can both block strategic change and be significant facilitators of strategic change.
Strategic HRM is as much if not more about managing change during the process of implementation as it is about producing long-term plans; a point emphasized by Purcell (1999) who believes that: ‘We should be much more sensitive to processes of organizational change and avoid being trapped in the logic of rational choice.’ In 2001 Purcell suggested that change is specially important in HRM strategies, ‘since their concern is with the future, the unknown, thinking of and learning how to do things differently, undoing the ways things have been done in the past, and managing its implementation’. He believes that the focus of strategy is on implementation, where HR can play a major part.
The importance of the human resource element in achieving change has been emphasized by Johnson and Scholes (1997).
Organizations which successfully manage change are those which have integrated their human resource management policies with their strategies and the strategic change process... training, employee relations, compensation packages and so on are not merely operational issues for the personnel department; they are crucially concerned with the way in which employees relate to the nature and direction of the firm and as such they can both block strategic change and be significant facilitators of strategic change.
