STRATEGIC HRM DEFINED

Strategic HRM is an approach to making decisions on the intentions and plans of the organization in the shape of the policies, programmes and practices concerning the employment relationship, resourcing, learning and development, performance management, reward, and employee relations. The concept of strategic HRM is derived from the concepts of HRM and strategy. It takes the HRM model with its focus on strategy, integration and coherence and adds to that the key notions of strategy, namely, strategic intent, resource-based strategy, competitive advantage, strategic capability and strategic fit.

Strategic HRM and HR Strategies 

Strategic HRM is an approach to the strategic management of human resources in accordance with the intentions of the organization on the future direction it wants to take. What emerges from this process is a stream of decisions over time that form the pattern adopted by the organization for managing its human resources and which define the areas in which specific HR strategies need to be developed. These focus on the decisions of the organization on what needs to be done and what needs to be changed in particular areas of people management.

The meaning of strategic HRM

According to Hendry and Pettigrew (1986), strategic HRM has four meanings:

1. the use of planning; 

2. a coherent approach to the design and management of personnel systems based on an employment policy and manpower strategy and often underpinned by a ’philosophy’; 

3. matching HRM activities and policies to some explicit business strategy; 

4. seeing the people of the organization as a ’strategic resource’ for the achievement of ’competitive advantage’.

Strategic HRM as an integrated process 

Strategic HRM is essentially an integrated process that aims to achieve ’strategic fit’. Astrategic HRM approach produces HR strategies that are integrated vertically with the business strategy and are ideally an integral part of that strategy, contributing to the business planning process as it happens. Walker (1992) defines strategic HRM as ’the means of aligning the management of human resources with the strategic content of the business’. Vertical integration is necessary to provide congruence between business and human resource strategy so that the latter supports the accomplishment of the former and, indeed, helps to define it. Strategic HRM is also about horizontal integration, which aims to ensure that the different elements of the HR strategy fit together and are mutually supportive.