A List of Best Practices for Ensuring the Human Resources Function Works Effectively with Top Management and Corporate Governance.

Discussion 1: Best Practices and Strategies

Create a list of best practices for ensuring the human resources function works effectively with top management and corporate governance.

Best Practices for ensuring the human resource functions works effectively with top management and corporate governance will vary depending on the organization mission. However here is a view of best practices that can be used:

1) Purpose: What is the basic reason for existence?

2) Mission: How have the top managers decided to fulfill its purpose?

3) Corporate, Business, and Functional Strategies: This is known as the strategic operations of a firm this the responsibility of the top managers.

(a) Corporate Strategy: deals with determining what business the firm will operate.

(b) Business Strategy: deals with how the firm will compete in each market where it conducts business.

(c) Functional Strategy: deals with how the firm will manage each of its major functions (such as marketing, finance, and human resources).

4) Human Resource Strategy: Is to add value to the organization by providing expertise concerning how to use the firm's human resources to accomplish its objectives and gain advantage.

a. Staffing Strategy: HR planning; Recruiting; Selection; and Placement.

b. Development Strategy: Performance Management; Training; Development; and Career Planning.

c. Compensation Strategy: Wage/Salary structure; Employee Benefits; and Incentives.

5) Organization Design: The framework of jobs, positions, groups of positions, and reporting relationships among positions that are used to construct an organization. Ex: functional, conglomerate, and divisional. For this list of practices we will use the divisional design.

a. Divisional Design aka M form (the M stands for multidivisional): Is made up of separate, semi autonomous units or divisions and each division has its own goals to accomplish.

6) Culture: Refers to the set of values that helps its members understand what the organization stands for how it wants to accomplish what it wants to accomplish, and what it considers important.

7) Human Resource Strategy Implementation: Requires an understanding of fundamental individual and interpersonal behavioral process.

b. Individual Process: Psychological Contracts; Personality; Motivation; and Stress.

c. Organizational system and Process: Understanding of the causes of stress, the process by which stress affects individuals can cope better with stress in organizational settings.

d. Interpersonal Group Process: Group Behavior; Leadership; and Communication.

Select one (1) the corporate strategies discussed in Chapter 4 and formulate a human resource strategy that will support the corporate strategy.

Cost leadership strategy is one that focuses on minimizing the cost as much as possible. This strategy allows the firm to charge the lowest possible prices for its products, thereby presumably generating an overall level of revenue. A human resource strategy that will support this corporate strategy would be:

a. Efficiency Ratio: keeping expenses low with earnings being high.

b. Learning Curve: maintaining training and continues training of employee's.

c. Good Purchasing approach: acquiring goods or services to accomplish the goals of the firm.

d. Maintaining latest technology: helps maintain inventory control, which in return helps ensure products to customers.

e. Strategic marketing mix to help ensure market leadership

f. Superior customer service: series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction.