Ways_in_Which_Hr_Departments_Are_Coping_with_the_Challenges_of_Shrm

Strategic human resource management is basically designed to assist organisations in meeting the needs of their employees in the best way possible so that the organisation's goal can be promoted. In other words we can say that SHRM is actually about managing people proactively because it makes room for planning on how the organisation can meet the need of it employees so that invariably the employees can think ahead on factors that would help them achieve the overall organisation's goal. -Auditing Performance Here the human resource departments set up service level agreements and clear expectations of HR roles. This practice has been prevalent in costing HR's contribution and also used as a basis for open tendering of services whereby the in-house function is open to competition from private sector HR consultancy. The objective of HR function is to ensure that the investement in personnel and training can be justified in business terms. It is therefore based on cost-effectiveness, contribution service and the way best practice is followed. The information needed to audit includes operational data, costs, time spent on activities, the costs of external services and departmental structure. Devolution of HR activities The main aim of devolution is to ensure a more business-led personal response to employment issues. It involves the reallocation of personnel activities from specialists either to -line managers -other specialists such as the financial controller or company secretary -other locations away from the main headquarters of the organisation HR departments adopt two roles, either as a -specialised service -generalised service These can be centralised or decentralized, although specialist services such as compensation or industrial relations are often retained centrally. Devolution of any these various activities can be a function of either a decision making authority or the day to day management activities. HR departments frequently retain strategic areas of the HR functions such as -pay review processes -design of appraisal schemes -policy making sometimes HR depts also retain operational activities such as monitoring of performance, provision of advice about disciplinary cases and the co-ordination of training. Here are some of the activities that are likely to be devolved -interview process -disciplinary interviews -job needs analysis -negotiation of overtime and other work practices -Decentralizing HR functions In overall, organisations tend to centralise activities to achieve more control of processes and costs, whereas decentralized activities are thought to allow companies to become more flexible to speed up the decision making process and also to become closer to their customer base. Such influencing factors are -the size of the organisation -the influence and diversification of businesses and market There are implications for the management of people, centralised structures tend to emphasize the development of specialist skills and knowledge while decentralized structures lend themselves well to developing flexible management and employee skills and cross functional working which is required for todays dynamic business environment.