In an organization, human resources play a key role because HR is all about recruiting, training and monitoring employee performances and can impact organizational changes in many ways. The critical role that HR plays is the strategic partner that helping the management managing changes within the organization. Two ways that HR can play a strategic role in managing change for the organization are provided respectively in the following contents.

First of all, getting everyone from the top to bottom in an organization to work effectively to contribute to the success of the business is a strategic role of human resources in helping managing changes (Bratton, D. (2001)). Therefore, HR ought to ensure that the vision and culture are clearly understood by employees through appropriate communications. Additionally, HR should conduct appropriate trainings on employees to motivate employees in the change management programs to help the organization create and maintain competitive advantages. HR needs to ensure that employees collaborate with each other and the value is created through the commitment to fostering organizational goal and performance according to the CVF framework.

For example, communication is the most important part during the cultural change of Oticon, a Danish professional high-quality hearing aid manufacturer. Employees clearly understand the culture of the organization on and engaged in the change management, contributing to the success of the change of Oticon (Kao, J. (2001)).

Second, HR should get the strategy implemented effectively in the organization (Bratton, D. (2001)). In brief, HR should have the ability to recognize when and how to change. This is seen as a must-have ability of human resources by Cornell University (Change Management and Organizational Effectiveness for the HR Professional. (2013, October 14)). How we measure whether HR meets the future needs of the organization is a leverage that HR succeeds in both formulation and implementation of the strategy.

Here is an example of my Aunt Ms. Li, who is an HR manager of a hospital in Sichuan province in China. She is in charge of the whole HR department and the HR department deals with professional and technical personnel management. Specifically, they are responsible for drafting the hospital middle management cadre qualification, competition for employment, assessment and other programs in relevant to the top management ‘s concepts. In addition, they care about employees, encourage personnel development of employees, as well as supervising their performances. At the end of the year, HR measures whether strategies are achieved with any efforts and summarizes employee performance evaluation table and sets up meetings with problem employees to discuss on issues they have.

As HR plays a strategic role in the organization, they should assure that HR strategies are aligned to the business strategies. This is the challenging part, because HR has to make sure the strategies are realistic. However, many critics have called attention to that HR plays more as an administrative expert than a strategic partner (Lawler, E. (2014, February 11)). In addition, from 1995 to 2010, data showed that HR spent most of their time dealing with implementation and administration of HR strategies and performances.

References

Bratton, D. (2001). Chapter8: Human Resources and Managing Strategic Change. In Best practices: Strategic human resources management (pp. 8-15). Toronto: Carswell.

Kao, J. (2001). Oticon (A), 1-18.

Change Management and Organizational Effectiveness for the HR Professional. (2013, October 14). Retrieved November 17, 2015, from http://www.cornellhrreview.org/change-management-and-organizational-effectiveness-for-the-hr-professional/

Gardner, N., Gardner, D., & Wolf, W. (2011, March 1). Question for your HR chief: Are we using our ‘people data’ to create value? Retrieved November 17, 2015, from http://www.mckinsey.com/insights/organization/question_for_your_hr_chief_are_we_using_our_people_data_to_create_value

Lawler, E. (2014, February 11). Retrieved November 17, 2015, from http://www.forbes.com/sites/edwardlawler/2014/02/11/hr-should-own-organizational-effectiveness/

Employees are considered as most valuable assets for organizations, human resources have extreme values. As a core department in organizations, HR plays a strategic and functional role, serving to motivate employees and maintain corporate culture of a high morale.

Since Beatty and Schneier (1997) have argued that HR must deliver economic value, here are two most apparent and effective ways that HR can deliver value for and contribute to your organizations.

To begin with, HR can identify and build advanced skills, competencies and capabilities that required fulfilling its strategic role. Simply speaking, HR needs to be adaptable to current business environment with relevant skills, rather than classically considered HR work such as payroll，staffing and recruiting. According to Brian Hults, a vice president for global organization and people development at Newell Rubbermaid (Hults, B. (2011, December 21)). Brian has successfully helped a company to change the way it went to market in the North America. In his company, HR acquired new skills essential for today’s business environment.

For instance, HR aligned their selling and support practices to the business realities. At this point, HR has successfully achieved its strategic thrusts, as well as adding measurable financial benefits to the company according to the HR scorecard measurements. In addition, HR has demonstrated to be a role as a strategic partner within the organization. This is what we have learned from Dr. Martha Reavley’s class at University of Windsor in Canada.

Furthermore, HR has to be able to manage talent acquisition and retention in the organization. In other words, HR should establish strong job designs, hiring the right people in the right position at the right time. As referred to a research conducted by Human Resources Professional Association, it states that CEOs expect their HR has capabilities of talent management and succession planning (Balthazard, C., & Robinson, S. (n.d.)).

For example, HR can plan and conduct some compensation systems and programs that benefit the creation of corporate culture. Therefore, employees are willing to stay in the corporation for a longer time with strong loyalty and think of themselves as part of the company. Employees are the most valuable recourses of the company. Here is a good example that happened on my friend around me. During my undergraduate study at Iowa State University in Ames, IA, U.S.A, my friend’s mother worked at Hy-vee grocery chain store there. Hy-vee had a very inspiring policy that every employee working at Hy-vee can invest some money in the company. Therefore, every employee can be a stakeholder of the company rather than just working for it. The policy makes great effort to engage and empower employees, because their compensation is related to the profits of the company. Employees work hard with passion, few of them want to quit. When employees are collaborating and they act as team builders and facilitators, the culture of will be clan and the value created is nurture to create sustainable competitive advantages to the organization according to the CVF framework we learned. This illustrates HR delivering values to your organization.

Generally speaking, HR nowadays plays more than simply defined roles. Definitely, HR delivers value to organizations in multiple ways. According to the above content, HR apparently create economic values indirectly to corporations and customers: employees with more qualitative work bring greater profits and customer services, while reducing costs associated with employee turnovers.

References

Hults, B. (2011, December 21). Why HR Really Does Add Value. Retrieved October 27, 15 28, 2015, from https://hbr.org/2011/12/why-hr-really-does-add-value

Balthazard, C., & Robinson, S. (n.d.). The Role and Future of HR: The CEO’s Perspective. Retrieved October 27, 15 28, 2015.

As generations collide, workforce has become more diverse. Not only do employees need to be prepared for continuing changes in workforce and multiple visions of future, but also employers must learn how to leverage and manage effectively.

Demographic pattern shift – Female labor participation

A research by RAND Corporation shows that demographic pattern shift is a trend in workforce (The Future at Work—Trends and Implications. (n.d.)). These shifts include evenly distributed age groups, stalely increasing female labor participation percentage, and increasing inflow of immigrants constituting the diversity of the workforce.

Sephora is a great example, as a chain of Cosmetic Company, hiring most female workers as sales representatives. Sephora always gives customers what we need at the first time as well as providing surprises to us. From my personal experience with Sephora, it always brings wonderful services. In addition, once I shopped at Sephora, it gave me birthday gifts at check out because I am a VIB Rouge. Sephora did make an unexpected surprise to me. Female labors compete aggressively and focus on customer, and their work is profitability-driven. Based on CVF, female labors are more competing because they emphasize on profits. While, it depends on different industry of companies whether female workers are collaborative or innovative.

Freelancers

Another trend is that large corporations will organize around the world and hire freelancers. According to the U.S Bureau of Labor Statistics, six million people nowadays in the United States choose to work part time (Green, J. (2015, August 18)).

It is obvious that part-time jobs give employees flexible time. People who are keen on part-time jobs have ideas that they do not want to commit to one job or employer. In other hands, freelancers can satisfy their long-term passions with different part-time jobs. Furthermore, corporations tend to focus more on results. Because corporations hire freelancers working on specific projects, resulting in a fast and qualitative work.

However, more freelancers may not be loyal enough to one corporation since they are flexible with one job and can switch whenever they want to. Additionally, corporations will find it hard to have freelancers understand their culture well and contribute to them with most effort. Why not organizations establish some benefit package for freelancers, so that they will be more willing to make effort to work for your corporations.

In general, both two trends state diverse future career options. I believe that we are going to face diverse workforce after graduation. Therefore, keeping gaining learning skills and getting career information updated is vital for us to prepare for our future career.

References

The Future at Work—Trends and Implications. (n.d.). Retrieved October 5, 2015, from http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_briefs/RB5070/RB5070.pdf

Green, J. (2015, August 18). Why 6 Million Americans Would Rather Work Part Time. Retrieved October 5, 2015, from http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-18/why-6-million-americans-would-rather-work-part-time