In Human Resource (HR) and management circles nowadays there is much talk about Strategic Human Resource Management and many expensive books can be seen on the shelves of bookshops. But what exactly is SHRM (Strategic Human Resource Development), what are its key features and how does it differ from traditional human resource management?
SHRM or Strategic human resource management is a branch of Human resource management or HRM. It is a fairly new field, which has emerged out of the parent discipline of human resource management. Much of the early or so called traditional HRM literature treated the notion of strategy superficially, rather as a purely operational matter, the results of which cascade down throughout the organisation. There was a kind of unsaid division of territory between people-centred values of HR and harder business values where corporate strategies really belonged. HR practitioners felt uncomfortable in the war cabinet like atmosphere where corporate strategies were formulated.
Definition of SHRM
Strategic human resource management can be defined as the linking of human resources with strategic goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop organizational culture that foster innovation, flexibility and competitive advantage. In an organisation SHRM means accepting and involving the HR function as a strategic partner in the formulation and implementation of the company's strategies through HR activities such as recruiting, selecting, training and rewarding personnel.
How SHRM differs from HRM
In the last two decades there has been an increasing awareness that HR functions were like an island unto itself with softer people-centred values far away from the hard world of real business. In order to justify its own existence HR functions had to be seen as more intimately connected with the strategy and day to day running of the business side of the enterprise. Many writers in the late 1980s, started clamoring for a more strategic approach to the management of people than the standard practices of traditional management of people or industrial relations models. Strategic human resource management focuses on human resource programs with long-term objectives. Instead of focusing on internal human resource issues, the focus is on addressing and solving problems that effect people management programs in the long run and often globally. Therefore the primary goal of strategic human resources is to increase employee productivity by focusing on business obstacles that occur outside of human resources. The primary actions of a strategic human resource manager are to identify key HR areas where strategies can be implemented in the long run to improve the overall employee motivation and productivity. Communication between HR and top management of the company is vital as without active participation no cooperation is possible.
Key Features of Strategic Human Resource Management
The key features of SHRM are
* There is an explicit linkage between HR policy and practices and overall organizational strategic aims and the organizational environment
* There is some organizing schema linking individual HR interventions so that they are mutually supportive
* Much of the responsibility for the management of human resources is devolved down the line
Trends in Strategic Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management professionals are increasingly faced with the issues of employee participation, human resource flow, performance management, reward systems and high commitment work systems in the context of globalization. Older solutions and recipes that worked in a local context do not work in an international context. Cross-cultural issues play a major role here. These are some of the major issues that HR professionals and top management involved in SHRM are grappling with in the first decade of the 21st century:
* Internationalization of market integration.
* Increased competition, which may not be local or even national through free market ideology
* Rapid technological change.
* New concepts of line and general management.
* Constantly changing ownership and resultant corporate climates.
* Cross-cultural issues
* The economic gravity shifting from 'developed' to 'developing' countries
SHRM also reflects some of the main contemporary challenges faced by Human Resource Management: Aligning HR with core business strategy, demographic trends on employment and the labour market, integrating soft skills in HRD and finally Knowledge Management.
http://business-square.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/549585
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Project Resource Management
Project resource management involves facilitating the processes involved in handling the resources being used for a project. This involves quality control, ensuring that all resources are used properly. There are a lot of benefits that you can get when you use a project resource management tool, such as the following:
* The ability to store data would help you prepare improved bids for upcoming projects.
* Easy access to information that allows efficient and well-informed decisions about management and the project.
* Cost-efficiency and the ability to use time in its maximum potential, helping your business save money and deliver excellent results at the fastest time possible.
* Reduced manpower due to the high quality of documents. This reduces the need for meticulous control.
* Online access to documents and system enables easy collaboration to happen around the world.
* Integration with current methods and systems improve adoption to the tools and better performance for the whole project.
How is project resource management able to achieve such benefits? Although it seems that it is too ideal, an effective tool for project resource management would definitely be able to help you achieve excellence in the way you execute processes and in the end results of your project. Here are the features that you should look for when you look for a project resource management tool:
* Change management. You should be able to easily see the updates and changes as they happen in your project. A good monitoring system would help you better track your project. You should also be able to generate progress reports using your project resource management tool.
* Project management. You should be able to have access to the bigger picture and to what is happening to the project in summary. This would help you control your project better, and make wiser decisions about what you should do with your project.
* Materials management. This is very important for a business or a company to have. Materials comprise bulk of the resources of a company, and you should be able to track them at all costs and at all times. You have to be given full control of your materials every time you access your project resource management tool. The supply chain should be clearly shown, and you should also be given the ability to control the release of the materials. You would be ensured of correct procurement of materials with this. You can also update the predictions about how much materials are going to be used up in a certain time. Intelligently manage your materials by using a project resource management tool.
* Information management. Get accurate information about project statuses and reports about trends. This would give you a more effective management system, allowing you to have less risk and more effectiveness in the project.
* Procurement. You can easily control the life cycle of your procurements. You may enable your project resource management tool to proactively control the life cycle of the procurement in your supplies. You may also base shipping and dispatch on this.
* Design control. You can easily access your documents involving design. This ensures consistent management that transcends the whole project. You can experience significant improvements in the way you handle and exchange documents when you use a highly effective project resource management tool.
* Materials management. A construction firm would get a lot of benefits and uses for a project resource management tool that features materials management. You can easily track the deliveries, as well as the construction process that occurs every day. This allows you to have a more accurate record of your processes, letting you devise more intelligent plans in the future.
* Solutions. You can devise solutions using your project resource management tool. Find a tool that is modular, allowing you to devise partial and complete solutions for different issues that may arise in the project.
* Efficient implementation. You can easily implement changes, new processes and other items related to your project. You may also generate details and specifications, enabling you to easily implement and disseminate new information to all.
* Data input and output. It is of great advantage of your project resource management tool is integrated with other programs and applications such as Microsoft. Data that you enter is automatically updated in your tool, enabling you to have a more updated and controlled data management centre. You can also look for a resource tool that offers report-making tools and other such materials.
As you go through a project, all processes should be carefully planned and properly executed. After that, you have to deal with evaluation and other conclusive methods. With that, it is highly important that you get a tool which would help you manage all your project resources such as manpower, materials, money, time and energy.
If you have a large project, it is highly important that you know how to deal with even the littlest details. It is a large and difficult job to track all the events in a project. But with the correct project resource management tool, you can efficiently and intelligently manage your project. The results that you would get are incomparable as to when you do everything manually and without following a system. As soon as you start with a project management tool, you can immediately feel the ease and the comfort of having all that you need in a single system. Start looking for the best tool for your business now.
http://business-square.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3665180
* The ability to store data would help you prepare improved bids for upcoming projects.
* Easy access to information that allows efficient and well-informed decisions about management and the project.
* Cost-efficiency and the ability to use time in its maximum potential, helping your business save money and deliver excellent results at the fastest time possible.
* Reduced manpower due to the high quality of documents. This reduces the need for meticulous control.
* Online access to documents and system enables easy collaboration to happen around the world.
* Integration with current methods and systems improve adoption to the tools and better performance for the whole project.
How is project resource management able to achieve such benefits? Although it seems that it is too ideal, an effective tool for project resource management would definitely be able to help you achieve excellence in the way you execute processes and in the end results of your project. Here are the features that you should look for when you look for a project resource management tool:
* Change management. You should be able to easily see the updates and changes as they happen in your project. A good monitoring system would help you better track your project. You should also be able to generate progress reports using your project resource management tool.
* Project management. You should be able to have access to the bigger picture and to what is happening to the project in summary. This would help you control your project better, and make wiser decisions about what you should do with your project.
* Materials management. This is very important for a business or a company to have. Materials comprise bulk of the resources of a company, and you should be able to track them at all costs and at all times. You have to be given full control of your materials every time you access your project resource management tool. The supply chain should be clearly shown, and you should also be given the ability to control the release of the materials. You would be ensured of correct procurement of materials with this. You can also update the predictions about how much materials are going to be used up in a certain time. Intelligently manage your materials by using a project resource management tool.
* Information management. Get accurate information about project statuses and reports about trends. This would give you a more effective management system, allowing you to have less risk and more effectiveness in the project.
* Procurement. You can easily control the life cycle of your procurements. You may enable your project resource management tool to proactively control the life cycle of the procurement in your supplies. You may also base shipping and dispatch on this.
* Design control. You can easily access your documents involving design. This ensures consistent management that transcends the whole project. You can experience significant improvements in the way you handle and exchange documents when you use a highly effective project resource management tool.
* Materials management. A construction firm would get a lot of benefits and uses for a project resource management tool that features materials management. You can easily track the deliveries, as well as the construction process that occurs every day. This allows you to have a more accurate record of your processes, letting you devise more intelligent plans in the future.
* Solutions. You can devise solutions using your project resource management tool. Find a tool that is modular, allowing you to devise partial and complete solutions for different issues that may arise in the project.
* Efficient implementation. You can easily implement changes, new processes and other items related to your project. You may also generate details and specifications, enabling you to easily implement and disseminate new information to all.
* Data input and output. It is of great advantage of your project resource management tool is integrated with other programs and applications such as Microsoft. Data that you enter is automatically updated in your tool, enabling you to have a more updated and controlled data management centre. You can also look for a resource tool that offers report-making tools and other such materials.
As you go through a project, all processes should be carefully planned and properly executed. After that, you have to deal with evaluation and other conclusive methods. With that, it is highly important that you get a tool which would help you manage all your project resources such as manpower, materials, money, time and energy.
If you have a large project, it is highly important that you know how to deal with even the littlest details. It is a large and difficult job to track all the events in a project. But with the correct project resource management tool, you can efficiently and intelligently manage your project. The results that you would get are incomparable as to when you do everything manually and without following a system. As soon as you start with a project management tool, you can immediately feel the ease and the comfort of having all that you need in a single system. Start looking for the best tool for your business now.
http://business-square.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/3665180
Resource Management and Strategy
Resource management is like managing a matrix; each side influences the other.
Resource management is not a separate branch of management, but part of the organizing activities of each and every management discipline.
A marketing manager should take care of its resources, in the same way as an operations manager, IT, Financial or Human Resource Manager would do.
To manage the resources for the (current) operation you are to solve demands for resources with available supply. For the operations managers, this activity is part of the normal planning process, focused on availability of (human) resources; "who is doing what and when?"
Human resources, like you and me, are the managers of the other type of resources. Organizations are more capitalized than before and systems are a prominent "member" of these. There are different kinds of systems, but most of them share the characteristics that they are dedicated to a specific task or process. That is probably because people design them, and such a design is always owned by someone; the sales managers owns the sales management system. The marketing department controls the campaign management tools and the operational department supervises the enterprise resource planning. Managing these systems require a different kind of resource management. Where an employee can be hired in a flexible way nearly at the moment you need them, systems can only be planned long in advance.
One category influences the other. Employees and designers influence and steer the design of systems, and in turn the system that is delivered influences the way in which activities will be organized. More capital - information systems or medical systems in case of a health care institution - requires more skilled and knowledgeable jobs. And this requires a constant training and education.
A third resource category is used by everybody in the organization. This resource solves issues like security; "nobody gets unauthorized access through our building or through our site." Today it is easier to hack the system of an organization than to enter their building physically. Especially for those companies that exists only virtually.
This resource type also enables teamwork and networking between the different parts of the organization, by providing "groupware;" functionality that enable people to communicate, to access and update the memory of the organization. Sharing information and knowledge. The owner of these facilities is less visible which complicates the management of this resource category.
http://business-square.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/172707
Resource management is not a separate branch of management, but part of the organizing activities of each and every management discipline.
A marketing manager should take care of its resources, in the same way as an operations manager, IT, Financial or Human Resource Manager would do.
To manage the resources for the (current) operation you are to solve demands for resources with available supply. For the operations managers, this activity is part of the normal planning process, focused on availability of (human) resources; "who is doing what and when?"
Human resources, like you and me, are the managers of the other type of resources. Organizations are more capitalized than before and systems are a prominent "member" of these. There are different kinds of systems, but most of them share the characteristics that they are dedicated to a specific task or process. That is probably because people design them, and such a design is always owned by someone; the sales managers owns the sales management system. The marketing department controls the campaign management tools and the operational department supervises the enterprise resource planning. Managing these systems require a different kind of resource management. Where an employee can be hired in a flexible way nearly at the moment you need them, systems can only be planned long in advance.
One category influences the other. Employees and designers influence and steer the design of systems, and in turn the system that is delivered influences the way in which activities will be organized. More capital - information systems or medical systems in case of a health care institution - requires more skilled and knowledgeable jobs. And this requires a constant training and education.
A third resource category is used by everybody in the organization. This resource solves issues like security; "nobody gets unauthorized access through our building or through our site." Today it is easier to hack the system of an organization than to enter their building physically. Especially for those companies that exists only virtually.
This resource type also enables teamwork and networking between the different parts of the organization, by providing "groupware;" functionality that enable people to communicate, to access and update the memory of the organization. Sharing information and knowledge. The owner of these facilities is less visible which complicates the management of this resource category.
http://business-square.com/
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/172707
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