HRM: Transformation Tool-box

Two decades ago, company’s growth rode on the back of “change”, the magic word. To achieve phenomenal growth, you must “restructure, declutter and delayer” your organisation.

But today, there is a definite shift. The focus is on company’s unique systemic advantages that competitors cannot copy. You must continuously reinforce internal integrated systems to keep you in the game and also give you the enablement to outpace others.

What is required today especially because of the uncertain economic climate is the portfolio of organisation’s collective knowledge or core competencies.

Driving successfully, value chains or inbound and outbound logistics is dependent on how you manage and deploy resources as well as capabilities.

The building blocks for growth are the assets used as inputs for the production process. These are capabilities and core competencies which would ultimately yield the potentials for sustainable competitive advantage.

The production process uses the combination of tangibles and intangibles. Tangible resources are the physical assets and financial resources, while the intangibles are human resources, culture, brand or reputation and technology.

Human resources provide the skills, knowledge, ideas, motive, attitude and value-adding collaboration of high performing teams.

There are market values for the tangible resources unlike the human resources which are less mobile and essentially, contribute more towards the creation of superior competitive advantage.

Steve Jobs, late founder of the Apple Brand for instance said, in order to create great products, great marketing and great distribution, “our company operated with incredibly collaborative teams. We organised ourselves as a start-up. Every employee took part in discussing the whole business. We operated tremendous teamwork at the top and tremendous teamwork on the shop floor. We trust each other to come through with our roles. We run by ideas and there was no hierarchy. There were regular arguments but the best ideas won.”

Human Resources Management must pivot the new deal. Team members must be encouraged to get into the field and display agility and trust. HRM must support the creation of new ideas, imagination, visualization and clarity. There must be collective vision on how the corporate vision would be achieved. We might make mistakes but please, do it again. There must be cohesion of thoughts, actions and intellectually-thought-through information.

Today, HRM must effectively manage the trinity of organizational development which is: diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). The department is the sure link between the three pillars of people management (most especially, motivation), workflow and production processes.

This department ensures effectiveness and efficiency as well as give best practices the much-needed boost.

According to Jeffrey Pfeffer, we can achieve competitive advantage through people. The model is called The Human Equation, that is, “building profits by putting people first.” HR best practices he added, would definitely increase organisation’s profit. The best practices include, providing security for employees through two contracts: the formal labour for money contract and the informal which is: “when you put some extra effort, we take good care of you.”

The second, according to Jeffrey Pfeffer is selective hiring. He explained that because “people is the organisation’s greatest asset, we must hire only people who add value.” Research, he said, “show that the difference in performance between an average performer and a high performer can be as high as 400 percent.” Organisations must use personality assessments, work tests and reference checks as tools for right selections.

An effective HRM must also be seen to be directly supporting team work by getting involved in how teams are organized. The department must be involved in measuring team performance, rewarding team excellence, advising management on techniques and tools to facilitate teamwork. Collaboration at the small and larger levels of team work, would indeed help build an efficient and profitable organisation.

HRM is more pivotal today than ever because leadership is no longer “the leaders-know-all, top-down” model. There is a “profitable shift performance” today that enables leaders to connect with teams in order to influence them. Leaders must support teams to communicate vision and purpose. Teams would perform excellently if they are aligned with purpose.

With HRM as the innovative and strategic hub, organisations would definitely pull through the seven (7) core competences of superior leadership.

First is humility. For a leader to have influence, employees must be convinced that you value them. He must also be open to constructive criticisms and always encourage feed backs. No one knows it all.

Adaptability is the willingness of the leader “to change and adjust when there is a new information.” The leader must always be ready to change his perspective and approach.

The leader must have the ability to communicate and possess a clear vision as well as purpose. A clearly articulated vision garnished with insight is a core competence.

Engagement by asking the right questions when interacting with teams is essential. The effective leader must listen and pick-up cues.

Questioning the “usual side” is what makes up this core competency of real employee engagement.

We must at all times, create awareness of opportunities and threats. The leader must understand what impacts the organisation internally and from competition. Solutions to the impacts must be promptly provided and implemented.

The leader must be a man or woman of intuition. He must understand how to make quick decisions with data.

In conclusion, the leader must always support teams to make quality and superior decisions. We must not relent in “making all these shifts in order to keep ourselves in business and also outpace others.”

 

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