4-3 Employees as a source of competitive advantage

Question 1

HR Causal Chain Model’ (Adapted from Purcell & Hutchinson 2007)

Answer 1

Intended HR Practices → Actual HR Practices(Line Manager) → Experienced HR Practices →Employee Attitudes → Employee Behaviour → Performance Outcomes

Question 2

3. Sections or Organisation the HR Functions:

Answer 2

1. Functional HR
2. Shared services HR
3. Embedded HR

Question 3

Functional HR is

Answer 3

– a centralised form with specialists in each area of HR practice. This format suits a single business type of organisation.

Question 4

Shared services HR

Answer 4

– in this format there is generally a distinction between transaction work (administrative functions such as payroll), which may be centralised, undertaken by service centres or outsourced, and transformation work (strategic customer-focused value-adding activities, such as change management), which balances corporate control with business unit autonomy.

This form best suits an organisational context in which an organisation is structured into diversified businesses.

Question 5

Embed HR is where

Answer 5

HR works within business units as HR generalists, business partners or account managers, who support the HR strategies of the business units.

Corporate HR sets a general HR framework and may provide process tools for business unit HR professionals, and corporate HR interventions may be limited to providing leadership development activities, for example.

This form of organisation particularly suits a holding company context.

As the growth of the shared-service model from the 1990s has shown, outsourcing has become increasingly popular and may be justified on the grounds of reducing costs, the concentration of HR effort to more value-adding activities and obtaining expertise not available within the organisation (Armstrong, 2006).

Question 6

HR Administration more likely includes:

Answer 6

1. recruitment
2. induction
3. internal transfers and promotions
4. provision of temporary staff
5. training and employee development
6. relocation
7. expatriates/international assignments
8. remuneration and benefits
9. contracts of employment
10. payroll
11. maintenance and management of employee records
12. performance management and appraisal processes
13. liaison with and management of third-party suppliers’ leavers
14. provision of references (where data-driven)
15. supply of HR information and metrics pensions