Strategic Linkages

9/4/10

Week 1

"Strategic Linkages"

1. Why do you think is it important for HR to be a strategic partner to the business?

Organizations that consider their employees to be the most valuable asset cannot afford to not have human resources functioning in a true strategic business partner role. Human Resource professionals are equipped with the knowledge, skills, and abilities, the talent to partner with senior leadership to not only be involved in the strategic management of the organization but drive the implementation of it. Business oriented HR professionals can help design a strategic plan that balances the needs of the organization, its employees, and other stakeholders. It can help align the efforts of the various functions in the organization with the plan's strategic goals, and it can support those functions by ensuring that they can recruit, develop, and retain the necessary company team members. HR, as strategic business partners should be the drivers of the organizations values thus the drivers of the strategic plan.

2. What benefits do you think the employees derive from this arrangement?

The benefits of human resource to be a strategic partnership are numerous. Good human resource management/partnership strategies make a lot of difference in the output given by the employees. The last few decades have seen drastic changes in the human resource management strategies employed by companies. Earlier, human resource management was confined to paperwork related to hiring and payment of the staff in an organization. However, human resource management can now be described as all the procedures required for the management of the people working in an organization. The most valuable resources of any establishment are its employees, as they play a crucial role in the accomplishment of the aims and objectives of any business. Key staff members joining into a partnership that work together towards a goal have proven to be a positive way to get business done well.

3. What do you think are the risks involved (to HR, the organization as a whole) if HR does not make this a priority and instead remains a purely task-oriented department mostly administrative in nature?

Businesses are confronted by many different types of risk: production, marketing, financial, legal, and human. Managers generally spend most of their time dealing with production, marketing, financial, and legal risks and give little consideration to human resource risk and how the absence of key personnel can affect their business. This is a serious oversight because people are the key component in many risk manage¬ment strategies. Human resource risks are events that prevent employ¬ees from fulfilling their responsibilities

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