Free Custom «Redesigning the HR Function» Essay Paper

Abstract

The current business world is faced with a lot of changes emanating from various directions; technological changes, surprises from competitors, increased expectations by clients. The terrain has undergone many changes until we now have a fast changing global business environment. This implies that businesses also ought to be dynamic and improve on their performance by making their operations smarter, faster and cheaper. It is in this bid to create a future organization that the Human Resource department should undergo certain very important reforms (Bhatia, and Deep, 2008).

Introduction

The norm has always been that the Human Resource department only deals with issues of staff recruitment, training, management of staff performance, their security, payroll issues and benefits that accrue. In the current business environment, such roles and functions are only but mere table stakes. It is through evolution of Human Resource functions that a business will be able to experience a considerable improvement in its performance. Incase a business enterprise fails to set out a well-defined direction and find meaning in that, then it is going to face serious trouble (McNamara, 2009).

According to Deloitte Touché Tomahtsu (2009), it is the duty of the Human Resource department to ensure that the business is responsive to the dynamisms in the business world by providing the necessary assistance, also referred to as the performance support. They should collaborate with all the stakeholders to think and plan ahead. Through effective communication, a sense of ownership should be fostered so that everybody puts their creative minds into the works and come the time to implement they should ensure all they had planned comes to fruition. In this regard, the organization ought to adopt the position of Human Resource Chief Operating Officer as a way of restructuring the organization to replace the roles and structures that had been put in place decades ago.

Strategy

It is worth noting that the Human Resource component of an organization is what determines several other factors in an organization.  It is in this line that the department is used as a transformational driver. The strategies to employ in order to transform this include tactical schemes such as corporate restructuring, an acquisition and outsourcing.

Outsourcing

Following the changes taking place around us as a business, analyzing the market trends would require that we do benchmarking with competitors, examine our technological capability and also our business performance rating. It is paramount that the organization expands its operations and this would mean we increase our production capability. To experience a positive change in the organization, administrative operations handled by the human resource department together with certain strategic activities like global resource mobility and compliance talent management should be outsourced (Deloitte Touché Tomahtsu, 2009). Other formerly strategic operations of the Human Resource section should remain in-house. This undertaking ensures that emerging markets are identified and opportunities that lie within are exploited, customers receive high-end services with cost-efficient management and also provides great total rewards to the organization. Advantages of outsourcing include cost avoidance, improved customer service, reduced operational costs and a focused human resource aimed at value-addition.

In the talent management role, the contracting vendor must carry out an analysis of the market to be able to understand changing trends and needs of the labour market to enable the organization sell itself as attractive to top talent. People should be made to grow and improve their abilities using the Develop-Deploy-Connect Principle (Friedman and Gyr, 1998). The traditional system of dispatching managers to foreign states to carry out certain assignments should be replaced with global mobility that ought to be outsourced. The contracting company to this regard will put in place ways to enable cross-border operations, permanent moves, frequent corporate travels, both long-term and short-term assignments and international commuting.

Corporate restructuring

Already mentioned is the arrival of a Human Resource Chief Operating Officer who is to take charge of the whole process of human resource alignment with much anticipated rewards to the organization (Winning, 2005). This officer will be charged with among other things, turning around the organization's fortunes through cost-cutting measures, building a generation of leaders in the organization and coming up with much more effective services.

McNamara (2009) asserts that the Human Resource docket will be needed to balance its programs and services to be in line with changes taking place especially as far as administration is concerned. Alignment of the docket's functions with the organization's objectives is vital to realize great returns in the overall organizational goals. This portfolio should also continually improve its effectiveness and efficiency as far as its services and products are concerned. In the future, any plans to outsource: making decisions on what should be outsourced, selection of the company to outsource and management of the transition to outsourcing will be the responsibility of the human resource portfolio.

Mergers and acquisitions

Most businesses have a goal of growing and achieving great potentials. Human resource component of any organization has the ability to realize its goals of growth. One possible way of realizing growth is through mergers and acquisitions or take-overs. I would recommend acquisitions for the realization of organizational goals of growth. It is based on integration and execution. Acquisitions can be in the form of entry into new markets, for example in other countries. What is needed for us as an organization is a reusable toolbox and methods to make the process work while at the same time minimizing costs and risks (Friedman and Gyr, 1998).

Conclusion

It has been a necessity for the organization to rethink  on how it will transform itself to meet the changing requirements of the business market, with new and distinct roles of the human resource portfolio that have been designed to ensure improved performance within the whole organization. The focus should now be shifted from the question of what needs to be done and how it should be done to the implementation of this blueprint (McNamara, 2009).