SHRM: Definition, Need and Importance

Strategic human resource management or SHRM is a branch of HRM. It emerged from the discipline of human resource management and is a fairly new field. Strategic HRM is 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 and competitive advantage.” SHRM in an organization means “to accept and involve the functions of HR as a strategic partner in formulating and implementing the company’s strategies through human resource activities which may involve recruiting, selecting, rewarding and training company personnel. In spite of the similarity in names, HRM and SHRM are two different practices; SHRM is basically a part of the complete HRM process. Besides that SHRM focuses more on long-term objectives rather than the in-house objectives with employees dealt by HRM. In the late 1980’s writers started stating strong opinions for a much more strategic approach to managing people than was the standard practice of that time. They clamored for the change of traditional management practices of industrial relations and people to the modern more improved ones.

The center point of SHRM is to address and solve problems that effect management programs centering on people in the long run and more than often globally. We can say that the main goal or objective of SHRM is to increase productivity not only in the employees but in the business overall, it achieves this by focusing on business problems and obstacles outside of the human resources range. SHRM identifies important human resource areas where strategies can be implied for the improvement of productivity and employee motivation. To achieve good results communication between human resource and top management of the organization is of utmost importance as cooperation is not possible without active participation.

KEY FEATURES OF SHRM

The key features of strategic human resource management are given below:

• Some organizing strategies or schemes link individual human resource interventions so that they are ‘mutually supportive’
• A great amount of responsibility is transferred down the line for the management of HR
• There is a precise link between overall organization strategy, organization environment, HR policies and practices.

DEVELOPMENT IN SHRM

In recent times HRM professionals have been facing challenges with employee participation, performance management, employee reward systems, high commitment work systems and human resource flow because of globalization. Traditional models and techniques have no place in today’s business world; also local companies which go global cannot use the same tactics in the global business world. Top managements and HR professionals that are involved in strategic human resource management face a wide range of issues which include some of the following:

• Rapid change in technology
• Introduction of new concepts of general management
• Globalization of market integration
• Increased competition, which may not necessarily be local
• Resultant corporate climates
• Constantly changing ownership