Integration of strategy in organizational management

¶ … role played by human resource management is typical in most large organizations is that it created a channel of communication between management and employees. By integrating a strategy where planning is closely monitored and communicated to the employees, makes the transition and period of uncertainty easier for everyone involved to experience. In all the organizations discussed in the text, all of them went through some sort of change internally. It is human nature that change, if not presented with integrity and honesty, is difficult to handle at the employee level. It is human resource management's job to act as an intermediary so that all parts of the organization can understand the changes and work through them. As a result of these changes, each company was able to implement new or improved programs that promoted training and employee retention or in other words, a better work environment where growth and personal gain were valued. This makes the changes implemented a positive. It was the role of human resources management to make sure that the changes could result in positive outcomes. Really it is the ability for all areas of the organization to work toward the common goal that makes the outcome positive.

Question 2:

What makes the strategic role of human resource management in the U.S. Navy case different from the others is that rather than focus on the here and now of how to help employees grow and communicate, they were focusing on the future and what steps can be made to understand future hiring of new labor and the costs related to these practices. Overall the outcome was positive in that the planners were able to provide the Navy with lower labor costs by studying present labor costs and looking at changes in the market to anticipate future labor costs. This case was more centered on the factor of cost than the actual employee and the relationships between employees and management. This study was not looking at actual changes to benefit the employee but to benefit the federal government's bottom line of the dollar and cost effectiveness.

Question 3:

In the market place today there are a number of factors that stimulate changes for an organization. These factors are considered environmental influences and can vary depending on the industry that organization is part of. For People's Bank it was the influence of changing interest rates and the regulations of banking products. These changes caused traditional products to lose market strength and lead to the industry having to diversify itself with other more cutting edge products to meet customer expectation. For the Navy, the influence of cost and shifting labor played a big role in their study and forecast of future costs. By looking at different job classifications, the planners were able to trim down labor by reorganizing the labor structure of civilian jobs. This can be easy to do when there is a clear chain of command in place. Ingersoll-Rand's was suffering from growing pains. Human resources management stepped in to offer training to employees as new technology was being introduced. With this in mind, it is safe to say that not only did the company's rate of growth influence the strategy but also the need to have new technologies implemented in order to say competitive with rivals. For Maid Bess the issue of labor intensity and costs also played a role in making changes that would retain employees. They saw a need to focus on the employee to make their company a better place to work and therefore, remaining at a competitive advantage.

Question 4:

The managerial trends seen in these case studies are varied. It seems management has its hands full with concerns of labor, costs, competition, market share and overall growth both of the company and employee. Change is a big issue as these trends in order to keep up and stay cutting edge require implementation of change. Also it appears that human resources management plans a great role in keeping communication open between management and employees. This betters the chances of trends having a positive influence on business outcomes. It is an integral element of strategy that an organization must remain ahead of trends or at least be aware of existing trends as to take advantage of selling to that market. When it comes to trends, the name of the game is profit and how to maximize a trend or minimize its negative influence. A good example of this is People's Bank in that they saw a trend and took it as a sign of rethinking the strategy. They implemented the strategy, which resulted in a complete restructuring but it paid off in the long-run.

Question 5: