Boxall's three-pronged approach to employment relationship alignment and mutuality

¶ … Mutuality in the Management of Human Resources: Assessing the Quality of Alignment in Employment Relationships

In this article, Boxall (2013) addresses the key issue of managers improving individual and organizational interests. If these align, there will be a more cohesive nature to the organization and employees will be happier and work harder. It is up to the Human Resources (HR) department to foster that cohesiveness and mutuality right from the beginning. That starts with hiring the right people, and moves through consideration of those people as they become more qualified for various tasks, roles, and titles throughout the life of the company. The article was written to help HR identify and consider the specific areas of mutuality that are most important to the organization, so the right people can be chosen for the right roles and everyone can benefit from the relationship (Boxall, 3). Human resources is a department in the organization, but also a term for the skill set a person has. Therefore, HR must find people with the best human resources for the organization in question (Boxall, 4).

Methodology was very important in this article, but rather unique. It involved analyzing the mutuality in human resources through a series of three tests. These were all tests of "alignment," and the author looked at the issue from both sides. The tests were: capability match, commitment match, and contribution match (Boxall, 5-10). In order to determine the value of people who were interviewed by HR and whether these people would be a good match for the company in terms of capability, commitment, and contribution, Boxall studied all three issues through the use of previous literature that had discussed those issues thoroughly. By addressing the issue in this way, and with a three-pronged approach, the author was able to speculate as to what kinds of employees would provide mutual benefit to different types of companies, and for what reasons.

The conclusion reached by the author was that mutuality in employment relationships could provide a significant benefit to employees and to employees (Boxall, 13). Both the company and the employee must receive value in the relationship, or there is a likelihood of the endeavor being unsuccessful. Additionally, both the employer and the employee must bring value to the equation in a way the other party can appreciate or utilize, or there will not be value seen by that other party (Boxall, 13). The author believes that a thorough analysis of what the company offers coupled with a good understanding of what a particular candidate for employment can bring to the organization can result in better matches for any type of business (Boxall, 13). That provides the greatest value to everyone involved, and also utilizes both the HR department and the human resources that each person has as a skill set in the most logical way possible to provide the highest benefits.