a new mandate. group 7. sec c

8/7/2019 A new mandate. Group 7. Sec C

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Assignment: 1

Summary and Critical Review

Of the Article

A New Mandate for Human Resources

(By Dave Ulrich)

Submitted to

Prof. Nisha Nair

Submitted by

Group 7, Section C

Inderpreet Singh Saini

Manish Parmar

Neeraj Gupta

Vinay Yadav

Rupam Pathak

Vinay Yadav

Maher Sri Ravula

Executive Summary



In the recent years many people in the business have been debating whether HR

is relevant anymore or not, because there is a prevalent doubt that HR doesn’t

add any value to the organizational performance. But the fact is that the kind of

competitive challenges that business managers face today and will continue to

face in the future make the HR function much more relevant and imperative to

provide a competitive advantage to the business. Because these challenges

demand organisational excellence (OE) which is an HR issue.

Achievement of the OE requires a shift in the way a typical HR department

works. The focus needs move from one of performing routine operational

activities to working at a strategic level to improve organizational performance.

The responsibility of helping HR move towards this strategic role lies primarily

with the top management and the line managers who have the ultimate

responsibility for creating value an organization proposes to its environment.

Why HR is more imperative today?

Organizations these days face the following five competitive challenges which

can be taken care of only with the help of a strategic HR department.

1. Globalization

Companies today are truly global, and their international operations are no

longer limited to export of commodities and goods to other countries. All

the resources of the company, the people, ideas, products and entire

operations have to be truly global and have to be located in different

countries to meet their needs.

Hence a strategy decision made in such an organization becomes all the

more complex as various other factors like local political situations;

exchange rates etc come into the picture.

2. Profitability through Growth

Most companies have been making efforts to reduce costs, improve

processes thereby increasing efficiency. They are at such a stage where

most of these methods have been exhausted and future increase in profitshas to come from growth. This has led to a large number of mergers,

acquisitions, joint ventures etc. In order to integrate different cultures and

organizations, a high level of skills is required to ensure a smooth

transition.

3. Technology

Technology has been changing at a very fast rate and there is a need to

continuously adapt and better utilize the technological advances.Managers should be able to keep abreast and in tune with the latest



advances and should be able to immediately make use of them to gain a

competitive advantage.

4. Intellectual Capital

Knowledge has become a major competitive advantage for most

companies. The ability to retain the best people in the organization and

providing superior service to customers, has been a major reason for the

success of most global organizations.

5. Change

Resistance to change is inherent in most organizations, and to overcome

that resistance and to be willing to embrace change is the greatest

competitive advantage that a company can have. There must be a drive to

continuously transform the organization, to make rapid decisions and to

continuously stay ahead of the competition.

The new role of HR

The challenges described above make it clear that an effective and efficientorganization is the only competitive advantage that a company has today,

because all other forms of competitiveness (Cost, technology, distribution etc)

can be easily copied by competitors. The only way to succeed stems from a

highly agile and responsive organization that has efficient processes and a

responsive culture. Thus the new role of HR to respond to the above discussed

challenges, involve the following four critical activities.

1. Becoming a Partner in Strategy Execution

Though strategy formation is the job of the company’s executive team, HR

should be involved in the discussion of how the company should beorganized to successfully execute the strategy. Creating the conditions for

this discussion involve the following four steps

o HR should be held responsible for defining an organizational culture.

Several frameworks like Galbraith’s star model or McKinsey’s 7S

framework can be used for performing this exercise. Such clarity is

required in order to understand how a particular strategic decision

would be executed in the organization.

o HR should be accountable for conducting an organizational audit. By

performing such an audit, the company can identify what areas or



processes of the organization need to be changed in order to

facilitate strategy execution.

o HR should identify methods for renovating the parts of the

organizational architecture that need it. New approaches which help

improve processes in the organization should be brought in as andwhen necessary.

o HR should take stock of its own work and set clear priorities. It

should ensure that its goals are in line with the overall strategy of

the organization.

2. Becoming an Administrative Expert

In addition to taking on the new role of a strategic partner, HR shouldensure that it optimizes its day to day operational activities as well. Not

only will this help reduce costs, it will also help create a good image of the

HR as a department capable of being a strategy partner in the

organization.

3. Becoming an Employee Champion

HR should be held accountable for ensuring that employees are satisfied

and are happy in the organization. HR should educate the line

management in the need and ways of achieving high employee morale.

They should voice the concerns of the employees in front of th

management and ensure that their problems are resolved.

4. Becoming a Change Agent

Given the high need for change in today’s environment, HR needs to act

as an agent to ensure that the organization is geared to adapt to change,

and to continuously innovate and improve the organization. There is a lot

of resistance to change in organizations, and it is up to the HR to

overcome this resistance.

Changes in the role of Line Managers

As important it is for the HR managers to change, it is equally and perhaps more

important for the top management and the line managers to change to support

a new mandate. group 7. sec c

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