HR Management Essay

Innovation is identified as one of the viable ways of ensuring a sustainable competitive advantage for organisations in the modern highly competitive global market economy. Innovative practices in an organisation are solely dependent on the skills, qualifications and objective commitment of the company workforce towards the underlying goals of the organisation (Korman & Kraut, 1999, p. 31). This dictates for the recruitment, training and retention of the best and reliable employees in any organisation. Still, another important practice for ensuring innovative strategic practices in organisation is by ensuring the implementation of an effective employee engagement policy (Tyson, 2006, p. 41). Such serve to promote the commitment and thus the productive ability of the employees to the firm. Therefore, since human resource management services the purpose of recruiting, training, and retaining as well as motivating employees, it has a key role to play in developing innovative strategic practices in order to contribute to organisational performance in today’s rapidly changing economy. This essay will identify some ways in which human resource management can engage in enhancing innovative practices in the company. In order to ensure the sustainable realisation of innovative strategies in an organisation, human resource management should engage in recruiting skilled and qualified workforce for the organisation (Jackson & Schuller 1996, p. 51). It has been sufficient established that new employees bring with them new ideas into the organisation. Therefore, as an important role by the human resource department to conduct employee recruitment, it should ensure a free and fair recruitment process that is based on qualification and individual personality compatibility to the set corporate ethical conduct of conduct in the company. Another important practice by the human resource management department is to engage in effective employee training programmes which are reflective of the underlying competitive needs of the organisation (Storey & Sisson 2000, p. 8). Marketplace demands are evidently changing constantly just as technologies and innovative products are flooding the market. All these are creating new loopholes for stiff competition in the market economy. Due to this reason, human resource management is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that employees in the various company departments are equipped with the knowledge necessary to act more competitively against those of other competing organisations (Ulrich, Husel id, & Becker 2001, p. 73). Due to the importance of engaging employees in training programs based on informed decisions, which are reflective of the market demand, human resource management should be on the forefront in studying, qualifying, and quantifying the constant swings in the market trend (Tyson 2006, p. 38). This makes an effective human resource management practice more than just striving to ensure a productive workforce for the organisation. Another important aspect for the realisation of effective employee training is devoted involvement of the human resource in influencing the decision making process in the organisation (Carroll, Gupta, & Martell, 1996, p. 3). This aids in persuading the company management in appreciating the need and thus factoring enough company resources for executing employee training programs. Still, it has been evidently claimed that the human resource management should endeavour in identifying skills and talents among the various employees of the organisation (Carroll, Gupt a, & Martell 1996, p. 21). Just to be appreciated here is the fact that not all qualified members of the workforce have the reliable innovative and leadership skills required for sustaining the competitive advantage of the organisation in the marketplace. Therefore, training programmes in the organisation should only be prioritised for the highly talented workforce. Retention of employees is another important human resource management practice for promoting sustainable innovative strategic practices in an organisation (Korman, & Kraut 1999, p 46). The loss of reliable employees in an organisation is found to impact negatively on the sustainable competitive advantage of the organisation. This is closely attributed to two reasons. First is the high costs incurred by the organisation in nurturing their skills. The second reason is the fact that the company risks loosing its business secrets to their competitors (Korman, & Kraut 1999, p. 49). It is due to this reason why employee engagement remains an important function of human resource management as it enhances employee fulfilment and thus retention. To realise constant innovative practices in the organisation, human resource managers should be more of leaders than managers. By so doing they motivate and inspire the workforce to engage in innovative activities as well as providing suggestions on possible solutions to challenges affecting the organisation (Storey & Sisson, 2000). Another important practice for human resource management is ensuring effective organisational succession practices. This is crucial in ensuring sustainable continuation of the innovative strategic practices in the organisation, a factor that helps in realising and sustaining a competitive business advantage for the organisation in the marketplace. In conclusion, human resource management is the most important function for realising a practical long term innovative strategic practices in a company. The HR is responsible for recruiting, nurturing, and retaining skilled and talented workforce for the organisation (Storey & Sisson, 2000). To achieve this, human resource management should engage in conducting recruitments and employee training programmes based on the competitive market demands of the time. On the question of employee retention, human resource managers should act like employee leaders to inspire innovation while enhancing openness among employees to identify and resolve any eminent problems. This enhances employee commitment in executing company objectives.