Strategic Global Human Resource Management

Question: Discuss about theStrategic Global Human Resource Management. Answer: This paper is an argumentative essay on human resource management (HRM) case study. It addresses the role of the strategic HRM as well as other challenges the HRM faces in a flexible work environment designed by a case study law firm named Justita, a winner of the AHRI Sir Ken Robinson Award, for workforce flexibility. As a law firm Justitia aimed at developing a business model whose activities pays great attention to work-life balance as opposed to other firms that payed great attention to value of the income associated with billable hours of the employees. The founders of this law firm were also interested in fostering the talent of the women lawyers as well as creating harmonious work relationship between clients and members of staff. For a long time now many corporates around the world base their business models majorly on profit model. The most important aspect in these organisations is the revenue and profit generated by the company. Much attention is not given to the other side of the staff i.e. the social welfare. It is therefore important for firms such as Justitia to expand the boundaries to all new level so that other firms can learn from them and realize that it can still work for the companies to mind about the social welfare of the employees at the same time keeping an eye on their profit model. It also highlights the fact that work in firms should not be based on activities but results. Someone can be at work the whole day and still effectively does not add much value at work. Another person can work a few hours and he/she delivers on the work description effectively. This paradigm shift in way organisations work also serves as an example of how organisations can be empowering in nature rather than adm inistrative in nature. The output of employees or members of staff of an organisation either collectively or individually is greatly dependant on their social wellbeing as much as work expertise. Therefore when an organisation is empowering in nature it motivates the staff to post impressive performances which in turn boosts the performance of the organisation. It also highlight the fact that change should not be slow and fragmented rather it should be proactive and systematic. Justitia could have as well not embraced this kind of business model because the motive was not profit based rather it was more of work-life balance. In this case it the paradigm shift in business model espoused by Jutitia serves as a leader in encouraging other companies to embrace change in a proactive and systematic manner as it is beneficial to both members of staff and the organisation. (Lussier, Hendon, n.d.) When adapting the approach such as one taken by Justitia, a challenge may arise in the consistency of handling clients issues or service delivery if great documentation is not followed to the letter. Even then its challenging to capture all the information in document pertaining a certain client in relation to the services he/she was seeking. The client could have worked in angry in the morning and registered his/her complain with staff on duty and left to come back after some time to check on the progress. Ordinarily this type of client may have experienced delay with her case in court for example. She then walks in latter to find a new staff on duty whom might not be aware about the frustrations the client had showed when she came in earlier. That means the handover process may have not been sufficient enough to capture even the urgency of this matter. The new staff proceeds to prioritise other requests based on information available at that time. And when its time to serve the fru strated client the new staff ask her to kindly check the progress the following day as her request would have been attended to by then, and she can not take it anymore. This scenario leads to poor client management that this model is at risk of if meticulous documentation is not employed. During handover process there is a chance that certain client information may slip through unnoticed forcing the client to repeat herself/himself again to the new staff as opposed to when one person is handling clients for longer period of time continuously. (Wheatley, 2016) Another problem that may occur in this model is the threat to profit model of the company. If the company doesnt strike correct balance between the social welfare of the employees and work output then the profit model which is what financially sustains the business will be at risk. The model may run a risk of being abused in that if over emphasis is laid on the social welfare part of the employees to an extend of having staff shortage at work at certain period for social reasons, then this may begun to negatively affect the service delivery and thus the income of the organisation. In the end the organisation may not be able to sustain it self financially. To mitigate this, as much as the social welfare of the human resource is important the resource should be managed in such a way that at no time is service delivery is forgone for avoidable social reasons. The model requires that employs optimally deliver on the job descriptions as developed by human resource management at all times as there is little room to recover if time is lost or objective not met on allocated time. This problem is occasioned by fact employees only feature at work on specific short period of time and this means this time has to be utilized failure to which the company would run into risk of meeting organisational objectives. To manage this situation, employees of organisation operating under this kind of model need to be highly trained on effective time management so that once at work he/she can optimally utilize the time at work. (McCann, 2008) For large organisations with probably hundreds or thousands of employees, implementing this model would become a challenge because of logistics in capturing or accommodating a large number of peoples personal activities. To be able to effectively strike a workable timetable that will suit large number of people is a problem and thus, this suggests, this model may not viable for large organisations. For the case of different industries which operate on 24- hour basis balancing the social life with work can be a challenge for the organisation. Ideally, this model postulates that every staff needs to spend quality family time and as well have time to run other personal activities. For a 24-hour manufacturing company it can be challenging to accommodate this social aspect effectively. There is going to be people who would have to be at work at night as opposed to being with their families, or when there is emergency say machines are broken down then the personnel needed have to be recall ed while attending to his/her own personal activities thus hindering implementation of flexible working arrangements as espoused by Jutitia. (Stavrou, Ierodiakonou, 2011) Considering a school set up, a medium sized primary school for example with about 20 teachers. We can see a possibility of implementing this type of model. The school runs on a timetable which can be usually agreed between members of staff. It is important that the number of teachers be as low as possible to reduce logistics needed to be considered to come up with a workable timetable for all the teachers. The timetable in this case can be developed such that it accommodates all teachers with regard to time they think they are able to work at school. It is rare that many teachers may nominate to work at the same time because of unique activities every teacher has as well the total number of teachers is also small. Therefore the probability that such a case may happen is minimal. For the few who may nominate overlapping time it is easier for an agreement to be reached where everyone can compromise on time a little bit. The timetable can then be drawn where each teacher is allocated ro les at school at different time of the day. If the teacher doesnt have a lesson or any other activity he/she can use this time to be with family or run other personnel activities. (Stavrou, Ierodiakonou, 2011) In conclusion, Jutitia model is a very good model of balancing work-life relations in order to wholesomely consider human resources in all spheres of life. However the model can be challenging to implement in other industries such as manufacturing industries where operations are run for 24 hour. The model is also not viable for organisations with large number of employees because of logistical challenges in the implementation of the model. References Atypical and flexible working. Lussier, R., Hendon, J. Human resource management. McCann, D. (2008). Regulating flexible work. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skorstad, E., Ramsdal, H. (2016). Flexible organizations and the new working life. London: Routledge. Stavrou, E., Ierodiakonou, C. (2011). Flexible Work Arrangements and Intentions of Unemployed Women in Cyprus: A Planned Behaviour Model. British Journal Of Management, 22(1), 150-172. https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2010.00695.x Wheatley, D. (2016). Employee satisfaction and use of flexible working arrangements. Work, Employment And Society, 095001701663144. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0950017016631447 Wilkinson, A. The SAGE handbook of human resource management.