What Are the Best Tips for Strategic Human Resource Management?

Instituting strategic human resource (HR) management substantially alters the way in which a company's HR management staff may interact with the rest of the organization's staff. This is why the best tips for strategic HR management typically begin with a carefully considered implementation plan. Another important tip is to provide adequate training for HR staff. Allowing employees sufficient time to adapt to the new approach is also typically deemed important. As a company's strategy tends to evolve over time in response to external changes, a realignment of the HR strategy is usually scheduled at specified intervals, as this maintains the new strategic HR management going forward.

When implementing strategic HR management, it is common to do a review of HR operations, and inventory what operating procedures need to be changed. Often this occurs as management identifies organizational silos that should be eliminated. The term "organizational silo" is used to describe what happens when groups of workers keep information closed off within that group, to the detriment of the organization as a whole. For example, an individual worker may know that current routing procedures for handling information within the company keep certain people out of the information loop, but will fail to bring that to management's attention, even though it would help the company's overall bottom line. Instead, the employee may sequester that information, because he or she sees the opportunity to acquire power by possessing the information.

Once the company has transitioned into strategic HR management, ongoing training to help employees guard against a drifting away from the new collaborative approach is another important tip. Maintaining alignment with the corporate mission is typically something that must be guarded on an ongoing basis. Strategic HR management typically must resist a tendency among people to drift back into old patterns. Since insularity drains corporate vitality, many companies have instituted feedback mechanisms to prevent such drift.

As people are creatures of habit, organizations typically need to allow time for the change in operations to take root within the corporate culture. Cross-functional teams are usually better for the business, but also require a significant change in interpersonal working relationships. As a result, employers typically can expect some time for the organization to reorient to the new HR strategic management. This is particularly so in companies that may be introducing a strategic management approach for the first time. A company will likely need to support staff during the changeover in daily routines.

An annual review is usually helpful in strategic HR management. The review assesses whether or not the organizational change is still true to the original policy changes. Conducting regular assessments is typically done to determine the need for course correction, or for additional training. Engaging HR management in high-level company strategic initiatives, on a regular basis, is usually seen as an effective way to prevent drift from the company's new strategic approach.