Strategic Management of Human Resources

Organizations in the modern world become more sensitive to the need to have superior performance management systems that will ensure they derive the best from their employees. Performance management systems are the most powerful tool being used by most if not all organization to achieve the best in strategic management of human resources (Rao, 2004). Different organizations use different human resource management systems to evaluate their employees with the aim of restructuring their workforce for the better. Performance of employees can be managed by use of reviews in terms of what an employee is capable of doing. It implies that the skills or technical ability, experience, learning ability, and ability to work independently are used in such evaluations. These variables are standard in universal management systems. However, organization can come up with their own systems to do the same. For instance, an organization may rank their employees using a scale of one to ten or describe them as excellent, good, poor, or average. It is done by closely evaluating performance of individual employees. However, use of evaluation may not be effective if it does not consider other elements that affect employee performance such as remuneration and motivation.

The United States government is a good example of institution that is using different performance management systems to deliver its human resource management strategy. According to the United States Department of Commerce (2012), the Human Capital Assessment and Accountability Framework (HCAAF) are used as a tool to manage personnel issues. This strategy is applied in all matters dealing with human capital such as hiring the best personnel, satisfying employees, improving accountability, and other issues. Under this framework, employee’s ability is measured before hiring and in the course of employment. Observations made are used to suggest correctional measures that should be taken. The mission of the government is drafting any strategy used in the performance management systems. Thus, the government gets the best out of its employees, and this improves service delivery.

In India, the use of appraisal is becoming popular with many companies opting to evaluate their employees at all stages (Varma, 2008). This performance management system is serving as a platform upon which a human resource strategy is built. In other words, an organization is able to set standards basing on existing work conditions and appraisals are done accordingly. It is used frequently to implement human resource strategy basing on the performance of employees from time to time. Strategic human resource management plan cannot be dependent entirely on performance. Since this performance management system is focused on performance, there is a probability that obtained results are unreliable, since success in human resource management relies on other crucial elements that are not considered in this system.

Strategic management of human resources can also be achieved through assessment of all employees regardless of their levels. This performance management system is proposed for modern organizations which operate differently. Dyadic performance management is described as a system that incorporates even the bosses in implementation a human resource strategy (Rao, 2004). Both subordinate and senior employees are assessed equally. The inferences are made in the same way. This procedure is premised on the fact that all employees should be responsible and accountable for the performance of an organization by equal measures. In this strategy, measures of how one employee influences the other are used to determine the ability to promote satisfactory results. It implies that junior and senior employees are involved in implementing human resource management strategy of an organization. Although this could be true in many organizations, it is difficult to ascertain whether employees will influence each other at all levels, as dominance of senior employees creates a bureaucratic system where juniors have little influence on seniors.