Traditional and Strategic Human Resource Management:Which Provides Greater Support?

Human resource management is a culmination of strategically coordinated efforts to manage people. Managing people involves, employing them, teaching and developing their skills, and utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services (Mello, 2010). In most cases the strategic method of human resource management would provide greater support but in the case of Infosys, strategic human resource management provides a collection of smoke and mirrors which hid true employee dissatisfaction. The strategic management plan involved support for the organization by its efforts to align its functions with business objectives, creating a great work environment and recognition of the human skill as an asset (Becker & Huselid, 2006).

Strategic Human Resource Management vs. Traditional

The fundamental significance of Strategic Human Resource management (SHRM) is its focus on the human capital component of organizational success (Mello, 2010). SHRM differs from traditional HR management in that SHRM focuses on the entire organizational rather than the individual in two main aspects of business. The first difference is SHRM focuses on organizational performance rather than individual performance (Becker & Huselid, 2006).

Secondly, SHRM focuses on entire systems when solving organizational issues rather than individual or linear methods practiced in isolation. In addition to the focus on systems, SHRM is about aligning with the company's objectives of superior performance by creating a competitive advantage. The alignment with organizational objectives requires HR Management to manage personnel in a way to achieve company goals by tailoring HR Functions to reach the organizational objectives (Becker & Huselid, 2006).

Infosys's HR Strategy to Management

Infosys had to change how they did business in order to stay alive. The drastic changes made to the company's business required changes to their infrastructure of employees. They did not want to isolate employees from the changes but rather wanted to include them by making changes to where and how they worked. As the company made efforts to improve brand equity, they also made much efforts to appeal to their employees and make the job place a great place to work ( Delong, Tandon & Rengaswamy, 2005). These efforts included an open -door policy and a commitment to emotional bonding with employees. Employees were still discontent due to the rapid growth of employees numbers and disparity of expectations although most of the discontent came from the removal of creative freedom. Employees were no longer given the opportunity to develop and express creative solutions because the organization relied more on process oriented tasks to solve problems. The employees lost their sense of worth to the business ( Delong, Tandon & Rengaswamy, 2005).

Infosys made more efforts to halt the discontent by implementing volunteer options to help make the work environment a fun one. Infosys also made efforts to scale back attrition by educating candidates on the Infosys culture from the beginning but attrition only hit harder. Management failed to acknowledge the root cause of dissatisfaction and did not know how to handle employee frustrations not did they know how to be hands-on and engaging. Tasks were delegated poorly and there issue sonly increased with the size of the company ( Delong, Tandon & Rengaswamy, 2005).

Management could barely keep up with current employee dissatisfaction, so managing for future growth concentrated on business strategy rather than on employees. Infosys's introduction of variable pay and the new promotion policy left many employees in the dark and resentment rose. Management did not communicate the reasons for these new policies or how they would affect the current employees ( Delong, Tandon & Rengaswamy, 2005).

Infosys implemented many strategies to help the company grow. Financially, they did grow but perhaps they grew too large for their management to handle. There was not enough focus placed on preparing managers on how to handle the need to hire more employees and need to change policies to account for increased staff. Management may have relied too much on process than the voice of their employees. The employees felt de-valued and unimportant. They saw people come and go so quickly, as evident by the high attrition rates, that they perceived their roles as equally disposable ( Delong, Tandon & Rengaswamy, 2005). Management for Infosys should have relied more on traditional human resource management style instead of strategic Human resource management for the reasons stated above.

Conclusion

In an effort to align itself with the organization's objectives, Infosys lost it's emphasis on the individual employee by losing sight of the small company environment where policies and processes were flexible and met individual needs. The loss of communication brought on by a large company, resulted in the mistrust of policies such as the variable pay mechanism and promotion policy. This mistrust stemmed from the lack of understanding as to how these programs would work and the reasons why these programs were needed. Behind the mirror of support were unsatisfied employees, management sought a re-evaluation of human resource management and realized the need to bring back traditional management style that encompassed a small-company feel and collegial environment.

References

Becker, B. & Huselid, M. (2006, December). Strategic Human Resources Management: Where

Do We Go From Here? Journal of Management. Vol.32, No.6. PP(898-925).

Delong, T.J., Tandon, J. and Rengaswamy, G. (2005). Infosys (A): Strategic Human Resource

Management. Harvard Business Publishing.

Mello, J. A. (2010). Strategic Human Resource Management, 3rd Ed.. South-Western Cengage

Learning