Strategic human resource management (SHRM) concerns the design and implementation of internal organisational policies and practices concerning human capital' or human resources, in line with organisational strategy. At its most simplistic, SHRM states that if people policies are designed in a certain way, performance will improve.
Organisational Behaviour’s (OB) evidence-based practices can be used to assist SHRM. While OB focuses on organisational issues at the micro and macro scale, SHRM concerns policy development and working toward increasing employee satisfaction, commitment, flexibility, and performance in line with the organisational strategy.
SHRM focusses on operational, day-to-day people/personnel issues and can be seen as "organisational behaviour in practice".
These are exciting times for professions involved with people in the workplace. The world is changing and continues to change at a rapid pace.
To name a few; the Covid-19 pandemic, technology, the fourth industrial revolution, globalisation, pressure to reduce costs, changing workforce demographics (more generations than ever working side-by-side at work, changes in societal trends (such as the increase of importance placed on work/life balance by workers (especially Gen Y) and the rise of the "knowledge worker", have all resulted in a workplace that is unrecognisable to years gone by.
The business environment, current workforce, and the workplace of the future. have all been impacted, presenting enormous challenges- and exciting opportunities for creativity and innovation- to the people working with these issues (e.g., I/ O psychologists, HR practitioners, consultants).
To achieve organisational objectives, remain successful and competitive, it is important that leaders, HR practitioners and IOPs understand workplace trends and evaluate the effect they might have on their strategies and goals and identify how they might lead to changes in said strategies and goals.
SHRM trends include:
✓ a shift in the way human capital services are provided by HR professionals: HR outsourcing (HRO) is increasingly use by larger organisations. I/O psychologists, with their specific expertise and skills have an important and strategic role to assume and increasing opportunities in which they are able to have an impact on large-scale HRO transformation.
✓ The HR industry is shifting its focus from "transactional HR" toward an integrated concept of "strategic human capital" which provides increased need (and opportunity) for I/O analytical skills. These skills are needed for various applications including HR analysis, integration of organisational data as well the design and tracking of business metrics.
✓ Novel approaches to training and development. For example, current leadership development places increased emphasis on fostering creativity and innovation. Operating in a turbulent, uncertain and unpredictable work environment, there has been a change from traditional "classroom" teaching methods toward "project based" methods. This teaches leaders to approach complex, unexpected and new situations with originality.
✓From the unique South African perspective, training and development legislations is aimed at promoting employee skills. Despite the high unemployment rate, SA is in dire need of skilled employees- this is an essential requirement for our economy to grow and for South Africa to compete successfully and globally. The SA Labour Department introduced the Skills Development Act of 1998 and the Skills Development Levies Act of 1999 in order to address this skill shortage, leading to and increased use of relevant occupation and workplace-based skills development programmes, including the traditional apprenticeships as well as the more favoured Learnerships.
✓ An important role of any person advising on strategy and the implementation of personnel practices, is the responsibility toward fostering increased sustainability in the organisation. This can be achieved through various activities such as attraction, recruitment, training and development, talent management performance management, reward and wellness (to name a few).
✓ It goes without saying that the COVID-19 pandemic has had the most recent, unprecedented, and enormous impact on the workplace, forever changing many aspects of work as we may have known them, as well as reinforcing many of the trends that had already started shaping the workplace.
These include (1) increase in remote and hybrid work, (2) contingent worker expansion (using contract workers and talent-sharing programmes for cost savings and increased flexibility), (3) (De-) Humanisation of employees: some organisations recognised the humanitarian crisis brought on by the pandemic, prioritising wellbeing, while others pushed employees to work in high-risk environments with little support. The approach followed here will have long lasting effects on the employee experience, (4) the emergence of new top-tier employee offerings, for example, transparency, employee support despite cost saving initiatives, wellness initiatives, innovative, remote/hybrid workplaces, talent-sharing partnerships, (5) a transition from designing for efficiency to designing for resilience. Resilient organisations are better able to respond and correct course with change. This is achieved through through designing roles and structures around outcomes and providing employees with varied, adaptive and flexible roles so that they acquire cross-functional knowledge and training, and (6) an increase in organisation complexity. For a detailed explanation, see (https://www.gartner.com/smarterwithgartner/9-future-of-work-trendspost-covid-19/.