Strategic human resource management at Sears

This article describes the HR Management System in place at Sears. Key emphases of Sears' HR management infrastructure include: (1) formulating and communicating a corporate mission, vision, and goals, (2) employee education and development through the Sears University, (3) performance management and incentive compensation systems linked closely to the firm's strategy, (4) validated employee selection systems, and (5) delivering the "HR Basics” very competently. Key challenges for the future include: (1) maintaining momentum in the performance improvement process, (2) identifying barriers to success, and (3) clearly articulating HR's role in the change management process. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Strategic human resource management at Quantum

This article describes the HR Management system in place at Quantum. Key emphases of Quantum's HR management infrastructure include: (1) establishment and communication of the firm's mission, vision, and values; (2) team‐based product development and operations teams; (3) behaviorally based structured interview processes; (4) rigorous and comprehensive performance management and incentive compensation processes; (5) highly automated and efficient HR infrastructure “fundamentals”; and (6) well developed soft asset due diligence processes for integrating mergers and acquisitions. Key challenges for the future include (1) managing explosive growth in a global environment, (2) employee development, (3) managing joint ventures and acquisitions, (4) hiring and retaining talent, and (5) expanding competence in change management processes. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Strategic human resource management at Lucent

This article describes the HR Management system in place at Lucent Technologies, Inc. Lucent's HR structure is organized around a client service model that focuses on the leaders in the major business units and the movement of as much of the HR infrastructure as possible to these business units. Key emphases include (1) HR operational excellence, (2) compensation and performance management that encourages employees to build a successful future with the firm, as well as to share in that success, and (3) building an operating style and culture that supports Lucent's mission and strategy. Key challenges for the future include (1) organizational renewal in a period of growth, (2) identifying and developing new HR competencies, (3) developing a unique HR structure to support the needs of HR at Bell Labs, and (4) effective labor relations in a rapidly changing industry. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

The changing requirements of the HR professional—Implications for the development of HR professionals

This article examines the new competencies that are required in today's human resources (HR) professionals and how one company has gone about the development of those competencies within its human resources community. In addition, the author looks at the role that universities, professional associations, and “best practice” companies play in enhancing the capabilities of the HR talent that will serve companies' growing HR needs. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

Strategic human resource management at Praxair

This article describes the human resource management system in place at Praxair. Key emphases of Praxair's HRM infrastructure include (1) competency development and performance‐management processes and (2) team‐based performance systems, which include four levels of measurement: company‐wide, business‐unit, cross‐functional teams within business units, and special‐initiative project teams. Key challenges for the future include (1) prioritization of choices in support of the firm's global growth initiatives, (2) employee development and new talent acquisition, (3) designing more effective methods to anticipate business needs and provide strong, proactive leadership, (4) accelerating leadership development and influencing adequate investment in education and development programs, and (5) designing and implementing effective methods to acquire new talent to support business strategies. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

How HR measures support risk management: The Deutsche bank example

Are there concrete examples of how the “soft” HR factors can be made tangible and, what's more, meaningful to the business? In this article we give an answer to this frequently asked question. We show how Deutsche Bank's HR function consistently developed the range of employee surveying instruments to become pivotal to the Group's success. This is part of a wider effort in recent years to achieve a change of direction for the HR function, making it a strategic partner to the business. © 2002 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Demands or Resources? The Relationship Between HR Practices,Employee Engagement,and Emotional Exhaustion Within a Hybrid Model of Employment Relations

This article explores the ways in which employees may experience and respond to tensions inherent in the mix of potentially conflicting human resource (HR) practices that compose hybrid models of employment relations. By drawing on the job demands–resources (JD‐R) literature and viewing HR practices as “demands” and “resources,” we explore the impact of performance management and employee voice practices on employee well‐being, as exemplified by engagement and emotional exhaustion, in a large public‐sector organization in Ireland. Our findings suggest that employee voice mechanisms may act as a resource in both enhancing engagement and in counterbalancing the demands presented by a performance management system, thus reducing the deleterious effects of emotional exhaustion. Our study extends understanding of hybrid models of human resource management (HRM) and of the ways in which employees manage the contradictory signals that such models may send in terms of performance expectations. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Redesigning the human resources function at Lafarge

This article describes the detailed process of redesigning and implementing the human resources (HR) function at Lafarge. The article argues that a well‐articulated and integrated approach of (1) recruitment, selection, and induction, (2) retraining and redeployment, (3) a performance appraisal system, (4) a compensation and reward mechanism, and (5) rightsizing and (6) integration is required to be aligned with the overall business strategy of the organization. It also reinforces that the foundation of a value‐added HR function is a business strategy that relies on people as a source of competitive advantage. Key challenges for Lafarge in the future include (1) maintaining the change momentum, (2) fast and effective integration of acquired companies and transfer of “best practices,” and (3) attracting and retaining a diverse workforce through their internationalization program. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

High‐commitment HR practices,employee effort,and firm performance: Investigating the effects of HR practices across employee groups within professional services firms

In this study, the authors examine the relationship between high‐commitment HR practices and firm performance in professional services firms through the mediator of employee effort. In addition, they contribute to the debate in the field of strategic HRM on whether high‐commitment HR practices should be used across all employee groups within a firm. Their study's results show that high‐commitment HR practices positively relate to firm performance through employee effort for two employee groups within professional services firms. Further, they found that the relationship between effort and performance is contingent on the value of the employee group to firm competitive advantage, suggesting that companies may only want to expend the effort and resources on building a high‐commitment HR system for employee groups that are clearly tied to creating firm competitive advantage. © 2011 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Why does firm reputation in human resource policies influence college students? The mechanisms underlying job pursuit intentions

Business periodicals, such as Fortune magazine, rank organizations in lists such as the “Best Companies to Work For,” providing applicants with information about firms' human resource practices, including pay, benefits, work‐life, and diversity practices. It is not clear what influence this reputational information about HR practices has on applicant interest in pursuing employment or, more important, why it does so. Given that firms invest substantial resources in HR practices to vie for positions on these lists, the current study sought to fill these gaps in the literature. In the 2 (compensation) × 2 (work‐family) × 2 (diversity) factorial design, 232 college students read about magazine rankings in which a firm's reputation in each HR practice was manipulated as ranking either high or low relative to competitors. We examined perceptions of organizational prestige, anticipated organizational support, and anticipated role performance as mechanisms that explain the influence of HR practice reputation on job pursuit intentions. Our results indicate that a firm's reputation in compensation, work‐family, and diversity efforts increase college students' intentions to pursue employment with a firm. They do so because college students perceive that the organization is prestigious, will be supportive, and will foster their job performance. Our results suggest that a strong employer brand derived from employee‐centered HR practices is important for recruiting college students. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Employee Voice,Supervisor Support,and Engagement: The Mediating Role of Trust

Developing employee engagement has been one of the major areas of interest in the field of human resource management (HRM), and research identifies the positive effect that engagement has on both employee and organizational performance. However, while research on engagement has been substantial, there have been limited studies on key variables such as supervisor support, voice, and trust. We examined the role of supervisor support and direct voice on engagement experienced by nurses and the mediating role trust plays in those relationships. Data were collected though an online survey of 1,039 Australian nurses and analyzed using structural equation modeling. As hypothesized, results showed that both supervisor support and direct voice are positively associated with employee engagement, and these relationships are mediated by supervisory and senior management trust, respectively. The implications of the results for human resource (HR) practitioners are discussed and include the challenge of resourcing effective direct voice systems and enlisting the support of supervisors in order to impact on the engagement of nurses who are the “front line” of the health sector. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

新经济环境下员工忠诚度管理——论心理契约构建的重要性

现代企业管理中,企业员工的忠诚度会影响企业经营目标的实现,而心理契约对员工的行为、忠诚度有着决定性的影响。本文主要探讨新经济环境下企业管理中员工的忠诚和"心理契约"的关系,并阐述了有效的心理契约管理如何提升员工的忠诚度,最后根据研究结果给出员工与企业如何共建"心理契约"的建议,为企业领导者及后续研究者提供参考。     

Employee perceptions of HR practices: A critical review and future directions

Abstract

Scholars are directing more attention to employee perceptions of human resources (HR) practices and have explored issues such as whether and how employees’ idiosyncratic or collective perceptions of HR practices shape employee outcomes. To further this area of research, we seek to determine what authors mean when they refer to “employee perceptions of HR practices”. We review 105 articles from leading human resource management journals and find that employee perceptions of HR practices is not a monolithic concept. Rather, following previous scholars, we identify three distinct components of employee perceptions of HR practices: the ‘what’, ‘how’, and ‘why’. We critically summarize extant literature on these three components of employee HR perception and propose future research directions, including enriching the theoretical foundations of HR communication, embracing cross-national contexts, and enhancing practical relevance.     

How Top Management HR Beliefs and Values Affect High‐Performance Work System Adoption and Implementation Effectiveness

What explains why high‐performance work systems (HPWSs) are not adopted more widely by firms that would appear to benefit economically by adopting them? We address this question by drawing on the upper‐echelons perspective to consider the role of the top managers’ beliefs concerning the financial payoffs from investments in HR (“HR cause‐effect belief”) as well as their employee‐centered value‐based beliefs (labeled “HPWS values”). We propose a conceptual model in which top management HPWS values moderate the relationship between HR cause‐effect beliefs and the intensity of HPWS programs reported by managers as well as the relationship between HPWS programs and employees’ perceptions of implemented HPWS practices. We test our model using a unique multisource data set collected from 120 hotel franchisees that includes survey responses from 648 managers and 1,293 employees. We find that firms’ ability to translate top managers’ cause‐effect beliefs about the economic value of HR investments into adoption of HPWS programs, as well as their ability to effectively implement these HPWS programs, is significantly affected by the value‐based HR beliefs held by top managers. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Sounding “Different”: The Role of Sociolinguistic Cues in Evaluating Job Candidates

An increasingly diverse labor pool has increased the likelihood that HR recruiters will encounter job seekers who speak with different dialects. Prior studies have investigated the effects of applicant dialect on employment selection outcomes. In this article, we merge this research with stereotyping, “modern racism,” and sociolinguistics literatures to formulate propositions surrounding two questions of interest: (1) Do prospective employers categorize job applicants using sociolinguistic cues? and (2) If so, what impact does this categorization have on evaluations of applicant employability? We believe this research can provide significant insights into HR practice as discriminatory behaviors change and adapt to fit social norms, particularly in employee recruitment and selection contexts. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Positive discipline

Traditional corporate disciplinary systems often fail to encourage responsible employee behavior. This article presents “positive discipline” as a management tool for responding to individual employees' unacceptable behavior, while supporting the good performance of the majority. Positive discipline has been implemented at Union Carbide with successful results: constructive interaction with individual employee problems encourages employee self-discipline and recommitment to the organization's goals.     

Organizational change cynicism: The role of employee involvement

Organizational change efforts can bring about a range of outcomes: some intended, such as organizational survival and profitability, and some unintended, such as heightened levels of organizational change cynicism (OCC) among employees. This article focuses on processes for managing OCC: we examine the role of information sharing and involvement in decision making as ways to lessen employee reports of OCC. While both of these strategies have the potential to be effective, they rest on a significant assumption—namely, that employees will enthusiastically embrace any opportunities to become involved. In this research, we investigate this assumption through an analysis of the relationship between an employee's willingness to become involved (”active orientation”) on employee reports of their OCC. We find, using data from 1,214 public‐sector employees, that an active orientation toward involvement plays a significant role as a moderator in reducing employee reports of OCC. The findings suggest that HR practitioners concerned about OCC should encourage their line managers to adopt a participatory style of management (information sharing, involvement in decision making), especially in those workplaces where employees are more likely to embrace the opportunities for involvement. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Strategic human resource management,firm performance,and employee relations climate in China

We examined strategic human resource management (SHRM) and human resource practices in the People's Republic of China to assess the impact of these practices on firm performance and the employee relations climate. We also tested whether firm ownership moderates the above relationships. Empirical results from a sample of Chinese firms from various industries and regions showed that the levels of adoption of SHRM and HR practices were lower in state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) than in foreign‐invested enterprises (FIEs) and privately owned enterprises (POEs). Both SHRM and HR practices were found to have direct and positive effects on financial performance, operational performance, and the employee relations climate. However, the moderating effect of ownership type was significant for financial performance only. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Causes of employee theft and strategies that HR managers can use for prevention

Business losses due to employee theft are estimated to approach $200 billion annually. Why do employees steal? Experts propose many reasons for employee theft, but provide few prevention strategies for human resource managers. In this article, the authors explore the various causes of employee theft, from employee personality characteristics, to the social environment, to flaws in the organization's control system. From this analysis, guidelines for theft prevention strategies are offered. Since strategies may involve top‐down control or trust‐building experiences for employees and managers, HR managers are encouraged to implement those strategies that fit their organization. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.     

“I want it all and I want it now!” An examination of the etiology,expression, and escalation of excessive employee entitlement

Excessive entitlement is a pervasive and pernicious social issue, one that has considerable significance for human resource management. Despite its implications for work settings, relatively little research has examined this construct through a management lens. In this paper, a definition of excessive entitlement is offered and a model describing how it is expressed and encouraged in organizational settings is proposed. Key human resource functions drawn from the practitioner literature on employee entitlement (recruitment and socialization tactics, performance appraisal and reward structure; Wellner, 2004) are situated as interacting with employee trait levels of excessive entitlement to trigger counterproductive work behaviors. To the extent counterproductive behaviors are rewarded, the psychological correlates of excessive entitlement will spiral in an upward fashion, ultimately reinforcing trait expression. In contrast, ignoring or punishing the behavioral outcomes of excessive entitlement will prompt “regulation,” whereby individuals disavow their entitled attitudes or “retribution,” which may include retaliation, disengagement, and turnover. The implications of this work, along with strategies for advancing the study of excessive entitlement in work settings, are discussed.