BUSI 342 Week 2 Discussion Board Forum 1 Replies Example

Discussion Board Forum 1 Replies: Human Resources as a Strategic Function

BUSI 342 Human Resource Management, Discussion Board Forum 1 Replies

Thread by [Student Name]

The two classmates and their threads are composites; the textbook, research and Scripture cited are real.

Reply to Hannah

Hannah, your thread made a strong case that HR's most strategic work is advocating for employees, and I appreciated your point that a company cannot carry out any plan if its people do not trust it. Mathis et al. (2017) list employee advocacy among HR's roles, and your thread showed how that role connects to the strategic one rather than competing with it.

Research supports your argument. Rhoades and Eisenberger (2002) reviewed more than seventy studies of perceived organizational support, which is employees' belief that their organization values their contributions and cares about their well-being. They found that employees who perceived more support felt more committed to the organization, performed better and were less likely to want to leave. Fair treatment, supervisor support and favorable rewards and job conditions were among the strongest sources of that perception, and HR shapes most of them. Advocacy is not a soft extra; it builds the commitment a strategy depends on.

Scripture describes this kind of care as a shared obligation. Paul asks the Galatians to carry each other's loads, which he says fulfills Christ's law (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Galatians 6:2). For an HR department, bearing burdens might mean noticing when a team is overloaded or when a policy is unfair before employees have to complain, and then acting on what it notices, even when the fix costs the company something in the short run.

One question your thread raised for me: how can an HR professional advocate for employees while also representing management in decisions such as layoffs? Do you think the advocacy role should ever be handed to someone outside HR, such as an ombudsman, to avoid that conflict?

Reply to Brandon

Brandon, your thread clearly explained high-performance work practices, and your example of a retailer that cut turnover by investing in training was memorable. I want to question one claim, though: that the research proves good HR practices cause better company performance.

Mathis et al. (2017) present HR metrics as a way to show HR's contribution, but measurement alone cannot show which way the effect runs. Wright et al. (2005) addressed this directly by measuring HR practices and performance in the same business units at several points in time. They found that HR practices were related to later performance, but they were related just as strongly to earlier performance. That pattern fits the possibility that profitable units can afford better practices, as well as the possibility that the practices produce profit. The authors concluded that researchers had not yet shown that HR practices cause performance, and they called for studies designed to track change over time.

This does not mean HR practices are unimportant. It means a company should test them carefully instead of assuming they will pay off, the same way it would test a new product or price. Proverbs tells the herdsman to keep a close eye on the state of the flock and the herd (English Standard Version Bible, 2001/2016, Proverbs 27:23). For HR, that means measuring results before and after a change, perhaps by trying a new practice in some locations first and comparing them with others.

Your retailer example could be tested the same way. Would its turnover have dropped anyway because of changes in the local job market? How could the company tell?

References

English Standard Version Bible. (2016). Crossway. (Original work published 2001)

Mathis, R. L., Jackson, J. H., Valentine, S. R., & Meglich, P. A. (2017). Human resource management (15th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Rhoades, L., & Eisenberger, R. (2002). Perceived organizational support: A review of the literature. Journal of Applied Psychology, 87(4), 698-714. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.87.4.698

Wright, P. M., Gardner, T. M., Moynihan, L. M., & Allen, M. R. (2005). The relationship between HR practices and firm performance: Examining causal order. Personnel Psychology, 58(2), 409-446. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-6570.2005.00487.x