Running head HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT .docx

Running head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
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Strategic Human Resource Management
Tiffany Chism
Columbia Southern University
June 6, 2020
Strategic Human Resource Management
Strategic human resource management is crucial for an effective
organizational management of people to gain a competitive
advantage. Effective management of people ensures more higher
levels of performance in line with organizational strategy and
structure. Primarily, human resource management managers
focuses on systems and policies, overseeing employee

recruitment, performance appraisal, reward management,
employee-benefits design as well as training and development.
In this sense, an organization has tomust ensure its
sustainability by investing in human capital as well as valuing
human resource management strategies and practices.
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Citation – Who said?
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Word choice. See APA7
p.114 Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Anthropomorphism
see APA7 p. 117 Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider:
Anthropomorphism
The role of human resource management
Human resource management plays a significant role in the
establishment of organizational structure and strategies.
According to Romanelli (2018), sustainable organizations
always strive to enact and support good relationships among the
present and future stakeholders, keeping in mind their
economic, environmental and social performances. Critically,
the relationships within an organization must be established
through a well-developed structure, including productive work
teams, useful departments as well as jobs. Through strategic
human resource management, the organization can design units,
establish departments and jobs, playing a crucial role in
effective planning as well as performance appraisal that build a
strong organizational structure and a long-term business
strategy. Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Anthropomorphism
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Anthropomorphism
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Word choice – implement
would be more specific Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Don’t
assume that your reader understands who these people are. You
should define stakeholders. Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider:
Statements of fact require a citation Comment by Dr. Sheila
Strider: Between or among who? Comment by Dr. Sheila
Strider: Anthropomorphism
Workflow Analysis Challenges
Workflow analysis helps in examining and managing how work
is organized to achieve the organizational goals. Generally, the

idea is to improve on the corporate, operational efficiency,
including processes, tasks, workplace layouts and even
bottlenecks in the workflow. It facilitates meaningful
information concerning work value creation in the ongoing
business process. An effective workflow analysis makes a
business practice more efficient, profitable and productive.
Even so, the emergence of current technologies havehas raised a
number of organizational, environmental and even individual
challenges on workflow analysis. Comment by Dr. Sheila
Strider: Who said? Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Helps who?
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Who said? Comment by
Dr. Sheila Strider: Who does ‘it” refer to? Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: Is it the workforce analysis that does this or does
workforce analysis allow manager to do this?
In an organization, there are always different clients, having
diverse business and financial tools. It is challenging to have
vast data sources pooled into meaningful financial report. Also,
organizations find it difficult to reconcile multiple data sources
in the workflow analysis. Moreover, issues of transparency and
accountability always arise in workflow analysis. Romanelli
(2018) indicates indicated that ethics is essential for any
organizations’ competitive advantage and market value creation.
There are always transparency issues and challenges when it
comes to disparate clients, abundant data sources, client
preferences and even broader systems. It is so challenging to
have transparent workflows with clear trails. More so, it is also
challenging to find adequate tools and platform where workflow
analysis can be carried out or be viewed. Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: I am not sure why this is here and what it is
supposed to clarify. Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: This issue
is just dropped in with no prior introduction. Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: What does this mean? Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: Why are they necessary and who said?
Workflow Analysis, Organizational Culture and Strategy
Workflow analysis helps in understanding the process that
leads to task completion within an organization. A

comprehensive workflow analysis establishes what happens
when a project is delegated to work teams or departments.
Effective strategic human resource management helps to
promote workflow analysis in departments or efficient work
teams. An organizational structure helps to shape its culture and
strategy. Workflow analysis helps to determine which task will
be undertaken by which department and team, or either
individually or collectively to achieve the organizational
strategic goal. As it involves multiple teams or departments, it
promotes interdependency through communication and
interaction between departments. For instance, the marketing
team may need to work with the finance team to create an
advertising process and budget. As such, workflow analysis
helps to establish the interdependency situations, assisting in
determining the ideal methods of resource allocation and
communication within the organization. Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: Anthropomorphism Comment by Dr. Sheila
Strider: Statements of fact require a citation Comment by Dr.
Strider: What are you referring to? Comment by Dr. Sheila
Strider: ?
Motivation Theories
When managing workflows, employee motivation is essential.
Nyamubarwa and Chipunza (2019) argued that the employee is
more likely to feel committed, loyal and generally have a good
working relationship if they are highly motivated. The
organization should strive to keep every employee happy
through strategic human resource practices that appeal to each
employee. The strategic human resource management needs to
have a clear understanding of the motivation theories to ensure
employees feel supported and remain empowered. There are
various theories of motivation that play a crucial part in
influencing positive outcomes in employees’ job satisfaction.
However, there is no one fits all approach for a specific
organization. In empowering the workforce, a mixture of these
models can be used to encourage employees. Comment by Dr.

Strider: Who said? Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider:
Anthropomorphism Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: What are
they?
Job Design and Job Analysis
Job designs helps to specify the procedures and contents of
performing organizational tasks. It plays a vital part in the
design of the organizational structure, assessing the
requirements and needs of the organization. On the other hand,
job analysis helps to identify duties, tasks, qualifications,
knowledge and even responsibilities for a job. This is mostly
done during recruitment and training. Nyamubarwa and
Chipunza (2019) asserted that most organizations have
challenges in recruiting capable employees because of the less
appealing process of job analysis. Ideally, job design helps to
organize tasks and works necessary to perform specific tasks.
On the other hand, job analysis involves the set job expectations
and being able to communicate these clearly to the employees.
Organizational structure is crucial for the formal and informal
relationship between employees. Job analysis helps to determine
employee qualifications, knowledge and skills required to
perform particular jobs. Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Word
choice APA7 p 114. Identify would be a more precise word.
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Anthropomorphism
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: I do not understand what
you are saying and how it relates to attracting applicants.
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Citation
Flexible Workforce and the Human Resource Information
Systems
The organizational structure, as indicated, is established
through employee relationship and facilitated within
departments, teams and jobs. Effective strategic human resource
management helps to build on the organizational structure by
developing a long-term business strategy. The flexibility of a
workforce can be a product of an effective strategic human
resource management. Today, human resource management has

experienced essential transformations. With the strong support
for information technologies, the focus has been largely on the
structure and strategy of the organization. Information systems
in human resource management have transformed various
practices and process, including the way to use, collect, share,
and even store information. Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider:
What does this mean? Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: How
does it do this? Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Citation
Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Broad sentences with no
support or clarification about what is referred to. A citation is
also required.
The information system has improved human resource
management involvement in the overall business strategy. The
systems have increased efficiency in recruitment,
communication, engagement and enhance employee skills in
organizations. The human resource information systems focus
on workforce flexibility by interconnecting people with the
organizational structure and business strategy for rapid
adaptation and the changing needs of the business and the
people. In essence, human resource information systems help to
promote workforce flexibility in planning and implementing
actions and controlling results that are related to the
organizational strategy. This include environmental scanning,
detecting threats and opportunities that can influence the
organizational culture, structure and strategy. Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: Has the IT system done this or is it the use of
data and interpretation by management? Comment by Dr.
Sheila Strider: Who said? Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider:
Anthropomorphism Comment by Dr. Sheila Strider: Who said?
References
Nyamubarwa, W., & Chipunza, C. (2019). Debunking the one-
size-fits-all approach to human resource management: A review
of human resource practices in small and medium-sized
enterprise firms. SA Journal of Human Resource Management,

17, 6.
Romanelli, M. (2018). Organizations and people for
sustainability. Management Dynamics in the Knowledge
Economy, 6(1), 117-128.
www.hbrreprints.org
“A Players” or
“A Positions”?
The Strategic Logic of Workforce Management
by Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and
Brian E. Becker
Included with this full-text
Harvard Business Review
article:
The Idea in Brief—the core idea
The Idea in Practice—putting the idea to work
1

Article Summary
2
“A Players” or “A Positions”?: The Strategic Logic of
Workforce
Management
A list of related materials, with annotations to guide further
exploration of the article’s ideas and applications
9
Further Reading
A single-minded focus on
finding and developing A
players misses the point. A
better approach is first to
identify strategically critical
jobs, then to invest
disproportionately to ensure
that the right people—doing
the right things—are in those
positions.
Reprint R0512G
This document is authorized for use only by Sheila Hadley
Strider ([email protected]). Copying or posting is an

infringement of copyright. Please contact
[email protected] or 800-988-0886 for additional copies.
http://harvardbusinessonline.hbsp.harvard.edu/relay.jhtml?name
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“A Players” or “A Positions”?
page 1
The Idea in Brief The Idea in Practice
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Superior talent gives your company its
competitive edge. But your star performers
can’t burnish your bottom line unless you
deploy them in those few jobs through
which you execute your high-level strategy.
If you haven’t identified those “A positions,”
you may be drastically mismanaging your
workforce—rewarding high performers in
nonstrategic jobs, or keeping B or even C
players in mission-critical roles.
How to take a more disciplined approach to
workforce management? Identify your A
positions—those most essential to your
strategy. Probably less than 20% of your
jobs, A positions are likely scattered
throughout your organization, at all levels.
Then actively develop and generously com-
pensate the high performers in those roles.
Move C players out of A positions, replacing
them with top talent. Help B players in stra-
tegic positions to elevate their performance
to A level.
No company can afford to have A players in
all positions. But by placing your very best
people in strategic positions, investing dis-

proportionately in them, and managing
your B and C players shrewdly, you create a
workforce that can carry out your strat-
egy—and leave rivals scrambling.
To manage your workforce strategically:
Identify Your “A Positions”
A positions are crucial to your company’s abil-
ity to execute some part of its strategy. To
identify these positions, clarify the basis on
which your company competes: Price? Qual-
ity? Mass customization? Then identify the
technologies, information, and skills required
to create your intended competitive advan-
tage. Ask which jobs employ those critical ca-
pabilities in the execution of your strategy.
Example:
Nordstrom and Costco both rely on cus-
tomer satisfaction to drive growth and
shareholder value. But Nordstrom’s strategy
hinges on personalized service and advice,
while Costco’s relies on low prices and
product availability. Nordstrom’s A positions
therefore include frontline sales associate
jobs, while Costco’s includes purchasing
manager roles.
Manage Your A Positions

Manage your A positions using these
techniques:
•
Evaluation.
Determine what differentiates
high and low performance in each A posi-
tion. Measure people against those criteria.
Example:
At IBM, A positions include deal-making
roles—where people assemble sets of
products, software, and expertise that par-
ticular clients need. IBM identified 10 at-
tributes (including ability to partner with
clients) critical to these positions. It mea-
sures each attribute on a four-point scale
delineated with behavioral benchmarks.
Employees in those roles assess themselves
on these attributes and are assessed
through 360-degree feedback.
•
Development.

Actively develop people in
A positions by providing training and pro-
fessional development opportunities.
Example:
More than $450 million of the $750 million
IBM spends annually on employee devel-
opment goes to people in A positions. IBM
requires them to define development pro-
grams for themselves. These programs are
based on strengths and weaknesses re-
vealed in performance evaluations and
draw on intranet tools designed to improve
performance on each attribute.
•
Compensation.
Generously compensate A
players in A positions. At IBM, annual salary
increases go to only half the workforce. Top-
performing employees get raises roughly
three times higher than simply strong per-
formers.
•

Succession.
Build bench strength for each
A position.
IBM invests heavily in feeder jobs for A posi-
tions. It regularly assesses feeder employees’
readiness for promotion into strategically im-
portant roles. It also identifies “pass-through”
jobs where people can develop needed skills,
and fills these jobs with A-position candidates.
Manage Your Workforce Portfolio
Intelligently managing your A positions isn’t
enough: manage B and C positions, too. B po-
sitions can support A positions (think IBM’s
feeder roles). Consider outsourcing or elimi-
nating C jobs. At minimum, move C players
out of A positions and help B players in those
roles become A players.
“A Players” or
“A Positions”?

by Mark A. Huselid, Richard W. Beatty, and
Brian E. Becker
harvard business review • december 2005 page 2
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A single-minded focus on finding and developing A players
misses the
point. A better approach is first to identify strategically critical
jobs,
then to invest disproportionately to ensure that the right
people—doing
the right things—are in those positions.
A great workforce is made up of great people.
What could be more intuitively obvious? Is it
any wonder, then, that so many companies have
devoted so much energy in recent years to iden-
tifying, developing, and retaining what have
come to be known as “A players”? Firms like GE,
IBM, and Microsoft all have well-developed sys-
tems for managing and motivating their high-
performance and high-potential employees—
and for getting rid of their mediocre ones. Man-
agement thinkers have widely endorsed this ap-
proach: Larry Bossidy, in the best-selling book
Execution,
for example, calls this sort of differen-
tiation among employees “the mother’s milk of
building a performance culture.”
But focusing exclusively on A players puts,
well, the horse before the cart. High perform-
ers aren’t going to add much value to an orga-
nization if they’re smoothly and rapidly pull-
ing carts that aren’t going to market. They’re
going to be effective only when they’re har-

nessed to the right cart—that is, engaged in
work that’s essential to company strategy. This,
too, may seem obvious. But it’s surprising how
few companies systematically identify their
strategically important A
positions
—and
then
focus on the A players who should fill them.
Even fewer companies manage their A posi-
tions in such a way that the A players are able
to deliver the A performance needed in these
crucial roles.
While conventional wisdom might argue
that the firms with the most talent win, we be-
lieve that, given the financial and managerial
resources needed to attract, select, develop,
and retain high performers, companies simply
can’t afford to have A players in all positions.
Rather, we believe that the firms with the
right
talent win. Businesses need to adopt a portfo-

lio approach to workforce management, plac-
ing the very best employees in strategic posi-
tions, good performers in support positions,
and eliminating nonperforming employees
and jobs that don’t add value.
We offer here a method for doing just that,
drawing on the experience of several compa-
nies that are successfully adopting this ap-
proach to workforce management, some of
which we have worked with in our research or
as consultants. One thing to keep in mind: Ef-
fective management of your A positions re-
quires intelligent management of your B and C
positions, as well.
Identifying Your A Positions
People traditionally have assessed the relative

value of jobs in an organization in one of two
ways. Human resource professionals typically
focus on the level of skill, effort, and responsi-
bility a job entails, together with working con-
ditions. From this point of view, the most im-
portant positions are those held by the most
highly skilled, hardest-working employees, ex-
ercising the most responsibility and operating
in the most challenging environments.
Economists, by contrast, generally believe
that people’s wages reflect the value they cre-
ate for the company and the relative scarcity of
their skills in the labor market. Thus, the most
important jobs are those held by the most
highly paid employees. The trouble with both
of these approaches is that they merely iden-
tify which jobs the company is currently treat-
ing as most important, not the ones that actu-
ally are. To do that, one must not work
backward from organization charts or compen-
sation systems but forward from strategy.
That’s why we believe the two defining char-
acteristics of an A position are first, as you
might expect, its disproportionate importance
to a company’s ability to execute some part of
its strategy and second—and this is not nearly
as obvious—the wide variability in the quality
of the work displayed among the employees in
the position.
Plainly, then, to determine a position’s stra-
tegic significance, you must be clear about
your company’s strategy: Do you compete on
the basis of price? On quality? Through mass

customization? Then you need to identify
your strategic capabilities—the technologies,
information, and skills required to create the
intended competitive advantage. Wal-Mart’s
low-cost strategy, for instance, requires state-
of-the-art logistics, information systems, and a
relentless managerial focus on efficiency and
cost reduction. Finally, you must ask: What
jobs are critical to employing those capabili-
ties in the execution of the strategy?
Such positions are as variable as the strate-
gies they promote. Consider the retailers Nord-
strom and Costco. Both rely on customer satis-
faction to drive growth and shareholder value,
but what different forms that satisfaction
takes: At Nordstrom it involves personalized
service and advice, whereas at Costco low
prices and product availability are key. So the
jobs critical to creating strategic advantage at
the two companies will be different. Frontline
sales associates are vital to Nordstrom but
hardly to be found at Costco, where purchas-
ing managers are absolutely central to success.
The point is, there are no inherently strate-
gic positions. Furthermore, they’re relatively
rare—less than 20% of the workforce—and are
likely to be scattered around the organization.
They could include the biochemist in R&D or
the field sales representative in marketing.
So far, our argument is straightforward. But
why would variability in the performance of
the people currently in a job be so important?

Because, as in other portfolios, variation in job
performance represents upside potential—
raising the average performance of individuals
in these critical roles will pay huge dividends in
corporate value. Furthermore, if that variance
exists across companies, it may also be a source
of competitive advantage for a particular firm,
making the position strategically important.
Sales positions, fundamental to the success
of many a company’s strategy, are a good case
in point: A salesperson whose performance is
in the 85th percentile of a company’s sales staff
frequently generates five to ten times the reve-
nue of someone in the 50th percentile. But
we’re not just talking about greater or lesser
value creation—we’re also talking about the
potential for value creation versus value de-
struction. The Gallup organization, for in-
stance, surveyed 45,000 customers of a com-
pany known for customer service to evaluate
its 4,600 customer service representatives. The
reps’ performance ranged widely: The top
quartile of workers had a positive effect on
61% of the customers they talked to, the second
quartile had a positive effect on only 40%, the
third quartile had a positive effect on just
27%—and the bottom quartile actually had, as
a group, a negative effect on customers. These
people—at the not insignificant cost to the
company of roughly $40 million a year (assum-
ing average total compensation of $35,000 per
person)—were collectively destroying value by
alienating customers and, presumably, driving
many of them away.

Although the $40 million in wasted re-
Mark A. Huselid
([email protected]
.rutgers.edu) and
Richard W. Beatty
([email protected]) are profes-
sors of human resource management
in the School of Management and
Labor Relations at Rutgers University
in New Brunswick, New Jersey.
Brian
E. Becker
([email protected]) is a
professor of human resources in the
School of Management at SUNY Buf-
falo in New York. They are the authors
of
The Workforce Scorecard: Manag-
ing Human Capital to Execute Strat-
egy

(Harvard Business School Press,
2005).
mailto:[email protected]
sources is jaw-dropping, the real significance of
this situation is the huge difference that replac-
ing or improving the performance of the sub-
par reps would make. If managers focused dis-
proportionately on this position, whether
through intensive training or more careful
screening of the people hired for it, company
performance would improve tremendously.
The strategic job that doesn’t display a great
deal of variability in performance is relatively
rare, even for those considered entry-level.
That’s because performance in these jobs in-
volves more than proficiency in carrying out a

task. Consider the job of cashier. The generic
mechanics aren’t difficult. But if the position is
part of a retail strategy emphasizing the cus-
tomers’ buying experience, the job will cer-
tainly involve more than scanning products
and collecting money with a friendly smile.
Cashiers might, for example, be required to
take a look at what a customer is buying and
then suggest other products that the person
might want to consider on a return visit. In
such cases, there is likely to be a wide range in
people’s performance.
Some jobs may exhibit high levels of vari-
Which Jobs Make the Most Difference?
An A position is defined primarily by its im-
pact on strategy and by the range in the per-
formance level of the people in the position.
From these two characteristics flow a num-
ber of other attributes that distinguish A po-
sitions from B and C jobs.
DEFINING
CHARACTERISTICS
B Position
SUPPORT
C Position
SURPLUS

Has a direct strategic
impact
AND
Exhibits high performance
variability among those in
the position, representing
upside potential
Scope of authority
Primary determinant
of compensation
Effect on value
creation
Consequences
of mistakes
Consequences of
hiring wrong person
Has an indirect strategic
impact by supporting
strategic positions and
minimizes downside risk
by providing a foundation
for strategic efforts.
OR
Has a potential strategic
impact, but exhibits little

performance variability
among those in the position
Autonomous decision making
Performance
Creates value by substantially
enhancing revenue or reducing
costs
May be very costly, but missed
revenue opportunities are a
greater loss to the firm
Significant expense in terms
of lost training investment and
revenue opportunities
Specific processes or procedures
typically must be followed
Job level
Supports value-creating
positions
May be very costly and can
destroy value
Fairly easily remedied through
hiring of replacement
Little discretion in work
Market price

Has little positive economic
impact
Not necessarily costly
Easily remedied through hiring
of replacement
May be required for the
firm to function but has
little strategic impact
A Position
STRATEGIC
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ability (the sales staff on the floor at a big-box
store like Costco, for example) but have little
strategic impact (because, as we have noted,
Costco’s strategy does not depend on sales staff
to ensure customer satisfaction). Neither dra-
matically improving the overall level of perfor-
mance in these jobs nor narrowing the vari-
ance would present an opportunity for
improving competitive advantage.
Alternatively, some jobs may be potentially
important strategically but currently repre-
sent little opportunity for competitive advan-
tage since everyone’s performance is already at
a high level. That may either be because of the
standardized nature of the job or because a

company or industry has, through training or
careful hiring, reduced the variability and in-
creased the mean performance of workers to a
point where further investment isn’t merited.
A pilot, for example, is a key contributor to
most airlines’ strategic goal of safety, but
owing to regular training throughout pilots’ ca-
reers and government regulations, most pilots
perform well. Although there definitely is a
strategic downside if the performance of some
pilots were to fall into the unsafe category, im-
proving pilot performance in the area of safety
is unlikely and, even if marginal gains are pos-
sible, unlikely to provide an opportunity for
competitive advantage.
So a job must meet the dual criteria of stra-
tegic impact and performance variability if it
is to qualify as an A position. From these two
defining characteristics flow a number of oth-
ers—for example, a position’s potential to sub-
stantially increase revenue or reduce costs—
that mark an A position and distinguish it
from B and C positions. B positions are those
that are either indirectly strategic through
their support of A positions or are potentially
strategic but currently exhibit little perfor-
mance variability and therefore offer little op-
portunity for competitive advantage. Al-
though B positions are unlikely to create
value, they are often important in maintaining
it. C positions are those that play no role in
furthering a company’s strategy, have little ef-
fect on the creation or maintenance of value—
and may, in fact, not be needed at all. (For a
comparison of some attributes of these three

types of positions, see the exhibit “Which Jobs
Make the Most Difference?”)
It’s important to emphasize that A posi-
tions have nothing to do with a firm’s hierar-
chy—which is the criterion executive teams
so often use to identify their organizations’
critical and opportunity-rich roles. As natural
as it may be for you, as a senior executive, to
view your own job as among a select group of
vital positions in the company, resist this
temptation. As we saw in the case of the cash-
ier, A positions can be found throughout an
organization and may be relatively simple
jobs that nonetheless need to be performed
creatively and in ways that fit and further a
company’s unique strategy.
A big pharmaceutical firm, for instance, try-
ing to pinpoint the jobs that have a high im-
pact on the company’s success, identifies sev-
eral A positions. Because its ability to test the
safety and efficacy of its products is a required
strategic capability, the head of clinical trials,
as well as a number of positions in the regula-
tory affairs office, are deemed critical. But
some top jobs in the company hierarchy, in-
cluding the director of manufacturing and the
corporate treasurer, are not. Although people
in these jobs are highly compensated, make
important decisions, and play key roles in
maintaining the company’s value, they don’t
create

value through the firm’s business model.
Consequently, the company chooses not to
make the substantial investments (in, say, suc-
cession planning) in these positions that it
does for more strategic jobs.
A positions also aren’t defined by how hard
they are to fill, even though many managers
mistakenly equate workforce scarcity with
workforce value. A tough job to fill may not
have that high potential to increase a firm’s
value. At a high-tech manufacturing company,
for example, a quality assurance manager plays
a crucial role in making certain that the prod-
ucts meet customers’ expectations. The job re-
quires skills that may be difficult to find. But,
like the airline pilots, the position’s impact on
company success is asymmetrical. The down-
side may indeed be substantial: Quality that
falls below Six Sigma levels will certainly de-
stroy value for the company. But the upside is
limited: A manager able to achieve a Nine
Sigma defect rate won’t add much value be-
cause the difference between Six Sigma and
Nine Sigma won’t be great enough to translate
into any major value creation opportunity (al-
though the difference between Two- and
Three-Sigma defect rates may well be). Thus,
while such a position could be hard to fill, it
Companies simply can’t
afford to have A players
in all positions.

doesn’t fit the definition of an A position.
Managing Your A Positions
Having identified your A positions, you’ll need
to manage them—both individually and as
part of a portfolio of A, B, and C positions—so
that they and the people in them in fact fur-
ther your organization’s strategic objectives.
A first and crucial step is to explain to your
workforce clearly and explicitly the reasons
that different jobs and people need to be
treated differently. Pharmaceutical company
GlaxoSmithKline is identifying those positions,
at both the corporate and business-unit levels,
that are critical to the company’s success in a
rapidly changing competitive environment. As
part of that initiative, the company developed
a statement of its workforce philosophy and

management guidelines. One of these explic-
itly addresses “workforce differentiation” and
reads, in part: “It is essential that we have key
talent in critical positions and that the careers
of these individuals are managed centrally.”
But communication is just the beginning. A
positions also require a disproportionate level
of investment. The performance of people in
these roles needs to be evaluated in detail,
these individuals must be actively developed,
and they need to be generously compensated.
Also, a pipeline must be created to ensure that
their successors are among the best people
available. IBM is a company making aggressive
investments on each of these four fronts.
In recent years, IBM has worked to develop
what it calls an “on-demand workforce,” made
up of people who can quickly put together or
become part of a package of hardware, soft-
ware, and consulting services that will meet
the specific needs of an individual customer.
As part of this effort, IBM has sought to attract
and retain certain individuals with what it
terms the “hot skills” customers want in such
bundled offerings.
In the past year or so, the company has also
focused on identifying its A positions. The ros-
ter of such positions clearly will change as
IBM’s business does. But some, such as the
country general manager, are likely to retain
their disproportionate value. Other strategic
roles include midlevel manager positions,
dubbed “deal makers,” responsible for the cen-

tral strategic task of pulling together, from
both inside and outside the company, the di-
verse set of products, software, and expertise
that a particular client will find attractive.
Evaluation.
Because of their importance,
IBM’s key positions are filled with top-notch
people: Obviously, putting A players in these A
positions helps to ensure A performance. But
IBM goes further, taking steps to hold its A
players to high standards through an explicit
process—determining the factors that differen-
tiate high and low performance in each posi-
tion and then measuring people against those
criteria. The company last year developed a se-
ries of ten leadership attributes—such as the
abilities to form partnerships with clients and
to take strategic risks—each of which is mea-
sured on a four-point scale delineated with
clear behavioral benchmarks. Individuals as-
sess themselves on these attributes and are also
assessed by others, using 360-degree feedback.
Development.
Such detailed evaluation isn’t
very valuable unless it’s backed up by a robust
professional development system. Drawing on
the strengths and weaknesses revealed in their

evaluations and with the help of tools avail-
able on the company’s intranet, people in
IBM’s A positions are required to put together
a development program for themselves in
each of the ten leadership areas.
This is only one of numerous development
opportunities offered to people in A positions.
In fact, more than $450 million of the $750 mil-
lion that IBM spends annually on employee
development is targeted at either fostering hot
skills (both today’s and those expected to be to-
morrow’s) or the development of people in key
positions. A senior-level executive devotes all
of his time to programs designed to develop
the executive capabilities of people in these
jobs.
Compensation.
IBM supports this dispro-
portionate investment in development with
an even more disproportionate compensation
system. Traditionally at IBM, even employees
with low performance ratings had received
regular salary increases and bonuses. Today,
annual salary increases go to only about half
the workforce, and the best-performing em-
ployees get raises roughly three times as high
as those received by the simply strong per-
formers.
Succession.

Perhaps most important, IBM
has worked to formalize succession planning
and to build bench strength for each of its key
positions, in part by investing heavily in feeder
jobs for those roles. People in these feeder po-
There are no inherently
strategic positions.
What’s more, they’re
relatively rare—less than
20% of the workforce.
“A …
DBA 7553, Human Resource Management 1
Course Learning Outcomes for Unit II
Upon completion of this unit, students should be able to:

1. Appraise workflows and the role of job analysis.
1.1 Examine the organizational, environmental, and individual
challenges with regard to workflow.
1.2 Explain the importance of job analysis with regard to
organizational structure.
1.3 Summarize how work-flow analysis supports strategy and
organizational structure.
Course/Unit
Learning Outcomes
Learning Activity
1.1
Unit Lesson
Unit II Research Paper
1.2
Unit Lesson
1.3
Unit Lesson
Reading Assignment
There is no reading assignment in this unit.
Unit Lesson
Managing how work is organized to meet an organization’s

goals (workflow) is key for developing effective
and efficient jobs that support the company’s bottom line. This
starts with the organizational structure and a
company’s strategy. The organizational structure is developed
to establish both informal and formal
relationships between employees. This includes designing
useful departments, work teams, and jobs.
Effective strategic human resource management contributes on
an ongoing basis. Building on a good
organizational structure, human resource management can
partner with top leadership to help develop a
long-term business strategy.
The design of an organization is a critical foundation. The
organizational structure must be designed in a way
that will support the company’s goals. Depending on the
industry and the company’s long-term goals,
strategic human resource management can partner to create a
bureaucratic organization, which would help a
company that has adopted a defender business strategy. This
type of structure uses a top-down approach
and can be useful in providing efficient division structure to
help employees keep a more rigid focus.
Another organizational structure option is a flat organization. A
company with a prospector business strategy
would most likely select this. This type of an organization
would have a decentralized management approach
and it would be more useful for providing flexible boundaries
with jobs and units.
One additional organizational structure that could be considered
would be a boundaryless organization. This
type of structure allows a company to pool resources with other
companies, customers, and/or supplies. This
is done in an effort to provide mutual benefits for all involved

and can help address issues in an uncertain
environment. This could be something done in the form of a
joint venture in which companies can share
valuable resources, such as employees who have very specific
knowledge points and skills that can mutually
benefit both parties. Ultimately, companies that operate with a
prospector business strategy and also have a
fast-changing environment would select to utilize a
boundaryless organization.
UNIT II STUDY GUIDE
Strategic Human Resource Management, Managing
Workflows, and Conducting Job Analysis, Part II
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title
Once an organizational structure is defined, workflow is
examined. A work-flow analysis provides information
on how work develops value to the business processes at hand.
Work-flow analysis examines how the work
at hand moves from customers, through the various points in the
organization’s business processes, and then
when the customer has the product or service at the endpoint.
Understanding this workflow can help create a

tight alignment for the business.
Effective strategic human resource management can facilitate
this work-flow analysis with the introduction of
more efficient work groups. The use of self-managed teams has
increased over the years and can improve
quality as well as reduce costs. There is also a rise in the use of
virtual teams in which employees can
congregate and share needed skill sets in an online environment.
Again, this can provide more efficiency for
projects, as well as cost savings.
Motivating employees is also a key part of managing workflow.
It is critical that strategic human resource
management have a solid understanding of the different
motivation theories in order to ensure that the
workforce feels empowered and supported, and thus, able to
contribute more effectively to the company’s
goals and visions.
Motivation theories can focus on job design. Job design focuses
on organizing work and tasks necessary to
perform a particular job. In job design, there are three
dimensions to consider. In the first dimension, work-
flow analysis includes a mapping of work inputs, the value
added there, and then the process to move the
work forward in the chain. In the second dimension, there is
business strategy. In the third dimension, there is
organizational structure that best aligns to the business strategy.
Aligning these three dimensions sets the
stage for the next step when job design approaches can be
considered. The job design approaches include
work simplification, job enlargement, job rotation, job
enrichment, and team-based.
Work simplification involves breaking things down into simple

tasks that can be done in a repetitive fashion.
The auto assembly line is a good example of work
simplification. Each part of making an auto is broken down
into simple, repetitive tasks that contribute, in the end, to the
final work product of the car. This seeks to
maximize efficiency. Job enlargement and job rotation can be
utilized to redesign jobs in order to reduce
boredom or fatigue. This usually involves workers who are
performing simple, yet highly specialized work. In
job enlargement, a worker’s duties are expanded. An example
from the auto assembly line would be if a
worker had a specialized job to install tightly aligned door
panels. This could be expanded to include
installation of related areas, such as hoods, trunks, and
bumpers, so the worker would move from one job to
the next.
Job rotation moves workers from one narrowly defined task to
another. This is done in more of a pooled
fashion. For instance, the same worker from the job enlargement
example may only work on installation of
those tightly aligned door panels. Then he or she would be
moved to focus only on hoods, then only on
trunks, then only on bumpers. The time spent on these jobs
would be shorter than usual, thus, making the
rotation issue more effective. Job enrichment involves making
jobs more interesting and would be focused on
providing more robust responsibility to a worker for a larger
production of a product part or service. For
instance, a company that used to break down a product into
assembly, then testing, then packaging could
assign one worker to handle all three areas. This worker would
also have more opportunity to provide
feedback on quality issues as well as having more freedom and
autonomy in his or her job. Finally, there are
team-based job designs. This provides a focus on having a team

become responsible for the product or
service work to be accomplished. These team members would be
empowered to make decisions for their
teamwork, and they can be cross-trained in order to strengthen
the capabilities of their team.
Once the work-flow analysis and job design are completed, a
job analysis can be performed. This involves
setting job expectations and communicating these clearly to the
employees. This includes establishing a
systematic process where information about jobs is gathered and
organized for the analysis. Tasks, duties,
and responsibilities of jobs are identified and examined. This is
done by human resource management
professionals and is often in conjunction with the current
jobholder. The methods can include doing an
interview with the job incumbent, observing the incumbent,
providing questionnaires to the incumbent (this
can be done with a paper survey or an online one). Additionally,
job incumbents may be asked to keep a diary
or log of their activities. Each of these methods provides useful
information to proceed with the job analysis
task.
UNIT x STUDY GUIDE
Title

There are eight frequently used techniques for performing a job
analysis:
task inventory analysis,
-oriented job analysis,
-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2016).
With the task inventory analysis, a questionnaire is used,
ultimately providing a rating of tasks. In using the
critical incident technique, an interview method is used, and a
behavioral description is the final result. The
position analysis questionnaire uses a survey, and the final
result is a rating of 194 job elements. With the
functional job analysis, a group interview and questionnaire can
be used, and a rating of how the incumbent
relates to data and people is the final result. The methods
analysis (motion study) uses an observation
process, and the final result is a time-per-unit of work figure. In
using the guidelines-oriented job analysis, an
interview is utilized, and the final result is a list of skills and
knowledge needed for that job. With the
management position description questionnaire, a questionnaire

is administered, and a checklist of 197 items
with regard to responsibilities is the final result. In the last
item, the Hay Plan, an interview process is used,
and the final results are two profiles (one long and one short)
with a focus of the impact of the job on the
organization.
Overall, job analysis helps to measure the content of a job and
the relative importance of the duties and
responsibilities of the organization. This can be valuable for
recruitment and selection of job candidates,
performance appraisals of current employees, compensation
strategies, and training and career development
in any organization.
Reference
Gomez-Mejia, L. R., Balkin, D. B., & Cardy, R. L. (2016).
Managing human resources (8th ed.). Boston, MA:
Pearson.

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