How SHRM can contribute in achieving competitive advantage? Essay

How SHRM can contribute in achieving competitive advantage? Despite universalistic, contingency or configurational approaches, SHRM is an important element of achieving the competitive edge in terms of quality, cost and flexibility. Either processual or systemic, SHRM puts human at the center. When saying human it does really mean employees, but embracing also those people whom the organizations does business with. Through them, sustainable completive advantage, or the achievement of value- creating strategies that direct and indirect rivals could not implement, may be achieved. From a resource-based perspective, there are various categories of resources that SHRM can build upon to gain the so-called advantage such as physical, organizational, financial, and technological and most especially human resources. As assets, the mere existence of human is not sufficient but the relationship among them that therefore must be controlled for the purpose of long-term commercial success. The sustainable competitive advantage potential of human resources is central on the premises that human resources are valuable, rare, inimitable and non-substitutable as valuable resources, human resources are heterogeneous since organizations require different jobs which require different skills as well as differing in types and level of idiosyncratic skills. As such, the variance placed on the contribution of individuals to the organizations means to provide value at diverse degrees. The rarity of high quality and ability workers is due to their skills and competency levels and the supposedly normal distribution of skills, competencies, expertise and capabilities. For the human asset to be imitated, competitors should be able to identify the exact source of such and duplicate exactly the elements of the human capital. In addition, human resources should not be imperfectly mobile so that they cannot be traded. Lastly, for the human resources to be able to
provide sustainable competitive advantage, they must not be substitutable. Achieving competitive advantage is based on the collective practices within that are intended for the outside environment which otherwise cannot be achieved or limited through HRM alone. These are employment security, recruitment selectivity, high wages, incentive pay, employee ownership, information sharing, participation and empowerment, self-managed teams, training and skills development, cross-utilization and cross-training symbolic egalitarianism, wage compression and promotion from within. The emphasis is on envisioning individual workers as sources of competitive advantage instead of complementary or limiting factor of the organizational success. Competitive advantage is also realized when the organizations through SHRM is continuously investing on its reputation or image stressing the need for sound human resource policies and practices and aligning such with the business strategies and its external context. The focus is both on cost and quality whereby there are definite processes, systems and procedures that consolidates competencies, continuous education, and proficient performance at individual and collegial levels and balance monetary and non-monetary reward systems. Competitive advantage is also realized when the organizations through SHRM is continuously investing on its reputation or image stressing the need for sound human resource policies and practices and aligning such with the business strategies and its external context. The focus is both on