Human resource management and organizational leadership are two opposed management techniques that regularly collide, despite each approach having distinct advantages and disadvantages. Influential business leaders may combine these to develop a good plan for guiding an organization toward long-term profitability and effective staff management (Hekkinen et al., 2021). The General Electric Company must deliberate on how to deliver in both domestic and foreign markets by resolving human resource and organizational leadership interactions and their relationship levels. This article explores and assesses the organization’s methods to tackle the presented difficulty.
Strategy human resource management (HRM) integrates the company’s strategic and human resource planning. In essence, strategy HRM may combine GE’s human resource operations and plan into the organization’s strategic plan, ensuring that HRM is tied to or related to the company’s goals and purposes. HR managers at GE want to ensure that human resource planning appropriately aligns with the company’s overall organizational strategy to function in sync. According to Pattanayak (2020), human resource planning may be ineffective in assisting the business in meeting its objectives. Suppose a company’s purpose is cost reduction and savings, yet the human resources department spends a lot of money on expensive staff acquisition. In that case, there is a mismatch between HRM practices and organizational strategy.
Incorporating human resource management into the organization’s planning process will emphasize human resource initiatives that support the organization’s broad mission objectives and foster a strong relationship between management and HR. The organization can ensure that human resource management contributes to mission achievement and that managers are held accountable for their human resource management decisions (Chams and García 2019). It is critical for GE’s human resource procedures to be aligned with its established strategic goals and objectives and to track progress toward those goals and objectives. Additionally, GE’s corporate vision statement, foresight, business objectives, and techniques would drive and advise the company’s human resources (HR) operating plan. GE’s HR delegates would be able to participate in the company’s planning process and integrate (HRM) strategies, objectives, and goals into the company’s strategic plans (Schiecmann et al., 2018). As such, GE’s human resources professionals and senior executives would need to collaborate to fully incorporate HR practices into the planning process, raising them to be a critical component of the company’s strategy.
There are four distinct approaches to strategic planning, each with significant implications for how the General Electric company can design and implement human resource activities such as culture, talent, performance, communication, and leadership development. The first approach begins with internal data analyzed and used by a small group of highly competent planners at the firm’s top. They may establish strategic objectives based on previous success and cascade them down its organizational structure. At the top of the ladder, the fulfillment of a goal is communicated to the source of information. In the 1970s and 1980s, this time-honored strategic planning saw a renaissance in popularity. This is a tactic that historically successful enterprises have often utilized while operating in stable, monopolistic, or oligopolistic contexts. When this approach to strategic planning is used, human resources should place a premium on maintaining a hierarchical control, discipline, and regimentation culture (Dubey 2018). Technical professionals (often with financial backgrounds) set the direction and objectives at the top, while most workers concentrate on implementation. Performance management’s mission is to create, monitor, and reward quantifiable output targets. Leadership development focuses on the skills and tools necessary for plan implementation.
The second way begins with external data and turns it into organizational objectives and activities. As with Porter’s Five Forces, this method often focuses on industry research. As was the case with the previous model, strategy is generated by a few strategic planners who communicate their objectives and initiatives to strategy implementers at the bottom of the administrative ladder. Often, strategists have strong backgrounds in economics and industry analysis. They choose business configurations for their portfolio and outsource or insource business operations. The culture of the senior leadership team will place a premium on industry-level innovation and competitiveness. In contrast, the remainder of the organization will place a premium on business-level innovation and competitiveness (Hant and Madhavaran 2020). Performance management will be centered on assessing and rewarding these two employee groups based on their performance versus their corporate and business counterparts.
The third approach examines the internal capabilities that contribute to competitive advantage. The dynamic engagement of a large number of individuals determines strategic capabilities. Vibrant and entrepreneurial is the culture. Internal data is exchanged and debated regularly (Hayter and Cahoy 2018). The objective is to produce something more significant than the sum of its components. Because involvement is critical in this strategy, performance management involves outcomes and the behaviors that produce and execute new ideas. Personnel is recruited and developed to contribute to the company’s current and future capabilities. Leaders create an environment conducive to the creation of ideas. They lead by collaboration, not by hierarchy. This strategic planning approach is often employed by entrepreneurial organizations seeking to strengthen their current core strengths while simultaneously exploring the development of new internal capabilities. This strategy is often used by entrepreneurial organizations that leverage their existing core skills.
The final approach to strategic planning is lively and engaging, but the debate begins with the external ecosystem’s demands rather than internal capabilities. The culture is externally driven, energizing, and immensely engaging. Numerous employees continually obtain and assess external information to develop the internal capabilities required. Vertical silos must be dismantled when internal data is prioritized, shared, and evaluated. Performance management places a premium on striking a balance between externally benchmarked measures of success and behavioral indicators that foster creativity and cooperation. Talent management involves self-motivated and inventive people who inspire others to do the same. External awareness, adaptability in an ever-changing external environment, and the capability to engage cross-functional teams in finding and capitalizing on external possibilities are all priorities for leadership (Kezar and Holcombe 2017). Firms working in fast-moving ecosystems with short-cycle goods and services often use this strategy.
The human resource leadership idea of General Electric incentivizes people to be the best in their respective industries. This group believes that every employee at General Electric can be a leader with the proper mentoring. Employees at General Electric build relationships, collaborate, and share information (Ardito and Petruzzelli 2017). Susan Peters, Senior Vice-President for Human Resources at General Electric, stated that leaders connect employees to the processes that enable them to grow together because they communicate what is expected of them, assist them in achieving it, hold them accountable, and ensure that each of them is motivated by improving performance. Susan Peters further noted that the company develops targets and goals for each employee, analyzes them often, and assesses their performance against those aims and goals. Additionally, General Electric’s goals and objectives structure ensured that corporate and individual objectives were aligned and allowed feedback. The growth values of the organization illustrated how to perform, with an emphasis on an external perspective, boldness and inventiveness, clear thinking, knowledge, and inclusivity (Wadhwa et al., 2017). All of the company’s employees live by these principles, backed by a shared conviction that we should continuously operate with unwavering integrity
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