important, but content and action are also required. In the research
conducted by Armstrong and Long (1994) it was assumed that the basis of
any approach an organization used to develop and implement HR
strategies would be the philosophy of influential members of the top team
on managing people. The content and programmes of the organizations
covered by the research were examined to identify what was contained in
their HR strategies and how they were implementing them. This was done
under the headings of: macro, corporate issues such as vision and mission,
organization, performance, quality and customer care, commitment, and
the introduction of new technology; and the more specific HR strategy
areas of resourcing, learning, development and training, reward, and
employee relations.
Philosophy on managing people
The philosophy on managing people is a broad strategic issue associated
with management style, and it is one that may never be articulated and so
often remains on a ‘taken for granted’ basis like other manifestations of
corporate culture. The philosophy may lead to a ‘hard HRM’ or a ‘soft HRM’
approach or a combination of the two as described in Chapter 1.
But to adapt a common if somewhat inadequate definition of corporate
culture, strategic HRM is about ‘the way things should be done about here in
the future’. Questions can be asked about the traditional or underlying
philosophy, the extent to which it is still relevant, and the directions in which
it might usefully change.
The philosophy of the managing director of Megastores on managing
people was expressed as follows:
There is immense strength and talent in any body of people numbering 50,000,
and we are negligent if we don’t tap that resource as far as we possibly can...
The contribution of our managers to added value is immense because they are
people managers... They are not managing systems, they are not managing
machinery and they are not managing shops. You can’t manage a shop; you
manage people within a shop.
I have always advocated the employment of the highest calibre of people we
can find, and I think we’ve got that. We are in the vanguard of retailing. Our
net-profit-to-sales ratio is about the highest in the high street, and in profit terms
we are growing at a faster rate than the market. The biggest challenge will be to
maintain that competitive advantage and to do that we need to maintain and
continue to attract very high-calibre people.Strategic HRM in action l 97