Strategic Human Resource Management

Strategic Human Resource Management

Introduction

Due to the current economic situation the competitiveness, customer service emphasis, globalization and the value placed on competencies have increased. Consequently the demand for strategic training has also increased. In the current times, the retail industry finds it difficult to gain competitive edge through distinctive product offering. This is because the current customers have access to a wide range of products. Hence, by providing a superior experience to customers in retail stores, the retailers can attempt to increase customer loyalty and sales. In order to provide a better experience, the workforce can be trained better, since they are the ones who have to deal with customers. Well-trained employees can deliver revenues, differentiation and customer experience making the brand more stringer. This is where the need for effective Human Resources management required. There are mainly five functions of Human resources management in Retail. These include the identification of diverse roles in organizations, recruitment of employees to serve the customers well, motivation and training of employees and evaluation employee performance.

Discussion

The Human resources needs assessment can be defined as the abilities, knowledge and skills that are required by the employees in order to match the organizational requirement regarding the performance (Sullivan, 2009). The needs assessment attempts to identify the gap present between the desired and the current performance, examines the reasons for the gaps and suggests the techniques to reduce these gaps. Some data, for instance HR metrics, strategic plans performance appraisals and job description, are needed to asses the training needs. The instruments used in collection of data are direct observation, questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and tests. Later, the data is evaluated to explore the issues and problems relating to performance and to determine the origins for such problems. It must be taken into consideration that the training needs assessment can be carried out on three levels. These are individual, organizational and occupational. The training needs assessment's objective is to know what needs to be done. Finally, different solutions relating to performance are assessed to see if adapting training programs would be helpful for the organization.

Need for Needs Assessment

There are many reasons why the training needs assessment is necessary for the retail business. Firstly, it would help us define a specific problem that exists within the organization. This would help the HR to direct appropriate training programs to solve the problem. Secondly, the management's support can be gained. Thirdly, the data can be developed for evaluation purposes. Finally, the training needs assessment would help in the determination of costs and benefits of training.

For retail businesses, the existing performance deficiencies may be exposed by many ways in the conduction of the training needs assessment program. First of all the it will be made clear using the training needs assessment that what is the actual problem that needs to be solved. Secondly, the gap between the present performance and the desired performance can also be found. Thirdly, the difference in the expectation of organization about the events and the ...