Strategic Human Resource Management

Select an organisation with which you are familiar to be the focus for your case study. This could be:

your current employer

a previous employer

an organisation that you have or have had contact with, possibly through work experience or

through a family member or close friend, or:

an organisation you have an interest in that has readily available information on its structure, the

ways in which they manage their staff and how the company organises its HRM activities and

functions.

The size and the structure of your chosen organisation is not important since all organisations employ

people and, therefore, manage their ‘human resources’ in some way. What is important, however, is

that you have some knowledge and understanding of the approach the company uses to strategically

manage HRM to recruit, retain and manage their staff and how they organise their HRM activities and

functions.

You will use this knowledge to produce a report in which you will critically assess existing HRM

practices within the organisation, making recommendations as appropriate to those who run the

business on where and how improvements can be made. It is strongly suggested that each task

represents a subsection of your report and that you also include a brief introduction to the

organisation, conclusion and recommendations.

Task 1

Critically analyse the internal and external environment for your chosen organisation, making

reference to appropriate literature sources.

Task 2

Using appropriate concepts and models of strategic Human Resource Management critically evaluate a

variety of human resource policies and procedures. (A minimum of two is required).

Task 3

Make recommendations relating to the attraction and retention of talent to support the future

performance of your chosen organisation. This may be the adoption of new approaches to HRM or

new methods of managing the human resources of the organisation. In this section you should also

demonstrate awareness of barriers to implementation which may include cultural differences alongside

different working practices and legislation.