Some management experts say that the relationship between enterprise strategy and human resource strategy is very similar to the relationship between "chicken" and "egg", which may be the chicken first, then the egg, or the egg first, then the chicken. On the one hand, as traditional management said, enterprises should first have a clear business strategy or competitive strategy, and then analyze what kind of functional strategy (including human resources strategy, financial strategy, marketing strategy, etc.). ) to cooperate with this strategy. In other words, the enterprise strategy determines the human resource strategy, with the enterprise strategy ahead and the human resource strategy behind. On the other hand, in reality, we can often see that many enterprises, especially entrepreneurial small and medium-sized enterprises, can't formulate an ideal enterprise strategy at the initial stage of their business. What they usually do is to look at what kind of human resources they already have (or can obtain), and then decide what kind of corporate strategy they should adopt. When these enterprises develop to a certain scale and have sufficient strength, they may return to the track of "defining the enterprise strategy first and then building the corresponding human resources team".
The author believes that no matter what kind of situation, if it is not handled well, it may lead to the failure of enterprise strategy. Below we can analyze the dialectical relationship between enterprise strategy and human resource strategy through some specific cases.
Human resource strategy that does not match the enterprise strategy
In practice, there are many cases in which the human resource strategy does not match the business strategy of the enterprise and causes losses to the enterprise. Not long ago, in a consulting project, the author once encountered an example that the wrong human resource strategy brought difficulties to enterprises. This enterprise is located in a small county in central China, and it was built with the support of aid projects from developed countries. Its main business includes hatching, breeding and processing a brand-name meat duck cultivated abroad. When I first arrived in this enterprise, several phenomena caught my attention:
First, the turnover rate of college graduates is high. In order to solve this problem, enterprises have also taken some measures, but the effect is not ideal. For example, the enterprise has set up a college student management post in the human resources department, which has strengthened communication with college students, improved their welfare and organized various cultural and sports activities. Second, middle managers are frequently mobilized. Most managers have not worked in the same position for more than one year, and some have been transferred after three to five months, and the reason for the transfer is that they have not reached the ideal performance requirements in this position. At that time, the human resource manager who received the author had just returned from a duck farm. Before that, he worked in that duck farm for less than half a year. Third, the boss is too demanding of middle managers. The boss put the goal of listing on the agenda, but the management foundation of the company is relatively weak. The author found that almost all employees in middle management positions, even a considerable number of senior managers, have the problem of lack of post knowledge and skills to varying degrees, and their professional level is low. As the manager of the enterprise, the boss hopes that the company will develop rapidly and expect to see his employees make achievements in a short time. When this expectation disappointed him, he did not look for a solution to the problem, but immediately changed people. In fact, he unconsciously adopted the human resource strategy of "purchasing" instead of "manufacturing".
"Purchasing" human resource strategy refers to the direct acquisition and use of mature talents, while "manufacturing" human resource strategy refers to the self-cultivation of talents. There is no right or wrong between these two employment strategies, but the requirements for enterprises are different. It is not difficult for enterprises to find directly competent employees. As long as you are willing to spend money, there are all kinds of mature talents in the market. These talents have accumulated a lot of professional knowledge, work experience and various skills in the early career of other enterprises or individuals. Therefore, most of them can play a role quickly after taking up their posts, so that enterprises can see benefits in a short time. However, the implementation of this strategy is conditional and requires enterprises to have certain economic strength or the advantage of attracting all kinds of talents.
In this case, enterprises obviously do not have this advantage. First of all, it is a pure production enterprise with leading cost, which is short of funds and weak in human cost tolerance; Secondly, because of its remote geographical location and poor cultural environment, enterprises are not very attractive to foreign talents. Most employees of the company come from local or surrounding areas. The characteristics of this enterprise, such as business strategy, capital status and geographical location, determine its inability to directly hire mature technical and management talents. However, enterprises did not take this factor into account and unconsciously divorced from their own human resources. And this wrong human resource strategy has also led to another very dangerous result, that is, a large number of managers drain. There is a simple reason. Because these people can't achieve the performance required by the boss in a short time, they lose the opportunity to be promoted and reused, and feel that their careers are bleak, so they have the intention to go.
As far as this case is concerned, the author thinks that enterprises can only adopt a "manufacturing" human resources strategy, that is, intensive training for college graduates, other local personnel and existing managers. Only through the process of continuous accumulation and training can we obtain all kinds of professionals and management talents we need; On the contrary, if enterprises adopt the wrong human resources strategy for a long time, the shortage of professional talents and the current brain drain will not improve, but will further deteriorate.
Lack of enterprise strategy to evaluate the current situation of human resources
Let's take a look at the case that the lack of evaluation of human resources in the process of strategic formulation led to the failure of enterprises.
As we all know, Pepsi's competitor is Coca-Cola. In order to compete for market share, the two companies fought a "war" in the carbonated beverage market for nearly a century. In 1980s, in order to expand its territory, PepsiCo increased its sales by acquiring a large number of fast food restaurants that could sell cola. At that time, the company acquired a series of fast food chain stores including KFC, Tucker Bell (including McDonald's) and Pizza Hut. However, Pepsi-Cola had to sell all these fast food chain stores of 1998, and paid a heavy price for it.
This result is unexpected, and the reason that can't be ignored is that Pepsi has not fully realized whether it has the ability to manage such a workforce.
There is a difference in management between the original employees of Pepsi and the employees in the fast food industry. In the main business of PepsiCo, most employees are professional technicians and marketers, with a high degree of production automation, mainly using assembly line production methods. Most employees in the fast food industry have low academic qualifications and skills, mainly engaged in low-end service work. Many people regard the fast food industry as the starting point of their career, which leads to a high turnover rate in this industry. Therefore, it is obviously not feasible to manage the employees in the fast food industry with the mature model of managing professional technicians and marketers. Even if you change the management mode, you need to have enough time. Pepsi didn't win this expansion, and finally chose to quit the fast food industry.
The lesson of Pepsi tells us that when making a strategy, enterprises must fully understand the requirements of this strategy for the present situation and management of human resources. When an enterprise enters a new business field, it not only needs funds, but also must consider whether the human resources of the enterprise can support the realization of the new strategy.
In fact, not only the business operation, but also the history of China Revolution tells us that as the leader of an organization, it is very important to realize the matching between strategy and human resources. At that time, the Red Army defeated the Kuomintang's four "encirclement and suppression" campaigns in the Soviet area, but failed in the fifth counter-"encirclement and suppression". The main reason is that the first four counter-campaigns against "encirclement and suppression" adhered to the "guerrilla warfare" strategy put forward by Mao Zedong, that is, the famous 16-character policy of "the enemy advances and I retreat, the enemy is stationed and disturbed, the enemy is exhausted and I fight, and the enemy retreats and I chase". In the fifth counter-campaign against "encirclement and suppression", positional warfare was adopted.
In the case that the enemy is strong and we are weak, Mao Zedong's wisdom lies in his ability to choose strategies according to his own human resources, while Wang Ming and Mr. Reed, the international "consultant", obviously ignored the reality of human resources and made dogmatic mistakes. As a result, the China Revolution suffered a major setback.
Therefore, when making human resources strategy, enterprises must consider their environmental background and strategic positioning; When formulating enterprise strategy, we should also consider the existing and possible human resources situation of the enterprise, and we must properly handle the dialectical relationship between enterprise strategy and human resources strategy. Only when human resource strategy is fully coordinated with enterprise strategy can human resource management really promote the realization of enterprise strategy and create maximum value for enterprises.