The Implications of Human Resource Management (HRM) On Organizational Strategy Introduction Over the past few decades, organizations have realized the important role of people in the creation of competitive advantage. Companies are increasingly investing in people to increase their competitiveness. The contemporary business world is highly competitive. Organizations have devised ways of ensuring maximum utilization of their resources to gain a competitive advantage for their survival. Competitiveness can be created and sustained through the utilization of rare, valuable, and non-substitutable internal resources, including human resources or workforce. Therefore, modern human resource functions are beyond recruitment and selection, appraisal, promotion, and demotion. Instead of the dysfunctional policies, modern Human Resource Management (HRM) entails practices with a great impact on the performance of individuals and organizations. The HRM practices create intelligent, flexible, and competent organizations through recruitment, selection, and training personnel as well as directing their effort, skills, and expertise to achieve organizational goals. Therefore, firms must align their HRM policies or practices to business strategies to achieve a higher competitive advantage, hence success in the future. Definition and Overview of Human Resource Management The term HRM is widely used and its definition varies with time and context. Generally, HRM can be defined as a strategic, integrated, and coherent approach to the recruitment, development, and welfare of the workforce in organizations (Nankervis, Baird, Coffey, and Shields 2016). It is a distinctive employment management approach that seeks to achieve a competitive advantage via the strategic employment of highly committed and capable people. The approach is based on an integration of various cultural, structural, and personal parameters that are core to the success of an organization. Simply, HRM entails managerial practices that aim at directing people and organizational operations towards the desired outcome. HRM practices are strategically selected and executed in a manner that improves the effectiveness of organizations, hence increasing their overall performance. The concept of HRM emerged mainly as a result of the managerial desire to effectively utilize available resources to achieve organizational goals. In other words, HRM can be termed as the managerial function that focuses on understanding, maintaining, developing, deploying, and organizing people, who are regarded as a resource to the firm (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright 2017). The human resource function has transformed over the years to incorporate more than just the recruitment, training, deployment, compensation, and appraisal of workers. Instead, the new HRM models advocate for the integration of HR systems and practices with organizational structure and operations to enhance competitiveness (Shen and Benson 2016). Some people think that HRM is just a term that replaced the traditional "personnel management". This is partially true, but it has an extra emphasis on the need for handling and addressing employees as an important organizational pillar that top management must consider during strategic planning. The Human Resource From a global perspective, managers in both private and public entities believe that investing in human capital is crucial to the economic success of any country. However, the strategy cannot be effective without a well-organized and implemented human resource structure. A successful HR strategy requires the active role of the human resource department in creating organizational values and return on investment (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher, and Garavan 2018). In this case, human resource management should be accounted for in both cost-saving and contribution to the organization's return on investment. Unfortunately, most HR departments lack the tools and techniques of describing and evaluating their role and contribution to the overall firm success. A larger portion of HR managers across the world rarely has active roles in the planning and execution of major organizational strategies. For companies to have human resources as part of their organizational strategy, they need to have a method of estimating their strategic contributions. The contribution can be evaluated in terms of the cost, the number of errors or mistakes in the process, the amount of time taken, the objectives achieved, and employee responses. The parameters need to be evaluated based on the objectives of the business for the HR contribution to appear meaningful and of value to an organization (Nankervis, Baird, Coffey, and Shields 2016). Also, the achievements of the HR strategies can be aligned with other departmental goals as well as their overall contribution as a strategy. It is difficult to identify the significance of HRM without a distinct and independent HR department. Each department must have an active strategic planning process, other than the overall organizational strategic plan. Successful HR departments are usually independent, and with a well-defined role which supports other firm strategies. HR's independency and comprehensiveness align its efforts for successful integration with organizational strategy to create a competitive edge (Delery and Roumpi 2017). The ultimate objective and purpose of organizational strategic development are possible through effective management of human capital. However, this requires a mechanism that supports overall organizational strategies. Matching HRM with Organizational Strategies Human resources can be integrated with the organization strategy by developing a new perspective on HRM. For example, there is a need to end the perception that HR is cost-centered and mainly focuses on employee compliance. Instead, it should be viewed as a core component in the organization strategy (Noe, Hollenbeck, Gerhart, and Wright 2017). HRM should be recognized as a strategic asset as far as the organization's performance and value creation are concerned. The perception of its structure and role towards the organization's strategic processes must be convincing to the top management. As a result, the HR activities need to emphasize on the ultimate goals of a company. For example, the department must develop an employee's skills in a manner that meets the expectations of the overall company strategy. It is a way of preparing them to be strategically productive, and improve the firm's competitiveness relative to its rivals. It is important to note that effective HRM requires the development of the human capital right from the recruitment process and throughout the entire production period. The influence of HRM extends beyond the basic HR administrative role towards the strategic field. In this case, HR managers serve both administrative and strategic roles. Companies have adopted automation and outsourcing to help HR managers to focus more on strategic roles and develop more strategic policies in their departments. At the same time, the firm needs to state its acknowledgment and support for HR as a competitive tool. The organization, through the top management, has a role to play in facilitating the strategic function of HRM (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher. and Garavan, 2018). For example, the department requires competent and highly skilled staff who are conversant with business, financial, technological, and consultation knowledge and strategies. Skilled HR personnel ensures successful development and execution of goal-oriented strategies within and out of the department. They create a strategically-involving working environment to encourage more strategic managerial roles since they have the necessary skills and resources. As a result, both departmental and organizational strategic objectives are successfully achieved. The HR's success, however, would be impaired without the appropriate support from the top management. The support help to transform the HR department into an efficient source of value creation, thus benefiting the people and the organization. HRM and Organizational Performance Effective human resource management contributes to the success of businesses. HRM provides organizations with the necessary strategies that enhance their competitiveness against their business rivals. On numerous occasions, organizational success has been attributed to workforce skills, abilities, and experience. These attributes are highly significant in creating value in the company's business operations as well as maintaining its competitiveness (Bailey, Mankin, Kelliher, and Garavan 2018). One of the main roles of the HR department is to develop and promote a positive employee relationship. They, therefore, influence employee job satisfaction, attitude, and behavior in the workplace. These factors affect the dedication and effort of the employees, hence determining their productivity in a firm. However, HRM recognizes the importance of employee motivation, recognition, and appraisal, especially towards the overall organizational performance. In this case, it would be difficult for organizations to positively influence employee performance without the input of the HR department. Arguably, the performance and competence of any organization can be traced to its HR strategies. In HRM, recruitment refers to the process of acquiring and training people with the requirements to facilitate the achievement of specific job, managerial, and organizational goals. The recruitment and selection process can influence the effectiveness and success of organizations in various ways (Cheung-Judge and Holbeche 2011). For example, a company hiring employees who already possess the required and relevant skills, knowledge, and experience is more likely to be efficient and competitive, hence successful compared to acquiring "raw" recruits who require more time and effort to achieve required skills. Furthermore, the former can make precise projections about the future abilities and productivity of its HR. This provides an opportunity to make accurate strategic plans for its long-term success. Both the HR department and the organization must play their respective roles to maintain a committed and motivated workforce all the time. Performance management is the systematic evaluation of the performance of employees to identify the potential areas of improvement. It is an essential practice in HRM since the evaluation information is essential in making decisions related to issues such as promotion, training and development, discharge, and transfers. Job-related evaluations increase employee satisfaction and commitment (Shen and Benson 2016). It highlights their areas of strengths and weaknesses as far as their job requirements are concerned. Consequentially, the HRM encourages them to use their strengths to improve their performance and develop ways of overcoming their weaknesses. Modern HR departments prefer proactive evaluation methods to the reactive approach. The former is more effective in promoting employee productivity and organizational performance. Similarly, compensation is believed to have a significant influence on the success of a business. It is an HRM practice that deals with issues such as payment types and levels, measurement of job values and employee effort, and other employee benefits. Compensation does not necessarily translate the issuance of money for a task completed since it also involves non-monetary aspects. Compensation is believed to have a motivational effect (Mostafa, Gould‐Williams, and Bottomley, 2015). It implies that employees who are satisfied with a company’s compensation strategy are more motivated towards their jobs, hence increase organizational performance compared to when they are dissatisfied. Conclusion and Recommendation There is a positive correlation between HRM and organizational performance. Effective integration of HRM practices with organizational strategies has a positive influence on the success of a business. HRM practices, including recruitment and selection, compensation, performance evaluation, training, and career development, are critical in developing production and operation strategies. These practices address issues related to the acquisition, development, maintenance, and productivity of human capital within a firm. As an asset, human resources is a delicate issue that needs appropriate attention and support from all organizational levels, including top management. The skills, expertise, experience, attitude, and behavior of employees determine their motivation and willingness to work. They, therefore, affect human resource productivity, and the overall performance of the organization. The various workforce attributes usually reflect the practices and strategies of the HR department in a business. In other words, HRM is partially responsible for the success or failure of a firm. Efficient HR strategies promote employees' job satisfaction and motivation, thus improving organizational performance. As a result, HR managers and top management need to recognize the critical role of human resources. They need to develop a mechanism for integrating HR strategies with organizational strategies to create a competitive edge. For a business to succeed, it requires the effort of HRM, and the HR department requires organizational support and approval. In general, the management, deployment, development, and motivation of human resources, as well as the availability of skills and knowledge, shape the business strategy.