Armstrong (1995)1 quotes various Human Resource Management models including The Harvard Framework founded by M. Beer and colleagues. The Harvard model was centred on the belief that problems occurring within organisations and personnel management would be rectified if general managers were to get employees involved and developed through HRM policies and practices.
Armstrong also quotes the UK version of the Harvard model developed further by David Guest. Guest believed that the premise behind HRM was “the pursuit of competitive advantage in the market-place through provision of high-quality goods and services, through competitive pricing linked to high productivity and through the capacity swiftly to innovate and manage change in response to changes in the market-place or to breakthroughs in research and development.”2
Surely if (to combat change, competition and obtain success) it was as simple as putting Human Resource Management practices and policies into place then every company would be doing it and succeeding.
However, Armstrong also notes that W. Beer suggests managers require a pivotal philosophy or strategic vision to centre these HRM policies and practices around so that each would work in harmony with the other, rather than being independent and scattered.
Therefore through HRM policies and procedures organisations could achieve success in areas such as utilising employees and facilitating change. This view has not only been seen by Beer and his colleagues and Guest, but by many commentators including C.J. Fomburn, P. Boxall, K. Legge, C. Hendry, A. Pettigrew, J. Storey, A, Fowler and D. Torrington - to name but a few.
Let us look at two of these Human Resource Management policies and procedures, training & development policy and performance appraisal system, to see how they can be used to seduce the employee to give their best to organisations in these changing times.
Firstly the training and development policy which is seen as...