Strategic Human Resource Management
Professor Clare Kelliher
Andrew Kirchner
I am joined in the studio by Professor Clare Kelliher. We are talking about
her book entitled Strategic Human Resource Management it is co-authored
with Catherine Truss and David Mankin and it’s been published by Oxford
University Press in 2012. Clare thank you very much for being here this
morning, let’s pick up a few questions, what made you and your co-authors
write the book?
Clare Kelliher
The book had been something we had been thinking about for some period
of time largely really born out of frustration that it was very difficult to find a
good strategic human resource management text. There were a number of
other existing texts on the market but our feeling really was that many of
those dealt with the notion of what strategic HRM was rather than then
having the whole book looking at strategic HR issues so what through our
teaching and recommended textbooks we were looking for something that
took a strategic perspective on human resource management throughout
the text and the lack of that is really what motivated us to try to put one
together ourselves.
Andrew Kirchner
So there was a gap in the market and you reckon the book really
differentiates itself from others on the bookshelf?
Clare Kelliher
Yes I mean I think that what we have tried to do with this book is really to
take a strategic focus throughout it. Our book doesn’t really deal with
practice and with operational aspects it really looks at across the board on
human resource management looking at it from a strategic angle and I think
our reading of the market is that relatively few other books really attempt to
do that.
Andrew Kirchner
So what is the essence of strategic human resource management.
Clare Kelliher
I guess that when we talk about strategic human resource management we
are talking about an approach to managing human resources which is not
standalone but is informed by the organisation’s aims and objectives in a
business context it would be very much linked to a business strategy that
would be a two way relationship in the sense that it would both be human
resource management would be informed by the business strategy but also
would feed back into the overall strategy development process.
Andrew Kirchner
Can you give us a best practice example of that actually happening really the
HR practice being aligned to the organisation’s strategy.
Clare Kelliher
Yes we use many examples in the book but one example that we quote is
Toyota and particularly with their focus on quality. Now in order to achieve
strategic alignment you then need to develop an approach to human
© Cranfield University 2012
www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com
1
resource management which ensures that quality is central to the different
practices so say for example in recruitment you would be recruiting for
quality you would invest in training and development in order to ensure that
employees were able to deliver quality and you have perhaps a performance
management and reward structure which rewarded delivering quality rather
than say for example a quantitative or productivity output the focus would
be on achieving quality.
Andrew Kirchner
Now you mention in the book that HR professionals must become partners
and provocateurs in order to succeed can you tell us more?
Clare Kelliher
Yes I think as we see the HR profession developing and moving forward we
have seen a move towards HR professionals becoming much more involved
in the business activities rather than as a standalone function and the term
business partner now would be a very common one but I think our thoughts
are in terms of moving forward that HR professionals will play a more direct
involvement in shaping business but also with the growth of the corporate
social responsibility agenda that will perhaps have the role of questioning
what an organisation is doing particularly where those CSR issues may relate
to people issues and essentially a challenging role in terms of questioning
whether or not an organisation is going down the appropriate road for long
term sustainability.
Andrew Kirchner
Clare thank you very much for your time this morning.
© Cranfield University 2012
www.cranfieldknowledgeinterchange.com
2