Tag Archives: strategic HR

Building successful and sustainable HR interventions

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Topic: Change Management, Strategic HR
Publication: Journal of Business and Psychology (JUN 2011)
Article: HR interventions that go viral
Authors: Yost, P. R., McLellan, J. R., Ecker, D. L., Chang, G. C., Hereford, J. M., Roenicke, C. C., Town, J. B., & Winberg, Y. L.
Reviewed by: Alexandra Rechlin

Why do some HR interventions fail while others succeed? In this article, Yost et al. (2011) attempt to answer that question by using three different methods: a literature review, a case study, and interviews with senior I/O and HR professionals. The authors provided a case study of a successful HR intervention. They noted five important characteristics of the intervention:

  1. It was strategic. Resources and tools were written in alignment with business strategy.
  2. It was systemic. The intervention complemented and enhanced other company initiatives.
  3. It was simple. Resources and tools were simple, easy to read and understand, and written in the language of business leaders (not that of HR).
  4. It was sustainable. The intervention was created with the explicit intent to sustain it for a long time.
  5. It was sneeze-able. It was designed to be interesting and passed on to others.

The authors also reviewed the literature and interviewed 16 senior I/O and HR professionals about both successful and unsuccessful HR interventions.

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Creativity at Work…Through Increased Workplace Structure?

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Topic: Creativity, Strategic HR, Stress
Publication: Human Resource Management (NOV/DEC 2010)
Article: Does Structuring of Human Resource Management Process Enhance Employee Creativity? The Mediating Role of Psychological Availability
Authors: G. Binyamin, A. Carmeli
Reviewed By: Lauren A. Wood

The environment of the modern workplace is increasingly becoming more dynamic and unstable leading employees to perceive high levels of work-related stress. To battle this increased uncertainty in the external environment and provide a sense of stability to employees, organizations are looking internally at the way human resources processes are designed. Structuring of HRM processes consists of 7 essential dimensions: strategic alignment with organizational goals, managerial engagement, employee job functions structured and evaluated based on a job analysis, clarity of HRM policies and evaluation criteria, planning, flexibility, and internal consistency or synergy of all processes. Structuring HR around these 7 dimensions was shown to help alleviate employee stress perceptions by decreasing feelings of uncertainty.    

Despite these positive outcomes, intuitively, it seems that by providing a structured work place, employee creativity (an indispensable factor for knowledge work) would decrease. However, as the authors of the current study show, this does not appear to be the case – because structuring HRM processes around the 7 dimensions decreased perceived employee stress and uncertainty, employees’ psychological availability (psychological recourses an employee can allocate to a given situation) was freed-up, allowing room for higher-order cogitative processes like creativity.

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Evidence-Based Management: One Small Step for You, One Giant Leap for the Profession

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Topic: Strategic HR
Publication: Academy of Management Journal
Article: A Sticky, Leveraging, and Scalable Strategy for High-quality Connections between Organizational Practice and Science
Author: D. M. Rousseau
Reviewed By: Sarah Teague

Have you ever participated in an EBM Collaboration? I’ll give you a hint… you’re participating right now! The term Evidence-Based Management (EBM) Collaboration refers to an effort to better inform practice with empirical findings and also to make stronger connections within our field; essentially bridging the gap between science and practice. A call from Rousseau (2007) lays out a framework for the potential tasks associated with such an effort and proposes specific benefits that our field might reap.

Suggested EBM Tasks:

1.    Review current research and present plain-language summaries in an easily  accessible online format.

2.    Analyze reviews within a given topic area to provide insight on practical inquiries (e.g., “What are the effects of bonus pay? Leadership training? Mergers? Downsizing?”).

3.    Include case studies about practitioner’s struggles/success in implementing the scientific findings to aid others experiencing resistance.

4.    Provide interactive features to foster procedural knowledge (knowledge of how to do something) (e.g., describing conditions under which findings might/might not be apply to a given situation).

Proposed Outcomes:
The author proposed that this type of collaboration will result in an impartial “seal of approval” for current research findings, bolstered by professional partnerships with organizations such as SIOP or AOM. Subsequently, this will render solid research findings and implications more relevant and accessible to practitioners, potentially inhibiting the buying and selling of unsubstantiated claims and speculative interventions.

On a side note, The IOATWORK website is a response to the repeated calls for a stronger alliance between scientists and practitioners. By reading this review, you have taken a small (but SUBSTANTIAL) step towards making our field more integrative and functional. So thank you and tell all your friends!

Rousseau, D. M. (2007). A sticky, leveraging, and scalable strategy for high-quality
connections between organizational practice and science. Academy of Management
Journal, 50(5), 1037-1042.