How Do the Strategies and Activities of HRD Support the Missions and Goals of the Organisation?

DEDICATION

In the memory of my late father 'may your soul rest in peace'

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Mohamed Gouda, 06/17/1935 - 11/07/2018

You fought cancer courageously and refused to submit to it, but unfairly cancer won the battle. You lived your life to the fullest until the last minute, adamant not to let go - like you never let go of me when I was a hopeless case and all the doctors told you that I would be dead in a matter of days. You were a pillar in my life, when all my family members and friends gave up on me. You fought for me, believed in me, and never surrendered because this was how you were 'A FIGHTER' and my everlasting 'HERO'. You saved my life and for that you have a special place in my heart forever. I believe that you will live entirely in my heart until we meet again. You taught me to fight and here I am fighting and I will never surrender.

"I love you daddy and it is a goodbye until we meet again."

AKNOWLEDGMENT

While contemplating on this year's events, I remember there were times when I almost abandoned my Master's degree. I became a single mother after being abused by my ex-husband, lost my job, changed my citizenship, and on top of that I was alone: broke and my father has recently passed away. These hardships however, did not get me down on my knees; instead I kept on rising above every obstacle I faced. I believed in myself, used these challenges as motivation and steeping stones to improve my life. I decided to take control of the things that I could such as working hard to successfully complete my Master's degree and fortunately, my efforts led to other people to begin to believe in me.

I would like to sincerely thank the University of Leicester and its management for believing in me and giving me a second chance - a special thanks to Tony Milton-White and Steve King who showed me nothing but understanding and support. My gratitude extends to my supervisor Dr. Vincent Pieterse who gave me all the advice needed and has always been there for me at all times answering all the questions that I have had.

A very special gratitude to my mother who stood by me and always found a way to cheer me up when I was down.

Last but not the least; I am thankful to my baby Jabriel who is the real reason behind my strength and power. I am doing this for you my love; for a brighter future for both of us.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Strategic human resource development has emerged a key issue in impacting or influencing the overall performance of the employees in an organisation. The reason for this is that companies are becoming more aware that their personnel or workforce is the most important component in helping them achieve a competitive advantage over their business rivals. Imparting relevant skills and knowledge to the employees on a regular basis, helps an organisation to become more flexible and re-configure the strategic challenges that it encounters when conducting its business practices. The researcher was keen in determining both the role and contribution of the HR department in successfully achieving the overall strategic plan of Company A, and the impact that it has on the employees. To facilitate this, it was imperative to identify three areas for this study. The researcher was keen to identify the strategies and activities of the HRD that support both the mission and goals of an organisation. The second area of study was to assess the impact of these strategies on the individual and organisational performance of Company A, which is a multi-national establishment. Finally, the researcher wanted to identify the major challenges facing the HRD in successfully achieving its overall strategic plan. The findings of this study revealed that Company A uses diverse human resource practices such as: human capital, universalistic, and configuration theories motivated strategies. For instance, it was determined that the organisation uses regular training activities to improve individual productivity and firm performance. There are also a variety of employment development opportunities that have been implemented by Company A such as: promotion of career advancement opportunities for its employees, monitoring the skills and education progress of its employees, frequent job rotation, information sharing from the management to the employees, and employees being allowed to generate new and innovative ideas.

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Research

Effective human resource departments (HRD) for companies are the ones that possess the ability to foresee and sustainably manage their organisational workforce needs, especially recruiting and retaining high skill employees to gain a competitive advantage over their business rivals. The HRD of multi-national companies realises that its overall organisation talent can be a source of sustained competitive advantage, and have an impact on organisational outcomes in areas such as its survival, customer satisfaction level, profitability, and employee performance (Cascio & Boudreau, 2016).

My interest in this research stemmed from what I have noted in the years that I have worked in the human resource department of different local companies in the Middle East region that in all of these companies' talent management is an ongoing issue. In addition to that, existing literature from the works of authors such Sumbal et al. (2017) have found evidence that there is a demand-supply gap in talent management in companies that are based in the Middle East region. Some of the drivers to the issue of talent management are quality of education, brain drain whereby 'homegrown' talent is immigrated to work in Europe, US and other developed nations, political instability in a majority of Middle East countries, lack of managerial skills and effective organisation systems that can attract, retain and ensure that these companies get the best out of their highly talented employees.

Lack of highly talented employees has led to a majority of these local Middle East companies to fail to achieve their overall strategic plan. This led me to become interested in determining the actual role and contribution of HRD in assisting a company to achieve its overall strategic plan and the impact of this role on its employees. For an effective analysis of the role and contribution of HRD, I believe that conducting a research on a successful multi-national company would assist me in achieving my goal.

To facilitate this, I developed three research questions that would help me in the study. The first research question of this study is, how do the strategies and activities of HRD support the missions and goals of the organisation? This question is going to assist me to determine the different HRD strategies and activities that have been adopted by multi-national companies and how they influence the mission and goals of the organisations. This would help me integrate some of the successful strategies and activities in the company that I manage in the Middle East region.

The second question is, how can the managem...