Value‐based Human Resource Strategy: Developing Your Consultancy Role

Industrial and Commercial Training

ISSN: 0019-7858

Article publication date: 1 June 2004

277

Citation

Currant, N. (2004), "Value‐based Human Resource Strategy: Developing Your Consultancy Role", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 36 No. 4, pp. 178-179. https://doi.org/10.1108/00197850410542455

Publisher

:

Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2004, Emerald Group Publishing Limited


Value‐based human resource strategy is a book that you will either love or loathe. What other human resource (HR) strategy book starts with quotes from a British comedy programme (Blackadder) and a case study on the HR strategy at Arsenal Football Club and finishes with a letter from one of the authors to the English Football Association? Of course, along the way the authors deliver a well‐argued case for the importance of HR strategy to any business and give advice on how to develop and implement that strategy.

The book is primarily aimed at HR managers but would also be a useful guide to all mangers. Those responsible for training and development in an organisation should also have a strong interest in reading this book.

The book is divided into four parts. The first part presents the case for HR strategy being an integral part of corporate strategy and planning. The second part looks at ways of developing, evaluating and implementing a HR strategy. This includes detailing a number of different tools and techniques for analysis and evaluation. It also highlights the fact that training interventions are not the only way to implement change and gives a broad range of options. The third part is about HR strategy issues. This includes tips to effective succession planning, the importance of management development and how to add value to your organisation. The final section looks at the role of the HR strategy consultant.

The style of writing in the book is straightforward and practical. Each chapter contains a raft of bullet points and is broken down into numerous sections. This makes it easy to dip into and out of and makes for easy access to different parts of the book, however this can also tend to hinder the flow of the writing.

The balance of content in the book is very much towards the practical side. There are elements of theory but the authors seem to have deliberately aimed the book very much at providing a practical toolkit for making HR strategy work. There are a range of case studies from many well‐known organisations such as Dyson and Marks & Spencer, which illustrate the importance, and success factors of forward thinking HR strategy.

The book starts by justifying the crucial need to get HR strategy as part of the overall organisational strategy and to get it right. It then gives practical advice on making HR strategy work and the issues involved. It finally concludes by looking at you as an individual and how you can learn to think strategically and develop as a HR strategy consultant (either internal or external).

If you have any responsibility for HR or organisational strategy, then this book will provide you with a useful set of ideals and tools to successfully move that strategy forward.

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