You have probably heard the saying, people make the place. In today’s fast-changing environment, organizations need employees who understand the organization’s strategy and are empowered to execute it. To achieve this, organizations need to follow a strategic human resource management (SHRM) approach. SHRM ensures that people are a key factor in a firm’s competitive advantage. Thus, as summarized in the following figure, SHRM is an integral part of the control portion of the planning-organizing-leading-controlling (P-O-L-C) framework.

Organizations need human resources (HR) to be a partner in identifying, attracting, and hiring the type of employees who will be most qualified to help the company achieve its goals. SHRM requires attracting the right employees to the company, identifying metrics to help employees stay on target to meet the company’s goals, and rewarding them appropriately for their efforts so that they stay engaged and motivated. Having all these components in place—designing a high-performance work system—improves organizational performance and unleashes employee talent.