High-Performance Work Practices in Healthcare Sector

Human Resource Management And High Performance Work Practices

Human resource management constitutes a contemporary approach to managing people. Despite the burgeoning interest in human resource management from both academics and practitioners, the literature lacks a universally agreed definition. Boxall and Purcell defined human resource management as all those activities associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm (2003, p. 1). Human resource management is consisted of a set of core policies namely human resource planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, rewards, performance management, employment relationships, health and safety.

In the extant literature, some scholars have considered human resource management as a contemporary label for describing personnel management policies and activities whereas others as a new, more strategic, approach to manage people in the workplace (Beardwell & Claydon, 2007). As regards the latter, which is the dominant approach, one of its core foundations relate to the fact that human resources constitute one of the major competitive advantages of each organization. Put differently, they comprise the most valuable organizational assets. Human resource management policies and practices should be integrated into the overall business strategy, demonstrating thus a more strategic role of human resource management often called as strategic human resource management. Even more, a key concept of this human resource management approach is the pivotal role of bundles of human resource management practices in facilitating the accomplishment of strategic goals.