HR Strategy and HR Best Practice

HR Strategy is not about making copies of the HR Best Practices found on the market. The best practice usually works best in the organization, where it was introduced. Even the HR Best Practice has to respect the cultural differences and the different set of the internal values in the organization. That is the main reason, why many HR Best Practices fail, when they are introduced and implemented.

The HR Best Practices can work as a nice external inspiration for the design of the HR Strategy, but it has to be tested with the management, if they feel interested and they take the best practice useful for the organization. When the organization has the value of the internal stability, it will never use the HR Best Practice of the heavy rotation across units as the managers have no trust in such a best practice.

The corporate culture has to be respected in the HR Strategy. The corporate culture is the main driver of the organization and the HR Strategy cannot change it, when it is not a will of the top management. When the change of the corporate culture is needed, the HR Employees can co-operate, but it is not a signal to include such a change just to the HR Strategy. The change of the corporate culture is not about writing documents and policies, but it is about the change in the behavior of the top management, which will help to form new corporate values and the employees will automatically follow that behavior and many employees will leave the organization as they have no fit with the new corporate culture.

The HR Best Practice cannot be transferred without any adjustment and process changes. The HR Best Practice has to be properly analyzed, discussed, proposed and approved by the broader group of managers. They have to agree with the best practice and they have to make adjustments in the processes to fit in the corporate culture.

Human Resources is not like Finance, where the transition of the best practice is simple as all the Finance Departments follow the same methodology and the same accounting rules. HR is different, HR is not driven by the rules given by the external bodies, HR is driven by the corporate culture, managers and employees. And they are different in every organization.