Human resource management / Thomas Cook's strategy

Thèmes abordés

Strategy, Human resource management, Strategic Human resource management, HRM, SHRM, Thomas Cook, management, case study, soft HRM, hard HRM, Resource based view.

Résumé du document

The concept of HRM, Human Resource Management, and its implications for businesses, is a very controversial matter (e.g. Robinson, 2006; Boxall and Purcell, 2003). Basically composed of 'anything and everything associated with the management of the employment relationship in the firm' (Boxall and Purcell 2000, p.184, cited by Rees and French 2010), the numerous perspectives, approaches and models surrounding the field have led to the absence of a globally agreed definition (e.g. Beardwell and Claydon, 2010; Rayner and Adam-Smith, 2009).

However, consensus has been found regarding the importance to evolve from a 'personnel management' perspective, and to understand the link between a firm's strategy, its HRM and the organisational performance (e.g. Storey, 1995; Marchington and Wilkinson, 2008). That is why it is essential for today's businesses to understand the value of strategic HRM (SHRM) for improving their performance and competitiveness, at times where the business environment is pushing a turn of emphasis towards human capital (e.g. Wright, Gardner and Moynihan, 2003; Marchington and Wilkinson, 2008).

In order to clarify how this is done, we are thus going to analyse how strategic human resource management might be allied with the business strategy of the UK branch of Thomas Cook Group, second largest travel group in UK, who is currently facing difficult economic and environmental situations. For that purpose, we will start by highlighting the business strategy of Thomas Cook (TC) and the current contribution of SHRM, what we will then put into perspective with another model in order to propose practical recommendations on how to improve this relation and its impact on TC's organisational performance.

Extraits

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[...] HR should thus be considered as one the main drivers for this differentiation and for TC's success. However, several issues in this HRM strategy should be taken into consideration. First, this approach adopts a unitarist perspective (e.g. Beardwell and Claydon, 2010; Mabey, Salaman and Storey, 1998) and tends to ignore the importance of the psychological contract (Rees and French, 2010) and the interests of other stakeholders, notably the employees, in the pursuit of economic performance. This raises several ethical concerns, and makes us think about the future of the fired employees in today's fragile economic conditions. [...]