And of course HR needs to consider the degree of alignment between their HR choices and those of their partners:
• How will the home and partner organisations’ HR systems be regulated, ensuring they perform in line with the overall goals of both individual organisations and the collective?
• Will the emphasis placed on external networks require new centres of expertise, think tanks and networks to manage the HR expertise necessary to develop the required capabilities – such as strategic competence, innovation, consumer insight, productivity and partnership learning?
When designing systems, policies and processes for a partnership arrangement, it can be useful to adopt a lifecycle model. At different stages throughout a project or partnering lifecycle, different people issues come to the fore, requiring unique HR activities – from project inception, preparation, supplier selection, through to delivery and end transition to new project activities.
‘HR needs to consider partnering as a new way of working that is likely to increase in prevalence.’
Box 1: Mechanisms by which managing partnering arrangements becomes a core, institutionalised HR capability
1 Creating a suite of tools and processes: developing best practice guidelines, toolkits, detailed checklists for analysis and negotiations, internal contracts, sample letters of intent, contracts, and internal and external case examples.
2 Creating lean, expert units: establishing small corporate groups to take on the necessary specialist support roles for partnerships, such as: internal consulting, training, structuring of business arrangements, co-ordinating relationships across business units, and managing partnerships from day to day.
3 Communications platforms: internal tracking of partnership activities through establishing cross-organisation intranet sites, and open discussion about partnerships, including forums to capture and share expertise and internal virtual networks.
4 Human resources policies to support partnership outcomes: including specific performance measures devised for managers charged with negotiating, or for strategic units managing in thesepartnerships.
หน้า 9
3 Differentiating the level of strategic HR support between arrangements
Although we have talked about developing a suite of HR processes and mechanisms to manage partnering arrangements, there is a need to retain a degree of flexibility in the way they are implemented. With each partnering arrangement HR must think about whether – or how – to differentiate the level of HR support and resource they provide. Some arrangements may be more strategically important than others, require a different level of support for line managers or a different range of HR services.
For example, Xerox categorised its joint ventures into fundamental business-shaping joint ventures (such as its relationship with Fuji); strategic alliances with companies it sells to, through or with; and supplier and outsourcing relationships, with top-tier partners being entitled to their own dedicated alliance manager (Bamford et al 2004).
Essentially, the choice that HR directors and their functions face in supporting these collaborations is whether a ‘light touch’ HR architecture might be adopted, or whether stronger oversight is needed. Box 2 outlines some strategic questions to consider.
These business arrangements are in practice a very complex and dynamic phenomenon. The number of questions to consider in Box 2 points to the number of ways to differentiate the strategic support and services that HR might offer, and signals the potential dangers of adopting too simple or static a typology to capture and manage the different forms of partnership.
‘We have gone through a process of saying that there are different types of joint ventures, and against those archetypes you can see different levels of HR offering to the joint venture partner, with different levels of involvement. In each instance, things will be different along the spectrum of HR engagement with the partner or not.’ Paul Kane, VP HR Functional Excellence, Shell
Box 2: Strategic questions to ask to determine the level of HR support and integration across the network required for each arrangement
• Does the long-term strategic intent of the collaborators remain competitive, is it co-operative or is it now complementary?
• What is the importance of the collaboration to your organisation relative to other strategic activities in the overall business portfolio?
• What is the degree of desired control over your organisation’s strategic resources?
• What is the strategic purpose of the collaboration: is it a consolidation arrangement (where the value comes from a deep combination of existing businesses), skills transfer (where the value comes from the transfer of some critical skills across partners), a co-ordination arrangement (where the value comes from leveraging the complementary capabilities of both partners) or a new business arrangement (where the value comes from combining existing capabilities, not businesses, to create new growth)?
• Is there a need for immediate and tight control of joint operations or can they be controlled through an ‘arm’s length’ strategy of risk management?
• To what extent does the partnering arrangement require the exploitation of current resources (for
And of course HR needs to consider the degree of alignment between their HR choices and those of their partners:• How will the home and partner organisations’ HR systems be regulated, ensuring they perform in line with the overall goals of both individual organisations and the collective? • Will the emphasis placed on external networks require new centres of expertise, think tanks and networks to manage the HR expertise necessary to develop the required capabilities – such as strategic competence, innovation, consumer insight, productivity and partnership learning?When designing systems, policies and processes for a partnership arrangement, it can be useful to adopt a lifecycle model. At different stages throughout a project or partnering lifecycle, different people issues come to the fore, requiring unique HR activities – from project inception, preparation, supplier selection, through to delivery and end transition to new project activities.‘HR needs to consider partnering as a new way of working that is likely to increase in prevalence.’Box 1: Mechanisms by which managing partnering arrangements becomes a core, institutionalised HR capability1 Creating a suite of tools and processes: developing best practice guidelines, toolkits, detailed checklists for analysis and negotiations, internal contracts, sample letters of intent, contracts, and internal and external case examples. 2 Creating lean, expert units: establishing small corporate groups to take on the necessary specialist support roles for partnerships, such as: internal consulting, training, structuring of business arrangements, co-ordinating relationships across business units, and managing partnerships from day to day.3 Communications platforms: internal tracking of partnership activities through establishing cross-organisation intranet sites, and open discussion about partnerships, including forums to capture and share expertise and internal virtual networks. 4 Human resources policies to support partnership outcomes: including specific performance measures devised for managers charged with negotiating, or for strategic units managing in thesepartnerships.หน้า 93 Differentiating the level of strategic HR support between arrangementsAlthough we have talked about developing a suite of HR processes and mechanisms to manage partnering arrangements, there is a need to retain a degree of flexibility in the way they are implemented. With each partnering arrangement HR must think about whether – or how – to differentiate the level of HR support and resource they provide. Some arrangements may be more strategically important than others, require a different level of support for line managers or a different range of HR services. For example, Xerox categorised its joint ventures into fundamental business-shaping joint ventures (such as its relationship with Fuji); strategic alliances with companies it sells to, through or with; and supplier and outsourcing relationships, with top-tier partners being entitled to their own dedicated alliance manager (Bamford et al 2004).Essentially, the choice that HR directors and their functions face in supporting these collaborations is whether a ‘light touch’ HR architecture might be adopted, or whether stronger oversight is needed. Box 2 outlines some strategic questions to consider.These business arrangements are in practice a very complex and dynamic phenomenon. The number of questions to consider in Box 2 points to the number of ways to differentiate the strategic support and services that HR might offer, and signals the potential dangers of adopting too simple or static a typology to capture and manage the different forms of partnership.‘We have gone through a process of saying that there are different types of joint ventures, and against those archetypes you can see different levels of HR offering to the joint venture partner, with different levels of involvement. In each instance, things will be different along the spectrum of HR engagement with the partner or not.’ Paul Kane, VP HR Functional Excellence, ShellBox 2: Strategic questions to ask to determine the level of HR support and integration across the network required for each arrangement• Does the long-term strategic intent of the collaborators remain competitive, is it co-operative or is it now complementary?• What is the importance of the collaboration to your organisation relative to other strategic activities in the overall business portfolio? • What is the degree of desired control over your organisation’s strategic resources?• What is the strategic purpose of the collaboration: is it a consolidation arrangement (where the value comes from a deep combination of existing businesses), skills transfer (where the value comes from the transfer of some critical skills across partners), a co-ordination arrangement (where the value comes from leveraging the complementary capabilities of both partners) or a new business arrangement (where the value comes from combining existing capabilities, not businesses, to create new growth)?• Is there a need for immediate and tight control of joint operations or can they be controlled through an ‘arm’s length’ strategy of risk management? • To what extent does the partnering arrangement require the exploitation of current resources (for
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