Business Week Case

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[Instructor Name]

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[Date]

Business Week Case

Question # 1

Which functions of human resources management are described in this case? Which are missing? In what ways, if any, are the missing functions relevant to building competitive advantage, too?

Described Functions of HR Management

In the “Rebuilding Competitive Advantage”, following functions of Human Resource Management are described:

Talent Acquisition: Talent acquisition is one of the major and most important functions of HR management where the concern management put efforts to acquire the best talent from the labor market.

Reward and recognition: The second described function of HR management in the case is reward and recognition. The evidence from the case is “Companies must reward business leaders for their performance and not simply reward their decision to stay with the company.” Here the management has been considered required that they should effectively reward employees’, especially top leaders.

Organizing: Organizing function has been described in the case that companies have to allocate employees as per their skills and capabilities and allocate them in tough jobs to make them efficient.

Training and Development: The last function of HR management in the case is training and development. Here, it has been said that the management should encourage and motivate employees (top-level) to acquire new skills, knowledge, and capabilities for being better job performers, especially for high-level responsibilities.

Missing Functions

The missing function of Human Resource Management associated with developing competitiveness are;

Planning and Directing Employees

Controlling and effective Management

Operative Functions:

Job Analysis and Evaluation

Performance Appraisal

Employees Relationships and Employees’ Welfare.

Question # 2The writer and people interviewed talk about competitive advantage coming from the qualities of a company's top executives. To what extent do these principles apply to middle managers, supervisors, and non-management employees?

These mentioned principles discussed by the writer and interviewed individual apply to a higher extent. They apply highly to middle managers, supervisors, and non-management employees because;

Middle managers are the people who implement developed HR strategies and actually bring changes and improvement in employees and management.

Supervisor manages and develops their teams and inferiors which is considered as a step towards achieving competitive advantage. Because building and efficiently managing teams achieve organizational goals in a better in comparison to individuals’ efforts.

Qualities and efficiency of non-management employees lead to better performance, operations and enhanced productivity. While this further leads and enable companies to have competitive advantages over rivals.