Blog
Hard and Soft HR: Confessions of an HR Manager and a classroom activity
20th September 2009
The A2 Business Studies course specification requires candidates to be able to distinguish between “hard” and “soft” HR strategies, and to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each. I’ll have to confess that in over 20 years’ experience of working in Human Resources, these are terms that have rarely, if ever, passed the lips of either your humble contributor or his colleagues. In reality they are a rather academic distinction, and one that actually disintegrates when examined in detail.
One learned (i.e. rather dry and dusty!) HR study distinguishes between hard and soft HR strategies as follows:
Hard HR strategies:
Integration of HR and business strategy including performance management techniques such as appraisal
Control over setting work targets
Organisational flexibility
Soft HR strategies
Training received by employees and employee’s perception of training and promotion opportunities
Communication and trust between management and staff
These might be helpful and help the student draw a distinction between the two categories of HR strategy, but I’ll propose an easier way of differentiating between the two. The areas defined on the CIPD HR Profession Map that we’ve started to explore in the “What do HR Managers actually do” series very conveniently break down in to two distinct areas:
Hard HR strategies:
• Organisational Design
• Organisational Development
• Resourcing and Talent Planning
• Performance Management
Soft HR strategies
• Reward and Recognition
• Employee Relations
• Learning and Talent Development
• Employee Engagement
• Employee Relations (including Diversity, Equality, Health and Safety)
In very simple terms, those areas that are concerned with HR systems and frameworks are best described as hard, and those that are concerned with people and individuals are more accurately described as soft.
If that’s clear, let’s play a game!
1. Print off the attached Word document which contains a number of everyday scenarios from a typical business.
2. Cut and paste each phrase onto a separate index card
3. Distribute the cards at random to members of the class
4. Get each recipient in turn to read out the phrase and then decide whether the scenario is one that is likely to have come about or been influenced by either a hard or a soft HR strategy
5. See if the rest of the class agree with the verdict
And before you ask, no, I’m not giving you the answers, as in some cases I’m not sure myself!