PhD defence: Traveling through HR strategization with the HR triad

On Friday 6 February, Michèlle van Wijk will defend her PhD thesis Traveling through HR strategization with the HR triad: A case study in a Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Organisations face major social challenges, from international cooperation and security to sustainable trade and climate change. Good and motivated employees are indispensable for addressing these challenges and are therefore of strategic importance for the organisation and our society. The way in which organisations recruit, develop and deploy people is therefore increasingly dominated by strategic personnel policy (SHRM) that is linked to organisational strategy and future-oriented value creation. Personnel policy is seen as a joint responsibility of the HR department, managers and employees: the so-called HR triad. However, the move towards strategic HRM leads to questions about the concrete design in practice. This certainly applies to public sector organisations that operate in a complex and changing social context.

Unique public sector context

For her dissertation, Michèlle van Wijk investigated the transformation to strategic HRM in a unique context: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BZ). This is an organisation in which employees work worldwide and rotate between positions at home and abroad every few years. Central to the dissertation is the question: how does the transformation become visible in the roles, responsibilities and interactions between the HR department, managers and employees?

A shared journey

Michèlle van Wijk draws two important conclusions, based on her research:
 

• The transformation to strategic HRM cannot be cast in a blueprint, but is a long-term, context-bound and dynamic journey.
   
• Indeed, this is not a solo journey for the HR department, but a joint and challenging one for HR professionals, managers, and employees. The quality and dynamics of their relationships are important here. Managers occupy a key position, precisely because of their dual role as professionals and people managers. How they fulfil this second role has to do with how they identify with it, and it matters because this role is important for the employability of employees. 

In addition to these insights, the dissertation also offers starting points for future research into strategic personnel policy. Van Wijk argues for more attention to the complexity of public organisations, to relationships and to the different roles that managers play in shaping strategic personnel policy.

Finally, the dissertation provides the TRAVEL framework (Tailor, Reinstitute, Align, Value, Evaluate Long-term). This is a practical tool that provides public organizations with tools to further shape their strategic HR journey by: 
 

• Tailoring personnel policy to one's own organisational context.
• Review existing frameworks where necessary.
• Better align responsibilities and roles and associated expectations of HR professionals, managers and employees.
• And to recognise, appreciate and support their commitment to HR.

• To continue to monitor the effects of choices made in the long term.
   

  Michèlle van Wijk is HR policy advisor at Leiden University and a PhD student at the Utrecht University School of Governance (USG).

Streaming video

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