Table Of ContentFuture of Business and Finance
Armin Trost
Human Resources
Strategies
Balancing Stability and Agility in Times
of Digitization
Future of Business and Finance
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Armin Trost
Human Resources
Strategies
Balancing Stability and Agility
in Times of Digitization
ArminTrost
FurtwangenUniversity
Villingen-Schwenningen,Germany
ISSN2662-2467 ISSN2662-2475 (electronic)
FutureofBusinessandFinance
ISBN978-3-030-30591-8 ISBN978-3-030-30592-5 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-30592-5
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To my dear parents
Edith and Ernst Trost
Preface
WhenIstarted studyingpsychologyabout30years ago,mygoal wastobecomea
familytherapist.AtthattimeIhadalready2yearsbehindmeinwhichIhadlearned
toworkintensivelywithpeopleinasmallpsychiatricclinic.Thatwasawonderful,
instructive time. At some point during my studies, I turned to industrial and
organizational psychology and ended up where many of myfellow students ended
up:inthetraininganddevelopmentdepartmentofalargecorporation.Mycareerasa
HR professional took its course. I implemented performance appraisal systems
without ever having to ask myself what performance, on the part of the people
concerned,actuallymeansinconcreteterms.Iconductedemployeesurveyswithout
havingtotakeapersonalinterestinanemployee’sexperience.Iintroducedapplicant
tracking systems without meeting an applicant personally. In contrast to my work
in a psychiatric environment,it became clear to me atsome point that HR in large
corporations means above all setting up processes, instruments, systems, and pro-
grams and keeping them running. All this has very little to do with working with
people.
Basically,that isfine. One quickly learns andacceptsthat one shouldnotbe an
HR professional or HR manager if one likes working with people. However, over
the years my inner dislike, which somehow became silently apparent from the
beginning, became ever clearer. It is not the systems themselves that turned out to
bemoreandmoreunbearableforme,buttheattitudewithwhichthesesystemswere
developed and kept alive. You will find descriptions of these systems in most
common textbooks about human resources management—the annual performance
appraisal, change management, competence management, talent management, etc.
AndIhavetoadmitthatduringmystudiesIhatedbooksonpersonnelmanagement.
Thereisnothingcreepierthanaclassictextbookonhumanresourcesmanagement.
To this day, hardly anything has changed, neither inmy reaction, nor inthe books
themselves. What is described in all these books, and mostly lived in practice, has
something patronizing, not infrequently even something contemptuous of people.
Theemployee,thehumanresource,isnottreatedasasubjectherebutasanobject.
It is measured, judged, developed (“upskilled”), promoted, transferred, terminated,
rewarded, retained, etc. You do something with the human resource. “You” is the
superordinate,corporatesystem,representedbythehumanresourcesdepartmentas
the executive body. All this is done under the premise of putting the employee at
vii
viii Preface
the centre. What an illusion. The operator of a laying battery also puts his 10,000
chickensatthecentre.
Then I, of all people, became a professor of human resources management.
Looking back, this was the ideal time. Companies slowly woke up and began to
rethink.Inthebeginning,therewasashortageofskilledworkers,andsuddenlywe
hadtolearntovalueapplicantsandcandidates,tobeinterestedintheirpreferences,
and to apply to them and not vice versa. My first book appeared: Employer
Branding. How can we convince as an employer? Then followed the book Talent
RelationshipManagement.Afterwritingotherbooks,Istartedtoworkonaparticu-
larly incapacitating HR instrument, namely the annual performance appraisal. The
book The End of Performance Appraisal appeared and nothing pleased me more
thanthegreatirritation,coupledwithbroad,positiveresonance,thatitbrought.I’ve
been really lucky over the past few years because a gradual awakening in the HR
communityhasbecomemoreandmorevisible.NewgenerationsofHRpeopletook
thehelm,supportedbynewgenerationsofexecutives.ThroughouttheyearsIfound
it a wonderful task to throw coals into the blazing fire again and again, critically,
provocatively but always constructively, and close to practice. It seemed as if my
attitude and the zeitgeist had met, and I was allowed to play an active role in this
development.
HowverymuchInowwelcomethegrowingdebateonthesubjectofagility.For
me, agility is much more than just a buzzword. It symbolizes a long overdue
development towards a changing attitude: the employee as a mature human being.
Mygreatrolemodel,DouglasMcGregor,isbeingturnedtoagain,andrarelywashis
juxtapositionoftheTheoryX—humansarelazybynatureandhavetobekeptona
short leash—and the humanistic opposite, of Theory Y, more important and alive
thannow.Inthecourseofthisdevelopment,itwasmygreatdreamtofinallywritea
comprehensive bookthatwoulddeal with HRfromthepoint ofviewofTheoryX
versus Theory Y. What does HR look like in a traditional, hierarchical, and stable
enterprise,andhowarethingspresentedinamoreagilecontext?Whatanexciting
question!Writingthisbookwasamatterofrealconcerntome.Herewearetalking
about much more than just the image of a mature human being. It is ultimately a
question of the competitiveness of many proud companies. I share the view that
agilityisaprerequisiteforthemajorityofcompaniestosurviveincurrentandfuture
markets.Andhumanresourcesmanagementplaysakeyroleinthis.
WhenIstartedthisbookin2017,Ihadgreatrespectforthistask.Iwasfilledwith
ideas,anattitude,andablurrypictureofwhatIwouldwrite.Intheend,writingthis
bookwasalongjourneyintosomethinguncertain.Firstyoustartwritingabook.But
thenthebookwritesyou.Thefactthatsuchabookhasastaticcharacter,i.e.oneis
forcedtofixthoughtsinblackandwhiteandwithfinality,isdifficultformetobear.
Becausethejourneycontinues,andeverythingIwriteinthisbookisjustasnapshot.
Agilityalsomeansneverreallyarrivingatafinaldestination.
Thisjourneydidnottakeplaceinaquietroom,butinaconstantexchangewith
numerousforward-thinking,open-mindedpeopleandcompanieswhowerewilling
to contribute constructively to the uncertainty. At this point, we usually thank all
those who contributed to the success of this book. I can not even name them all.
Preface ix
They are the many HR managers, HR professionals, executives, and also students
with whom I have spent hours, even days, discussing and struggling for solutions.
Theyarethemanyimpulsesintheinfinitenumberofbooks,articles,blogs,andTED
talksthathavecontinuouslyirritatedme.Butitisalsomyfamilywhohadtoendure
a father and husband for 1 year, who was mentally absent at times. In particular
I’d like to thank Iliana Haro, who supported me so wonderfully with this English
version of this book. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I look forward to the long
journeythatliesaheadofus.
Tübingen,Germany ArminTrost
July31,2019
Contents
1 HRintheContextofDigitization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 AgilityandStability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2.1 FromAttitudetoManagementSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
TheFounderandHisorHerPersonalAttitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
ACorporateCultureEmergesandRemains. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
RulesandStructures. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
StrategicManagementSystems. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
HierarchicalandAgileDevelopment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
TheHierarchicalHemisphere. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
TheAgileHemisphere. . . .. . . . . .. . . . . .. . . . . . .. . . . . .. . 13
ConnectedMarketsRequireConnectedOrganizations. . . . . . . . 14
2.2 TypesofHR. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Hire&PayandDarwinism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
InstitutionalizationandtheHRAmplitude. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
CentralPlanningandControl. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
People-CenteredEnablement. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
PainfulTransformation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
TheDigitalDehumanizationofHumanResources
Management. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
References. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3 BuildinganHRStrategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.1 HRStrategy:AnOverview. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
HRStrategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
BuildingBlocksofanHRStrategy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
AllRelevantQuestionsataGlance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2 CorporateStrategyastheBasis. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
TheUltimateBusinessPurpose. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
ThePositioningoftheCompanyintheMarket. . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
StrategicChallengesandOpportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
ADifferentUnderstandingofLeadershipandOrganization. . . . 33
xi
