• Mihaela Chapter
• Human Resources Strategy: University of Twente
• Strategic Human Resource Planning in Higher Education
• Washington State University Human Resource Strategy
• Human Resource Strategy of University of Oxford
• HR Strategy for Community College X
• Elite University: The Recruitment Strategy

Washington State University Human Resource Strategy

List of Acronyms
List of figures
Introduction
2. The Harvard Map of HR Analysis
3. An HR strategy for WSU
3.1. Attract, attain and develop high-quality research faculty members
3.2. Outreach and Engagement
3.3. Institutional Effectiveness: Diversity, Integrity, and Openness
3.4. Human Resource Marketing strategy
3.5. Implementation and evaluation assessment tools
4. Conclusions
References

List of Acronyms

CEF - Community Engagement Framework
HEIs - Higher Education Institutions
HR - Human Resource
HRM - Human Resource Management
KPI - Key Performance Indicator
SHRM - Strategic Human Resource Management
WSU - Washington State University

List of figures

Figure 1. Harvard Model of Human resource analysis
Figure 2. Attract attain and develop high quality research faculty members
Figure 3. Outreach and Engagement
Figure 4. Institutional effectiveness: Diversity, integrity and opennes

Introduction

The following paper will study the case of Washington State University and develop a Strategic Human Resource Management [HRM] proposal considering the unique organizational behavior of Higher Education Institutions and the specific strategy of WSU.
Established in 1890, Washington State has four campuses with more than 26,000 graduate and undergraduate students in its 11 colleges in more than 200 academic programs. According to the US national foundation for science, this public university spent 326.4 million on research and development last year and is ranked 11th nationally in research and development spending in agriculture and 12th in social sciences.
The University aspires to be one of the leading land-grant universities [1] in the United States. While the new strategic plan retains the four key themes of the previous 5-year plan, its two central foci include offering a truly transformative educational experience to undergraduate and graduate students and accelerating the development of a preeminent research portfolio. The plan emphasizes the institution’s unique role as an open, approachable research institution that provides opportunities to an especially broad array of students while serving Washington state’s broad portfolio of social and economic needs.

Listed below are the major strategic themes of Washington State:

1. Exceptional Research, Innovation, and Creativity
2. Transformative Student Experience
3. Outreach and Engagement
4. Institutional Effectiveness: Diversity, Integrity, and Openness

The university’s comprehensive plan reflects their commitment towards improvement. Their first two themes are focused on the internal performance the University. For research, the university plans to increase the investment in research infrastructure and qualified academic staff, while pursuing extramural research funds. Teaching and learning performance is expressed as a transformative experience. Student engagement in extracurricular activities, campus diversity and social responsibility are as important as academic excellence. The second two themes show a commitment to social responsibility, both within the university walls and the social boundaries of the community. Outreach and engagement activities aim at connecting the university with the current local, national and international issues, both in the public and private sectors. Besides, the institutional effectiveness goal is aimed at creating and sustaining a diverse, inclusive atmosphere inside university walls.
The four themes are better regarded as interlocking gears than separate columns, each being supported by and contributing to the others. In the same way, different campuses, colleges and internal units should develop strategies in line with the broad strategic plan. We will present the strategy for the human resource department.
Nobel Laureate TW Schultz (1981) pioneered the concept of ‘Human Capital’ (Schultz 1961). He understood people as resources and with his theory contributed to the field of Human Resource Management. HRM is the organizational unit in charge of managing the human capital in an organization. Its functions include staffing, payroll and ensuring employees are motivated and productive. Recently, the concept of Strategic Human Resource Management [SHRM] has been coined as a response to a strategic dimension that is being given to HRM. Wright and McMahan (1992) define SHRM as the pattern of planned human resource deployments and activities intended to enable an organization to achieve its goals. SHRM intends to upscale the importance of HRM in an organization, from a basic organizational tool to an active contributor to the strategic decision-making of the organization.
In the context of Higher Education Institutions like WSU, the concepts of traditional HRM and SHRM cannot be applied blindly. HEIs differ from traditional organizations. Various scholars have pointed out these differences. For example, Birnbaum & Edelson (1989) regard HEI’s as organized anarchies where discrete groups work independently under the same organizational structure. Also, Green & Pashayeva (2014) identify HEIs to be expert organizations, or organizations where ‘professionals play the center role’. These characteristics present challenges when the traditional practices of HRM are trying to be applied. For example, performance management presents a challenge because experts are less open to having their work evaluated by others with less expertise than them. Also, individual units within universities function with high degrees of freedom that allow them to set unit specific rules and policies.
Considering the unique nature of HEI’s, the principles of SHRM, and the university's mission, vision and strategy, a human resource management strategy for Washington State University has been developed. The Harvard model of HRM strategy analysis is used as a conceptual framework for developing this strategy for the university.

2. The Harvard Map of HR Analysis

Developed by Beer et al in 1984, the Harvard Map is used to analyze and articulate the human resource strategy and policies. In this case, it is applied to the case of WSU grounded in the university’s overarching strategic plan for 2014-19. This model is chosen to prepare this strategic plan because of the emphasis given to analyzing stakeholders interest and situational factors, for WSU’s strategic plan emphasizes ‘the institution’s unique role as an accessible, approachable research institution’ providing opportunities for its stakeholders. This ‘soft HRM’ approach, to refer to the categorization of Storey (1989), is also preferred; for it seems to be rooted in the human relations school that encourages commitment to the organisation by focusing on stakeholders’ concerns. The Harvard Map is also regarded as probably the most seminal model of HRM and has had a major influence on other human resource management models like that of Guest (1989) and the on academic debate on the subject in general (Pool, 1990).
The Harvard map is used as an analytical tool to design a WSU strategy-based HRM plan. It has to be noted here that to increase the analytical power of this model, we have added included measures that could be taken to translate HR policies into HR outcomes, and KPIs that could be used to measure HR outcomes to long-term consequences.

Figure 1. The modified Harvard Model of human resource analysis

This map provides a broad causal depiction of the determinants and consequences of HRM policies. It shows human resource policies to be influenced by two significant considerations:

• Situational factors, in the outside business environment or within the firm such as laws and societal values, labor market conditions, unions, workforce characteristics, business strategies, management philosophy, and task-technology. According to Beer et al. (1984) these factors may constrain the formation of HRM policies but (to varying degrees) they may also be influenced by human resource policies.
• Stakeholder interests, including those of shareholders, management employees, unions, community, and government. Beer et al. argue that human resource policies should be influenced by all stakeholders; if not, the enterprise will fail to meet the needs of these stakeholders in the long run, and it will fail as an institution.

The developers of this concept also assert that through their policy and strategic decisions, human resource managers can exert positive impact on outcomes related to increasing employee’s competence, commitment, the degree of congruence between employees' own goals and those of the organization, and the overall cost-effectiveness of HRM practices. To do this, they need to ask questions like ‘How can we gain commitment from our workers to enable the achievement of organisational goals? How can we ensure we have a trained and competent workforce who are able to perform productively? And How can we ...ensure that our workers are compatible with the management style and will fit in with other employees?’ Beer et al. (1984) also argue that HRM managers need to take responsibility for employee influence, human resource flow, reward systems and work systems, regardless of the size of the organisation.

It should also be noted here that the Harvard Model is used taking into consideration the nature of universities as relatively loosely connected open systems where HR offices take a more passive and supportive role than an active one as observed in other ‘tightly-coupled’ business-oriented institutions. The framework is therefore applied to an HR office that is proposed to have a more supportive role in helping the other sections of the university to maximize implementation the university’s strategy and mission.

3. An HR strategy for WSU

Currently, the Human Resources Office at WSU organizes onboarding activities and training, such as New Employee Orientation Courses, where new employees receive information on all the benefits to which they are entitled. The benefits of the employees include health and dental insurance, annual and sick leaves, sport and fitness programs, among others.
They are also asked to participate in workshops regarding cultural competency, and discrimination and sexual harassment prevention. Employees are encouraged to answer an Employee Demographic Information Survey to help the institution in creating a rich and inclusive community.
Every year, the Human Resources department assists other departments to conduct reviews and performance evaluations where the employees are able to identify their strengths and areas for future growth. The annual evaluations also serve as a space to communicate and discuss organizational goals and objectives. Administrative professional employees, civil service employees, and faculty members are evaluated separately.
Regarding training and development, the policy of the University is to provide enough flexibility for employees to attend training programs dedicated to professional development and job skills improvement.

Mission of HR office: To provide the quality and enhanced resource services necessary for the fulfillment of Washington State University’s strategic mission of achieving excellence in research innovation and creativity; providing transformative student experience, becoming a highly active institution for community outreach and engagement; and becoming a more open organization that is diverse while maintaining high professional standards and integrity.

Core values of HR strategy: Based on WSU's strategy and the current and desired institutional culture, the core values that direct this HR strategy are the following.

• Excellence
• Transparency
• Integrity
• Diversity
• Community engagement
• Work-life balance

Taking into consideration stakeholders’ interest, situational factors as well as the university’s mission, and current strategic plan, the university’s human resource services deems three pillars out of the four pillars of WSU strategy as the major themes of its HR strategy:

• Exceptional Research, Innovation, and Creativity
• Outreach and Engagement
• Institutional Effectiveness: Diversity, Integrity, and Openness

HR strategy’s contribution to the second theme of WSU's strategic plan, transformative student experience, is indirect and, therefore, out of its jurisdiction. Through the three pillars of the HR strategy, HR department will make sure that academics and other staff members at the University are well prepared to provide excellent learning opportunities to students in an inclusive environment. However, enlarge and diversify student population, main goals of the transformative student experience theme, are the responsibility of other departments.

3.1. Attract, attain and develop high-quality research faculty members.

Figure 2. Attract attain and develop high quality research faculty members

Consistent with WSU strategic plan, the first pillar of the HR strategy focuses on achieving excellence, increasing productivity and developing the University’s unique strengths and opportunities in research, innovation and creativity by attracting and retaining academics and staff members, and providing the proper environment for them to reach their potential.
In order to attain the best researchers, recruitment will be designed to find, among possible employees, the best ‘fit’ for our organization. An onboarding strategy will be implemented to make future employees feel important and that the organization is ready to receive them. Benefits are designed to give researchers an added value, parallel to their career development. They belong to three broad categories. First, a work environment designed to boost productivity and emotional satisfaction. Second, personal support in any specific case where the researcher requires assistance. Third, family support activities to strengthen the link between the researcher and his family while providing assistance with the responsibilities of supporting a family. Also, the development of our research staff will be encouraged in the form of training, traveling and assisting events outside of campus will be organized to increase the researcher's knowledge, skills, and network.
The result of these policies will be fulfilled researchers that are content and motivated to be a part of an organization that reflects their values. That they will feel valued by the organization and in response, they will value it as well.
The long-term effect of implementing this policy is a motivated and productive research faculty staff who will remain in the organization, even when they are offered alternative career options.
Some specific strategic measures are:

• develop an attractive reward package, such as regular reviews of merit-based salary packages and pension provision;
•     KPI = number of employees who have received benefits
•     KPI = total resources invested in reward packages
• design online and face to face induction and onboarding training activities;
• take measures to ensure there is a better work-life balance (paternity and maternity leave, breastfeeding spaces; daycare);
• support for the researchers family if needed;
• create transparent contractual working agreements;
• organize excellence awards for the academic and administrative staff;
• put in place clear career paths and mobility for administrators and academics;
• use research to assess training and development needs and coordinate them;
• develop a scheme to mentor and train academic and administrative staff on management and leadership skills.

3.2. Outreach and Engagement

Figure 3. Outreach and Engagement

In line with the university’s strategy of increasing its presence, reputation locally and globally through research, scholarship, and outreach activities on quality of life and economic development, measures shall be taken by the HR services unit of the university to incentivize and reward outreach activities and initiatives undertaken by university staff.
The HR services office shall work with university administration and faculties to facilitate this process to promote university benefit programs to both current and prospective employees for services they provide to contribute to economic security, stability, social justice, and public policy through research, education, the arts, extension, and citizen-based and public policy engagement. The packages shall be comprehensive and competitive.
These policies will reflect the institution's commitment and contribution to the community it belongs to in addition to its teaching and research, raising the profile of the university in WSU’s outreach priorities.
In order to incentivize this behavior, HR will adopt a “reactive and ready” approach using a Community Engagement Framework [CEF]. The purpose of this framework is to facilitate the process of engagement for employees. The framework will first identify organizations where outreach activities are possible and, working with them, establish positions or activities. This framework can be used to increase motivation for employees to join by facilitating the process. The CEF consists of five steps:

Step 1 - Identify participating organizations.

1. Preschool and day care,
2. Summer camps for kids.
3. Support for elementary schools.
4. Sports camps
5. Countryside visits
6. Art and Music groups

Step 2 - Define positions or activities

1. Summer camp daytime supervisor. 
2. Coach a sports team. 
3. Regional tour guide. 
4. Member of a local band.

Step 3 - Share CEF and recruit participants.

Step 4 - Connect employee with organization and establish position.

Step 5 - Measure number of hours that have been invested by employee.

Regarding the social context of Washington State, the following outreach activities will be encouraged. The contribution of our employees can be varied and take many shapes, from volunteer work to teaching or provide a service from the University.
Some specific measures and indicators:

• adopt the HRM Community Engagement Framework;
•     KPI = Number of hours invested in community work per employee
• increase hiring possibilities for local staff;
•     KPI = % of local staff hired by WSU
• reward and benefit schemes to encourage involvement in community outreach activities;
•     KPI = % of employees that have received benefits 
•     KPI = Total amount of benefits granted by WSU

3.3. Institutional Effectiveness: Diversity, Integrity, and Openness

Figure 4. Institutional effectiveness: Diversity, integrity and opennes

The main goals for the theme number four of the general strategic plan of WSU is to create and sustain a diverse and inclusive community; to cultivate a system-wide culture of organizational integrity, effectiveness, and openness; and to administrate and diversify the resources in a responsible way to ensure the economic viability of the institution. These goals shape the human resources strategy.
First, it is important to consider the stakeholders involved in this theme and their interests. It is of the benefit of the academic and the administrative staff to maintain a respectful, diverse and inclusive environment in which they can perform their activities. The board of directors is also interested in having a diverse community, but also in increasing the productivity and satisfaction among the employees.
Among the situational factors, there is a need for diversity and inclusiveness, global competition and Social responsibility. The interest of the stakeholders and the situational factors shape the HRM policies that are to be implemented.
In this case, the recruitment of the academic and administrative staff has to be targeted, so that the university can increase diversity and inclusiveness. It is important to consider that, in the United States, mandatory hiring quotas based on gender, or any other underrepresented groups, may violate anti-discrimination laws. However, the law encourages “voluntary diversity and affirmative action” (Berkowitz, 2015). In the search for diversity, the human resources management has to be very careful not to incur in “reverse discrimination” or any violation.
In order to conduct targeted recruitment, there must be a marketing strategy ensuring and enlarging the scope of the institution. The organizational culture must be lead towards and inclusive and respectful environment. Promoting interculturality and establishing codes of conduct and a clear system of rewards and benefits must be included in the institutional policies so that it is simpler to reinforce good practices and discourage unwanted behavior.
The outcomes of these policies will be reflected in a diverse, open and respectful staff. The University will enjoy a multicultural environment and the benefits of such diversity, and in the long term, the policies and measures taken will be reflected in the university’s positioning in the market.
In order to meet the objectives of the Human Resource Strategy horizontal integration is crucial. For the particular case of the “Institutional effectiveness” theme, the HR department will work closely with the Office of Equity and Diversity of WSU.
Some of the concrete indicators and measures to achieving this goal are:

• increase the number of women, underrepresented groups and disable in senior academic, research and leadership roles; across the University;
•     KPI = as % of total employees
• publicise the university’s strategic plan for diversity recruitment, retention, and advancement of faculty;
• implement payment equality;
•     KPI = % of difference between salaries of similar positions
• fill the positions of newly retired staff members with a more diverse workforce;
•    KPI = as % of total employees
• embed equality and diversity in training;
• develop a transparent and confidential tool for reporting harassment and discrimination;
• develop policies and organize awareness-raising seminars;
•    KPI = number of seminars given per year
•    KPI = % of employees who have assisted

3.4. Human Resource Marketing strategy

To achieve the objectives of the HR strategy, it is necessary to implement a marketing strategy that positions the university at the regional, state, and international level, and functions as an aid to attracting academic and administrative staff with the mindset and characteristics that would ‘fit’ the institution. The HR marketing strategy is reflected in the following lines of action:

• strengthen the university’s career website;
• have an attractive welcome package for new employees;
• create a video introduction of the organization values and culture;
• develop a mobile-friendly career website / Recruitment app;
• develop unique recruitment ads;
• use social media (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter) to promote and advertise positions;
• gamify the process of job application, recruitment and selection;
• use BigData to inform our HR strategies;
• analyze our competitors’ marketing and recruitment strategies;
• develop an employer's brand of respect and acceptance of underrepresented groups;
• improve horizontal integration by working with other departments of WSU, for example:
•     Vice Presidency of Research 
•     Vice Presidency for Finance and Administration 
•     Vice Presidency for Information Services 
•     Vice Presidency for Global Campus 
•     Director of Internal Audit
•     Office of Equity and Diversity

3.5. Implementation and evaluation assessment tools

As stipulated in the Harvard Model, the success of our HR strategy shall be measured in terms of increased employee competence and commitment as well as with higher congruence between university and employees own goals, and with the overall cost effectiveness of the HR system.
To assess successful implementation of our strategy, we will use two types of assessments tools: internal and external evaluation tools.
The internal or interinstitutional assessment tools will be conducted by the Human Resources Office sometimes in collaboration with other departments, but always as an internal process with no external parties’ participation. Examples of the tools are:

• regular meetings and consultations with university top and mid-level managers
• benchmarking
• relevant KPIs such as employee turnover rates, percentage of response to open positions and others
• follow-up of external reviews by reputable ranking systems and websites

On the other hand, some other assessment tools will be outsourced to external organizations, who will be in charge of design, application and analysis of the tool. Measuring employee satisfaction through surveys is one example of external assessment tools that will help the Human Resources Department to assess the implementation of our strategy.

4. Conclusions

The HRM strategy for WSU presented in this paper is designed with the assumption that HR policies in a given institution influence the commitment and competence of employees, as well as the congruence of (their) employees goals with that of institutional ones in addition to making the institution more efficient and cost effective (the 4Cs in the Beer et al (1984) Harvard Model of HR analysis). This is done however taking into consideration the unique institutional characteristics of higher education systems as ‘loosely-coupled’ open systems where HR offices often take a more supportive rather than a more ‘aggressive’ role as designers and creators of strategy.
The new HR strategy of WSU is therefore designed with a vision of facilitating the smooth implementation of the university's mission, vision, and strategy by providing the needed assistance for the various stakeholders of the university capitalizing on already existing HR practices. A human-relation based framework popularly known as the Harvard Model, chosen for its focus on making HR decisions based on the interests of different stakeholders and situational factors, has been used to develop this current strategy.
Through targeted recruitment, reinforcing good practices, the plan targets at helping WSU with its strategy of achieving diversity integrity and openness; through onboarding practices and benefit packages, the HR strategy aims to attract and attain high-quality research staff; through incentivizing outreach activities, we plan to help the university’s goal of becoming locally and globally visible. The HR strategy presented in this paper discusses these policy decisions along with specific measures, key performance indicators and long-term consequences of proposed policy decisions. This strategy also includes HR marketing strategies and internal and external evaluation methods that could be used to ensure that WSU’s HR office fully plays its supportive role in achieving the three major university strategic areas namely: promoting diversity, attracting and retaining the best talent, and encouraging university-community-academia linkages.

References

Barney, J. (1991). Firm Resources and Sustained Competitive Advantage. Journal of Management, 17(1), 99-120.
Beer, M., Spector, B., Lawrence, P.R., Quinn Mills, D. and Walton, R.E. (1984) Managing Human Assets. New York, NY: The Free Press.
Berkowitz, P. M. (2015, September 10). Gender, Diversity, European Quotas, and U.S. Law. Litter. Retrieved from https://www.littler.com/publication-press/press/gender-diversity-european-quotas-and-us-law
Birnbaum, R., & Edelson, P. J. (1989). How colleges work: The cybernetics of academic organization and leadership. The Journal of Continuing Higher Education, 37(3), 27-29.
Druker, J. (2003). Strategy and Human Resource Management. Management Decision, 41(5), 523 - 524.
Green, P., & Pashayeva, A. (2014). The concept of the expert organization. In A. Pausits, Human Resource Management in Higher Education (pp. 22-46). Krems an der Donau, Austria: Edition Donau-Universität Krems.
Poole, M. (1990). Editorial: human resource management in an international perspective. International Journal of Human Resource Management, 1(1), 1-15.
Storey, J. (1989) New Perspectives on Human Resource Management. London: Routledge.
Washington State University. WSU Strategic Plan 2014-2019. Retrieved from Washington State University's website: https://strategicplan.wsu.edu/

[1] The Morrill Acts of 1862 and 1890 answered demand for practical education that was accessible to agricultural and industrial workers. The legislation granted federally controlled land to the states, which states could then sell to fund establishment of “land-grant” colleges. Curricula at land grant institutions served a broad swath of the population by focusing on agriculture and technical subjects.