Strategic Human Resources Management- HRM 530

Dr. Natalie S. Marsh

Assignment # 1-“Mountain Bank”

Ben Surprin

October 19, 2011

1. Discuss the strategies that Mountain Bank should implement to achieve a competitive advantage in the marketplace.
Out of the four competitive business strategies, business-level strategies are the most important when it comes to day-to-day human resource activities. Business-level strategies focus on how and organization will compete with other organizations that provide similar goods or services (Brown & Stewart, p 47). In order to compete, competitive business strategies and human resource strategies must work together to reach a high effectiveness level.
Mountain Bank should implement the Cost Leadership Strategy, which seeks to produce goods and services inexpensively, but still at a highly effective level (Brown & Stewart p. 48). There is a misconception that the cost strategy only means offering goods and services at the lowest price, however, cost really captures the expenses associated with creating the product. The difference between cost and price creates a profit. The key to the cost leadership strategy is in controlling expenses, not in simply setting lower prices than the competition.
2. Describe the types of practices a human resource professional should recommend for Mountain Bank with respect to its tellers, based on the universalistic approach and commitment strategy. “Effective human resource management capabilities are difficult to copy because effectiveness comes not from a single practice but from a number of related practices” (Brown & Stewart, p. 51). These practices are developed and maintained over extended periods of time such as months and years or longer. There are two basic approaches that research has identified with consistent patterns of good human resources