Essay from the year 2011 in the subject Leadership and Human Resources - Miscellaneous, Coventry University (Coventry Business School), course: Strategic HRM, language: English, abstract: People are the best form of resource any organization can have and boast of. Many theorieshave been propounded about how to maximize gains from this resource. People are mostlyunpredictable and must therefore be studied and properly managed in order to benefitfrom their vast pool of skills and abilities. This is the underlying principle of humanresource management (HRM or HR). Armstrong (2007) describes HRM as a uniqueapproach to employment management which seeks to achieve competitive advantagethrough the strategic deployment of a highly committed and capable workforce using anintegrated collection of cultural, structural and personnel techniques. This definition issuccinct especially as several companies in different cultures have embraced the concept ofmanaging their workforce in a manner that will impact performance and leave the workerhappy and fulfilled. This essay, in the context of a company with production and distribution outletsthroughout the world, discusses which HR practices to be standardized, and how to ensurethat global policies are implemented by each of the company s subsidiaries. It furtherdelves into the question of whether suggestions made in here would achieve any strategicadvantage for the company.