This week you will continue to explore best practices from Application Assignments during Weeks 3 through 5, and you will submit your final report. Your Learning Resources this week provide you with additional research and strategic HRM best practices for your consideration. As you learned earlier in the course, by maintaining various talent pools or skill sets within a given organization, specific HRM practices have been demonstrated to impact organizational performance. Investments in staffing, training, or compensation can be targeted to areas where the most significant strategic gains can be realized by managing key talent and creating value through the management of knowledge throughout the organization.

Organizations can create a human capital advantage by utilizing practices to encourage learning and development so that the skills of their employees exceed those of their competitors. As a result, performance can improve and high-quality talent is more likely to be attracted to an organization, providing continuous opportunities for learning and individual skill acquisition. These non-financial rewards positively impact employees’ engagement and commitment throughout the organization. Specific strategic HRM practices that encourage knowledge sharing, learning, and innovation throughout the organization can include rewards and performance management. For example, a reward system that is team-based will encourage and motivate collaboration since employees’ outcomes are dependent upon the sharing of knowledge to create the necessary value. You should keep this in mind as you finalize your report this week.

In a 3- to 4-page paper, include the following in the Final Report:

• Background and introduction to the topic of strategic HRM best practices and their relevance to HR professionals;
• An introduction to the strategic HRM best practices you are recommending and the reasons they were selected, with references to the literature;
• How these new practices would align with the organization’s strategic goals and any gaps in alignment that currently exist;
• Examples of organizations in similar industries using these best practices and how they impact their competitive advantage;
• Expected outcomes by adopting these practices on organizational performance, innovation, and quality;
• Provide specific examples with references to the literature and strategic HRM theories throughout the paper to show support and provide a foundation for your recommendations.