 Students, we are discussing mergers and acquisitions and we are discussing it from the perspective of human resource management. In this topic, we are going to talk about strategic human resource management and the role of human resource function in mergers and acquisitions. Strategic human resource management has to be aligned with the strategy of the organization and when the merger and acquisition is taking place, then it has to align with the strategy of the new enterprise which is created after a merger or acquisition. The strategic alignment of human resources and that of the organization means that you have to follow the human resource department has to follow the strategy of the organization. So if the strategy of the organization is that of expansion, human resource department should be expanding its skills, its number of people, its resources to align with the strategy of the organization. If the strategy of the organization is diversification, for example, they are going for diversifying the market or diversifying the product range, then the strategy of the human resource should be aligned with that. The human resource department should also be diversifying its skills. It should be diversifying the type of roles that can be played by its staff. It should be diversifying its portfolio of human resources according to the strategy of that organization. So that is what we mean by aligning the strategy with the strategy of the organization. Now strategic alignment, it can be at three levels. Number one is the level of resources. Resources are tangible resources, your facilities, your machinery, the tools and equipment that you have, the offices that you have, so the tangible, the raw material that you have, the factory, the production plant, the inventory, all of those are your tangible resources. While on the other hand are your intangible resources, they are your copyrights, your patents, then they are your human resource, your human skills, those are all of those things, they are intangible resources. Skills are something that you cannot see, that you cannot touch. That is something which a person holds within themselves as one of their abilities. So there are intangible resources. So alignment can be on the level of resources in the shape of tangible resources as well as intangible resources. Then the alignment can be on the level of processes. What are processes? All activities that a firm uses to convert the resources into valuable goods and services. So all the activities that are involved in that and that does not only, processes don't only involve the production process, they involve all other processes. For example, the marketing process or the procurement process, so all the processes that take place in order to convert your inputs into outputs are the processes of the organization, including the processes that involve the human resources. So alignment, strategic alignment can also be at the processes level. And third is the values. What are the values? Which means that what are the priorities of your organization? What are the things that you give importance to? What are the costs that you give importance to? That is something which your human resource department will also have to focus on. Or you are giving importance to quality. If you are giving importance to quality, then quality maximization is something which must be carried out by the human resource department of your organization as well. So alignment can be at the resources level. If you're expanding resources, you will be expanding your human resources. It can be at the level of processes. If you are innovating processes, you are diversifying processes, you are trying for lean management, for example, you are trying for quality improvement, then that should also be replicated and it should be done by the human resource department of your organization as well. So that is the strategic alignment that is required. And that is particularly required in a merger or acquisition phase. Whatever way you are trying to change or you are trying to redesign the processes and the resources and the values of the two merging organizations or when a firm acquires another organization, the way you are trying to change the resources, processes and values, accordingly, you are going to change your human resources on these three levels as well. So that is what it means by the strategic alignment of your human resource with the strategy of your organization. And you can do it at three levels, resources, processes and values. In order to achieve this strategic alignment, the human resource department and human resource managers of the organization, they can take various different roles. They just don't have to perform the role of HR. What do they do in being HR? They can become the strategic partner of the organization and strategic partner means implementing the strategy of the organization. Not just implementing the HR department is something which can contribute to defining the strategy of the organization as well. So management of strategic human resources and being a strategic partner means that they become a part and parcel of the strategy process, defining the strategy of the organization. The human resource department becomes a partner in that. Then it can play the role of an administrative expert. You know that the human resource issues are related with administration, administration of the people who are employees of your organization. So the human resource department will provide the right kind of administrative advice relating to staffing, related to compensation, related to performance management and how to actually administer all those processes. For example, if you want to do staffing, then how do you have to do administration? How do you have to give ads? How do you have to call people for an interview? How do you have to manage all that? That is the administrative side of the entire process. So the HR department can become an administrative expert in giving you the advice for that. Then it can take the role of employee champion because in a merger or acquisition, the staff and employees of the organization feel very much apprehensive. They are insecure. They may be very much uncomfortable with the change. And the HR department can become either somebody who is creating stress and tension for them or it can become a department which is becoming a facilitator for them, which can facilitate them through the process smoothly. For example, if there are people who are going to be laid off, if you want to fire some people from your organization, then the HR department can do proper counselling. The HR department can do job placement. The HR department can help them in their skill building. How can they diversify their skills? The HR department can also guide them if they are not required for a single skill, then can they learn a new skill that can be retained in their own organization? So they can guide them. Because the HR department is a department which knows where the skills are going to be utilized and where the skills are going to be saturated. So they can guide the employees and become the employee champion of the organization. And then the HR department can take the role of the change agent because the change process is most significant for the human resource of the organization and the change process takes place through the human resource department. So the HR department can become the agent of transformation and change by guiding the organization to manage that change effectively by developing the right type of infrastructure, the right type of leadership skills, the right type of training which is required to enhance the skills of the people who are going to work in the new organization. And there are so many more things that the HR department can do in order to become the change agent for the organization which is being merged or being acquired by another firm. So these are the different three, four roles which the HR department and HR function of an organization can take during the merger and acquisition of two or more organizations.