A new CIPD Research Insight aims to encourage greater dialogue around the important role of HR in achieving sustainable organisation performance within small and medium-sized enterprises. And a forthcoming online tool accompanying the research will help members to put the right people management and HRM strategies into practice within an SME.

Jill Miller, CIPD research adviser and author of the report, shared its key findings and recommendations at the CIPD’s recent Centres’ Conference. The report, Achieving sustainable organisation performance through HR in SMEs, is based on four case studies and the experiences of a further four HR directors and business leaders. As Miller explained, it found four key stages of organisation transition in SMEs, each associated with different opportunities and challenges for people management: entrepreneurial edge, emerging enterprise, consolidating organisation and established organisation.

The research insight and tool are designed to help HR professionals to anticipate the issues that are likely to be encountered within and between different stages of transition, with practical examples of how these can be overcome. Between each stage are “inflection points” and the extent to which people management practices can change and adapt will have a direct effect on the organisation’s ability to move successfully to a new phase of development.

The forthcoming tool, available to members in July, includes a diagnostic instrument to help users clarify their current position and the internal factors that they need to take into account when evaluating their approach to people management. It reflects the four stages identified in the research insight. The online tool also includes case study illustrations from the report and web links to further relevant resources and CIPD research.

“We hope the themes we have pulled out from our case studies will help HR professionals consider whether the current approach is the right one and to prepare for impending ‘inflection points’,” says Miller.

The research insight poses probing questions for members to consider within the context of their own organisation’s long-term performance. As the CIPD’s Next Generation HR work asserted, it is through taking a “situational” approach that HR can really add value, implementing policies and practices in a way that aligns to its strategy, vision and values.


For more information, visit the sustainable organisation performance area of the website cipd.co.uk/sop