Best fit or Best practice, what works well..

Best Fit or Best practice?

What is Best fit and Best Practice?

The concept of ‘best fit’ and ‘best practice’ are two well-known approaches to human resource management. The ‘best fit’ perspective claims that HR strategy become more and more efficient when it’s linked to it environment of the business (Francis A, 2012). It explores the close link between strategic management and HRM by assessing the extent to which there is a vertical integration between an organizations business strategy and its HTM policies and practices. ‘Best practice’ approach claims that certain best human resource practices would result in enhanced organizational performance, manifested in improved employee attitude, lover level of absenteeism and turnover, higher level of skills for higher productivity, enhanced quality, and efficiency (Francis A, 2012). That is why the best practice model is also referred as high commitment models (Francis A, 2012)  

 

The best fit model

The best fit model is in line with contingency theory (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). It emphasizes that HR strategies should be congruent with the context and circumstances of the organization. Best fit can be perceived in terms of vertical integration or alignment between the organization’s business and HR strategies (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020). There are three models: life cycle, competitive strategy, and strategic configuration (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020)

 

The best practice models

This model assumes that there is a set of best HRM practices that are universal in the sense that they are best in any situation, and that adopting them will lead to superior organizational performance (Armstrong and Taylor, 2020).

Below video provides a comprehensive outlook on best fit, best practice models.

Source (Anon, n.d.)

It is often said that best fit is better than best practice, but this statement can only be accepted with reservations. As Stavros et al (2010: 952–53) argued:

"There may be merit in both approaches where the debate is between general principles/bundles (training and development, staffing, compensation and benefits, communication and participation, and planning) and the way they are carried out... It seems that the ‘best fit’ and ‘best practice’ approaches of the HR-performance relationship are not necessarily mutually exclusive. On the contrary, they may be combined to provide a more holistic picture."

This is particularly the case if the term ‘best practice’ is replaced by ‘good practice’, thus avoiding the notion of universality implied by the former term. For example, the meta-analysis carried out by Schmidt and Hunter (2015) established conclusively that when selecting people, the best levels of predictive validity are achieved by a combination

of structured interviews and intelligence tests. But a decision on what sort of structured interview should be adopted and whether to use intelligence tests would depend on the situation in which the decision was made.

While some organizations productive on either best fit or best practice approach some are using the mix of both strategies. For example, according to the annual report 2020 John Keells Holdings of Sri Lanka equal opportunity policy consistent with global best practice in parallel with Best fit approach by being assessed selected candidates according to their suitability for particular role of business aims.

Having considered the above facts, it is understood that an organization should make use of the best theories of both models. None of the two models are superior to each other. Thus, even a practice have been successful for popular and successful organization, it does not necessarily work on the other organizations.

References, 

1)      Armstrong, M. and Taylor, S. (2020). Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 15th ed. S.L.: Kogan Page, p.11.

2)      Francis, A. (2012). Best Fit and Best Practice Approaches in Strategic HRM. [online] MBA Knowledge Base. Available at: https://www.mbaknol.com/human-resource-management/best-fit-and-best-practice-approaches-in-strategic-hrm/.

3)      https://www.3cs.lk, W.D. by 3CS- (n.d.). JKH releases Annual Report for the Financial Year 2019/20. [online] keells.com. Available at: https://keells.com/news-readmore/1185/jkh-releases-annual-report-for-the-financial-year-201920 [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].

4)      https://www.3cs.lk, W.D. by 3CS- (n.d.). JKH releases Annual Report for the Financial Year 2019/20. [online] keells.com. Available at: https://keells.com/news-readmore/1185/jkh-releases-annual-report-for-the-financial-year-201920 [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].

5)      Schmidt, F.L. (2015). History and development of the Schmidt-Hunter meta-analysis methods. Research Synthesis Methods, 6(3), pp.232–239. doi:10.1002/jrsm.1134.

6)      www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Best Practice Vs Best Fit Approach to SHRM - Faculty of Commerce & Management. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjR0ndSCEQY [Accessed 14 Aug. 2022].