Strategic Human Resource Management at Small and Medium- Sized Enterprises in Serbia

The modern human resource management (HRM) literature and the actual management practice both emphasize the strategic approach to company’s most important assets, its human resources. The human resource management activities are nowadays linked to company’s mission, vision and strategy, and its success is measured through numerous organizational measures. Many authors agree that there is a significant difference in the HRM practice of small and medium sized organizations and those large ones. As management practice depend on context, it is important to understand the internal and external challenges of companies in different countries and to adopt the adequate techniques in achieving the HRM’s double aim: the companies’ success and the employees’ satisfaction. The aim of this work is to present the strategy formulation process, the role of HR in it, to determine the type of linkage between HR and strategic management function and its influence on the success of small and medium-sized Serbian companies in light of the Cranet1 2008/10 survey data. The paper will present the existence of the organizations’ mission statement, business strategy and HR strategy, as well as the existence of HR department and the presence of HR manager at the Board of Directors and its involvement in the formulation of the organization’s business strategy. We will present the interviewees’ ranking of their productivity and profitability and the correlation between the role of HR in strategy formulation and the productivity and profitability. For data analysis, descriptive statistical methods and nonparametric test will be used and the data will be presented graphically.