Testing horizontal and vertical alignment of HR practices designed to achieve strategic organizational goals

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to measure the effect of aligning HR practices horizontally and vertically to support organizational strategic goals. Design/methodology/approach: Hypotheses were tested using 85,840 employees’ responses collected from a single, large public organization’s annual employee survey. Factor analysis with principal axis factoring and varimax rotation was used to confirm the variables being studied. The relationships were analyzed using ordered logistic regression. Findings: Results suggest that compensation practices, workforce planning, and work/life balance-focused HR practices can be used to predict job satisfaction and turnover intentions. Additionally, when the combined effects of the three HR practice types are considered together, an increased reduction in turnover intention is indicated. Practical implications: To achieve optimal performance organizations should be diligent in their efforts to align their functional area HRM strategies and practices with each other and with the overall strategic goals and objectives guiding the organization. Originality/value: While the positive effect of alignment has been proposed by many scholars, empirical examinations of the binary approach are rare. This paper contributes to the field by providing a unique empirical examination of an organization’s implementation of HR practices designed to achieve stated strategic objectives through a large scale study.