Walking the tightrope: strategic issues for human resources

Abstract Human Resources (HR) managers become victims of ambiguity when they try to determine best practices. The paper points out that a balance is needed and the risk in not looking for the balance is worse than going for the extremes when making tactical and strategic choices in human resource management. It highlights possible benefits and the main pitfalls to avoid when applying this approach in organizational settings. Exploring a variety of dilemmas, the paper describes what these extreme options are, and how a balance may be achieved. It concludes that no clear guidelines are available, and perhaps there cannot be any. Nevertheless, the HR manager needs to focus efforts in finding a sensible choice, in an environment of multiple options. This is why the role of the HR manager may be depicted as ‘walking on a tightrope’.

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