Contemporary Human Resource Management Practices in Russia: Flexibility under Uncertainty

Abstract

This article develops the concept of flexibility in Human Resource Management (HRM) practices which can increase a company’s potential to respond to substantial variation in the business environment. It reveals the characteristics of flexible HRM practices in Russian companies in an uncertain external and internal environment. Cranet survey data gathered from October 2014 until March 2015 is used for measuring the environmental uncertainty and flexibility of staffing, training, and development, pay, employee relations, and communication. A comparison of the flexibility indices for the four HRM practices shows a higher level of flexibility in training and development practices. The research results confirm a direct positive relationship between the complexity of the environment and the flexibility of HRM practices.

Keywords:

• Cranet
• flexibility
• flexible work practices
• Human Resource Management
• Russia

Note

Notes

1 “The priority of Russian traditional enterprises through the 1990s was to survive the crisis, and in terms of personnel management this meant trying to hold on to the core of their labor force through the period of decline, in the hope of a subsequent recovery” (Clarke 2007, 127).