MN7181-Introduction to Human Resource Management - Blog 01

Introduction to Human Resource Management

What is HRM

The practice of human resource management (HRM) is concerned with all aspects of how people are employed and managed in organizations, therefore focused on a number of major areas, including:


• Recruiting and staffing
• Compensation and benefits
• Training and learning
• Labor and employee relations
• Organization development     

(Figure 1: Functions of HRM)

Human resource management is a distinctive approach to employment management
which seeks to achieve competitive advantage through the strategic deployment
of a highly committed and capable workforce, using an integrated array of
cultural, structural and personnel techniques. (Storey, 1995)

(Video 1: Introduction to HRM)

HRM vs Personnel Management

Human Resource Management has come up with an extension over Personnel Management. It is quite essential in this era of intense competition where every organization have to put their manpower and their needs first.

 

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT	HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Meaning	The aspect of management that is concerned with the work force and their relationship with the entity is known as Personnel Management.	The branch of management that focuses on the most effective use of the manpower of an entity, to achieve the organizational goals is known as Human Resource Management.
Approach	Traditional	Modern
Treatment of manpower	Machines or Tools	Asset
Type of function	Routine function	Strategic function
Basis of Pay	Job Evaluation	Performance Evaluation
Management Role	Transactional	Transformational
Communication	Indirect	Direct
Labor Management	Collective Bargaining Contracts	Individual Contracts
Initiatives	Piecemeal	Integrated
Management Actions	Procedure	Business needs
Decision Making	Slow	Fast
Job Design	Division of Labor	Groups/Teams
Focus	Primarily on mundane activities like employee hiring, remunerating, training, and harmony.	Treat manpower of the organization as valued assets, to be valued, used and preserved.

Contemporary organizations

In a traditional company, the power flows from top to bottom. Bottom workers are powerless in the organization and they had no input for important decisions. But now introduced a contemporary organizational design which employees are given power and autonomy to make decisions and implement changes is becoming more popular.

It has recently aroused great interest the concept of high performance practices in the

field of HR management. These practices include high levels of labour flexibility, forms

of  teamwork,  contingent  renumbering,  security in employment and empowerment or

delegation of power to the employee (Ordiz  Fuentes, 2002).

They are work practices involved in the qualities and skills  of employees, ways of job design that allow them to collaborate in solving problems and provide them with incentives  to  motivate  them  to  use  their  effort discretely  (Guest,  1997; Appelbaum et al., 2000; Colvin et al., 2001)

Relationship between HRM and strategy

The company must develop HR strategies to support the overall strategy of the organization. 

The strategy  as a  set of  open and  enveloping  plans  for  future  actions  and  models which  implicitly  evolve  from  past  practices (Mintzberg,  1988)  

Based  on  a  continuous  and  flexible  process,  HR strategic  planning  can encourage  critical  thinking  and  the  development  of  new  initiatives.  It  is  therefore advisable that  companies create a  board of  directors  in  which  a professional  from the HR  department  intervene  in  order  to  include  personnel  issues  in  the  planning  and general  management  of  the  company. Ultimately,  strategic  planning  can  help  the company to differentiate  between  where we are  today and where we want  to be in the not too distant future.

References

• Appelbaum,  E.,  Bailey,  T.,  Berg,  P.  and  Kalleberg,  A.  L.  (2000):  Manufacturing Advantage:  Why  High  Performance  Work  Systems  Pay  Off.    Cornell’s Paperback, Ithaca, New York.

• Colvin  A.  J.  S.,  Batt,  R.  and  Katz,  H.  C.  (2001):  “How  High  Performance  Human Resources  Practices  and  Work  Force  Unionization  Affect  Managerial  Pay”, Personnel Psychology, 54 (4).

• Mintzberg, H. (1988): La estructuracion de las organizaciones. Ed. Ariel, Barcelona.

• Ordiz  Fuentes,  M.  (2002):  "Practicas  de  alto  rendimiento  en  recursos  humanos: concepto  y  factores  que  motivan  su  adopcion".  Cuadernos  de  Economia  y Direccion de la Empresa, Nº 12.  pp.  247-265.

• Storey, J (ed) (1995) Human Resource Management: A critical text, Routledge, London

• Figure 1: Surbhi, (2018) Difference Between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management, [Online] Available at : https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-personnel-management-and-human-resource-management.html [Accessed on: 08 Aug 2019]. 

• Video 1: Introduction to HRM. [Online] Available at:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwq1YcqR4cI [Accessed on: 08 Aug 2019].