People and Organisations : Principles and Practice in Global Contexts (MN7181)

Introduction to Human Resource Management (Lecture 1)

Figure 1: Human Resource Management

Human Resource management is one of the practice in every organization in the world. It is because in every organization we used people as an asset. To manage this asset, we use Human Recourse management in our organizations. There are many scholars such as Armstrong, (2011), Beer et al., (1984) and Armstrong and Taylor, (2014) defined this HRM term in different ways.

“Human Resource Management can be defined as a strategic, integrated and coherent approach to the employment, development and well-being of the people working in organizations” (Armstrong, 2014).

 1.1 Evaluation of Human Resource Management.

In early industrial era, production was very limited and the demand was very high. At that time who ever produced more had an advantage than the others. At that time human asset is consider as an object.  But when it comes to the knowledge era, this concept got totally changed and human asset used for competitive advantage with the education.

This evaluation got started from Personal management. At that time human were consider as a cost to the organization, therefore to manage this cost and to make sure people are working correctly organizations used Personal Management (PM).

Then it has evolved to Human Resource management (HRM). When people become the asset or resources, organizations started to develop human with trainings for the betterment of the organization.

After that in 21^st century this concept evolved to another level, i.e. Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM). With this SHRM, Human Resource became a strategic partner at higher level of the organizations.

This diagram shows us on this evaluation clearly.

Figure 2: Evaluation of HRM

1.2 The Goals of Human Recourse Management

According to the Armstrong, (2014) the impotency of the HRM is clearly defined.

• Support the organization in achieving its objectives by developing and implementing Human Resource strategies that are integrated with strategy. (Strategic HRM)
•  Contribute to the development of high-performance culture
•  Ensure that the organization has the talented, Skilled and engaged people when needed
• Create positive employment relationship between management and employees and a climate mutual trust
• Encourage the application of an ethical approach to people management

1.3 Different between Personal management, Human resource management.

'Personnel management is an administrative task which is record keeping, arranging the wagers or salaries for the employees that manages by traditional approach. Human resource management is the modern version of people management'  (Aswathappa, 2005).

Following chart will give us more clarity and difference between Personal Management and Human Resource management.

Personal Management	Human Resource Management
Traditional way of managing the people	Modern approach of managing and motivating the employees.
Manage people	Consider the people as a resource and develop them.
More force on personal administration, welfare and employee salary management.	Focuses on acquiring, training and developing and retaining human capital in the organization.
Consider people as an input for achieving required outcome.	Consider as people are most valuable resource to achieving desired outcome in the organization.
Forces more about administrative functions to achieve goals	More focus on employee’s job satisfaction.
Conduct less training and development opportunities to the employees	Conduct more training and development of opportunities.
Decisions are made by the top management within the agreed rules and regulation.	Decisions are made collectively after taking the consent of the employees.
Personal management is a routine function	Human resource management is a strategic function.
Personal management focuses on increased output and satisfaction of employees	Focuses on effectiveness, culture, procedures and employee participation.
Cost benefit on short term	Cost effective on the long term and can consider as an investment for organization
Any manager can do the personal management who is having basic managerial skills	HRM need to handle by a specialized or professionally qualified person.

Table 1: Difference between PM and HRM

1.4 Role of the Human Resource Management in contemporary organizations.

According to Ulrich, (1997) has identified five functional aspects for the HR professionals to add value to the organization and  to create  sustainable competitive advantages. 

Figure 3: Role of the HR Professional

·         HR professionals will function as a strategic partner with the top management

·         Work as a functional expert in administration

·         Function as an employee advocate

·         Function as a Human Capital developer, which will develop employees’ skill level

·         And function as a leader by contributing to the organization leadership  

1.5 Relationship between HRM and Strategy

There were many researches done to identify the influence of the Human Resource management in past decades and its results were showed that there is a significant connection between HRM practices and organization performance. According to Ulrich, (1997) it has reviled that HR managers should not only have administration expertise and skills but should also be the champions of the employees, change agents and strategic partners of an organization

Figure 4: Transforming the HR services (Bridge A1, 2018)

According to Armstrong, (2014) recommended that “strategic human management is an approach that defines how the organizations goals will be achieved through the people or an organization. those strategic HRM objectives are mentioned below.

·                     Integration

·                     Provide directions to fast changing environment.

·                     Contribute to develop business strategies.

  

1.6 Conclusion

As I mentioned in the top paragraphs, there are many different definitions to Human Resource Management,

·         “a Strategic, Integrated and coherent approach to the employment, development and well-being of the people working in organizations” (Armstrong, 2014)

·         Distinct from Personal management, is the emerging philosophy that ‘people need to be viewed as an asset rather than merely a variable cost’ (Beer et al, 1984)

·         New emphasis on line managers accepting responsibility for the ‘alignment of competitive strategy and HR policies’ (Armstrong, 2011),

·         And Fombrun et al call the ‘match model’ (1984)

All these scholars try to explain the relationship between HRM and Strategy. According to my knowledge the most accepted definition was given by Armstrong, (2014).  Because HRM has formed in 1980s with philosophy and number of theories from the people behaviors, strategic management, human capital and industrial relations. And HRM philosophy has been criticized by many academics to form HRM from Personal management. But Armstrong has explained this simply refers as system of people management. HRM is a strategy which approach to the Employment, Development and Well-being of the people who works in a organization. 

References

Armstrong, M., 2014. Handbook of human resource management practice.. In: K. Page, ed. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management. London: British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data, pp. 5-6.

Aswathappa, 2005. Human resource and personnel management. ata McGraw-Hill Education, Volume 5, p. 22.

Bridge A1., (2018). Support Functions Transformation. [Online]

Available at: https://bridgea1.com/services/support-functions-transformation/

[Accessed 9 8 2019].

Ulrich, D. and Brockbank, W., (2005). Role call. People Management, 11(12), pp.24-28.

Ulrich, D., (1997). Measuring human resources: an overview of practice and a prescription for results. Human Resource Management: Published in Cooperation with the School of Business Administration, The University of Michigan and in alliance with the Society of Human Resources Management, 36(3), pp.303-320.