Human Resource Management Essay

The term human resource management was being used in North America as early as 1950s without any meaning but as another label for personnel management. However, by the late 1980s the term human resource management (HRM) had been developed to mean a radically different philosophy to the aspect of managing people at work. In particular, HRM put more emphasis on performance, workers’ commitment, and reward system that was based on individual employees’ contribution or team contribution towards the achievement of organisational objectives. Therefore, the scope of HRM differs significantly with the aspects of the traditional personnel management.

People management was initially practiced in UK in the 19^th century in the factories that were established after the first Industrial Revolution. Through the Factory Acts of 1840s, factory owners were supposed to consider the welfare of their workforces (Boxall & Purcell, 2006). Some organisations such as Cadbury and Rowntree were guided by religious beliefs in appointing welfare officers who worked towards improving the working conditions for workers.

In around 1970s, many organisations had adopted the concept of people management, which was termed as personnel management or personnel administration, as a specialised function of people management. Personnel management was particularly popular for recognising the presence and power of trade unions (Armstrong, 2008). Personnel management mainly comprised of recruitment and selection, welfare of employees, working conditions and pay, training and development, employee exit, and industrial relations. Employee relations in organisations were addressed by personnel specialists and not by line managers. The status of personnel managers in UK was recognised by the Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) which later changed to the present Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD). As a result of the concept of personnel management, some of its techniques such as recruitment and selection of employees were assumed to be the best management practices.

Although many people see HRM as a re-labeling of what used to be referred to as personnel management, many management theorists perceive it to be critical to the success of many organisations in the 21^st century. The reason for this is derived from the idea that people, through their skills and creativity, are the main resource for economic and organisational success. Some sort of revolution was experienced in the 1980s where personnel management was overturned in favour of human resource management (Ster & Koster, 2007). Since then, HRM models have been applied in organisations with little or no recognition to personnel management. There are however some personnel management techniques that are applied in the HRM concept such as the personality profiling and psychometric testing. In personnel management, they were used only for the executive and the highly paid appointments. This is however different in HRM where personality profiling and psychometric testing is done in all appointments with an intention of developing a common organisational culture.

One of the fundamental characteristics of HRM is the concept of devolution of ‘people management’ from specialists to line managers. In relation to this, line managers have been tackling HRM decisions during their daily activities in a manner that was not experienced previously. This has contributed to greater efficiency in the management of personnel in an organisation.

According to the Harvard model of HRM, the main focus is on performance where human resources are managed to have positive outcomes such as committed workforce, accomplishing organisational objectives, remaining competitive, and embracing the concept of cost effectiveness (Saini, 2013). This eventually leads to positive and long-term effects not only in organisational effectiveness but also in individual and society’s welfare.

The other main variants of HRM are the hard and soft models. In the ‘hard’ HRM model, more emphasis is usually on the quantitative and strategic approaches of managing human resource as a critical economic factor in production. On the other hand, ‘soft’ HRM emphasises on motivation, leadership, and communication. Although all models of HRM mainly focus on strategic issues, ‘hard’ models ensures that HRM strategy is guided by the overall corporate strategy.

In terms of job design, the personnel management model focuses on scientific management principles like the one applied in Taylorist organisational culture (Kersly et al., 2006). This is however different in HRM where the greater commitment implies that employees should be encouraged to use self control other than being guided on what to do by the management. In addition, teamworking among employees is more common in HRM than in PM.

Remuneration in personnel management is based on traditional approaches such as the long pay scales that highlight the length of service other than the employees’ contribution in an organisation. Collective bargaining is used to determine the pay structures for the non-managerial employees (Breaugh & Stark, 2000). In contrast, remuneration in HRM focuses on rewarding employee’s contribution. In addition, performance management and appraisal are used in setting the pay scales in line with the market rates other than collective bargaining. The integrated performance appraisal applied in HRM involves paying employees, valuing them, developing them through trainings, and letting them participate in strategy implementation. Another concept that is included in the HRM’s performance management is the performance appraisal where employees are assessed regularly on their effectiveness.

In personnel management, there is little focus on training and development of employees due to the fear of high cost or the trained employees being poached by competitors. In order to understand this further, some researchers in UK conducted a survey on management development in 1980s (Boxall, Purcell, & Wright, 2007). They reported that many organisations failed to do support management training because they only employed qualified managers and employees. Different from this, HRM promotes a culture of continuous development of all employees through training. This is mainly done to maintain a competitive advantage and to develop competency among employees. Senior managers and CEOs are also not left out in the trainings since they are valued as important resources required for strategic development.

Employee relations in personnel management are in a unionised or pluralistic manner. This is mainly portrayed through employees being allowed to join unions. However, this is different with the HRM model since its unitarist nature discourages the pluralist or organisational culture. In some circumstances, there are a few organisations that continue with the pluralist culture of allowing collective bargaining from employees even after adopting HRM.

In terms of organisational function, personnel management advocates for a specialist function where employee relations issues are handled from departments that are separate from the line management (Guest, 1991). As a result, many bureaucratic personnel departments are created to deal with employee relations. This is different in HRM model that emphasises that all employee relations should be part of normal management. In fact, in a HRM model there are HR departments that are specialised in formulating HR policies and acting as internal advisors for the line managers. The implication is that the line managers are mandated to fulfill HR policies and only seek intervention from the HR department on complicated issues.

One of the organisations that apply HRM is the NHS where it has supported change and improved efficiency of the employees. This is mainly through the application of the evidence-based practice where medical practitioners are encouraged to offer quality and reliable services to clients (Armstrong, 2009). Additionally, NHS is also concerned with the continuous development of employees and in setting performance targets. Consequently, HRM has enabled employees at NHS to shift their focus from illness to the general health and well-being of patients.

With the continued improvement in HRM, it is likely that future performance appraisals in employees shall only be conducted by professional who will not engage in a biased process. This shall lead to effective appraisals where employees’ assessment shall entirely be based on their individual input in an organisation. To make these more practical, organisations should focus on training the appraisers on the importance of the exercise and the need for them to be honest. Such a development in HRM shall contribute positively in enhancing organisational strategy.

Although personnel management had been practiced for many years, the model focused more on employees and the length of their service in an organisation. This is different in HRM where there is more emphasis on the employees’ overall commitment to their organisations. Unlike personnel management where employees’ management is done through departments, HRM encourages the handling of employees to be done by various line managers and only to seek assistance from the HR departments when necessary. In terms of training and development, the PM focuses on training of the senior managers only, while HRM promotes the training of all employees in an organisation. In order to remain useful, HRM should focus to have quality performance appraisals by offering necessary training to appraisers. This will contribute in making the appraisal process objective and valuable both to the employee and the organisation.

Reference List

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Armstrong, M. (2009). Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 11^th Edition. London: Kogan Page.

Boxall, P. & Purcell, J. (2006). Strategy and Human Resource Management. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Kersly, B., Alpin, C., Forth, J., Bryson, A., Bewley, H., Dix, G. & Oxenbridge, S. (2006). Inside the Workplace: Findings from the 2004 Workplace Employment Relations Survey. Abingdon: Routledge.

Saini, S. (2013). Human Resource Management. The Journal of Business Perspective, 17 (1), 98.

Ster, M., & Koster, M. (2007). Human Resource Versus Personnel Management. Michigan: Grin Verlag.

Storey, J. (2007). Human Resource Management: A critical text, 3^rd edition. London: Thomson Learning.

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