HRM: INTRODUCTION

Human resource management is the process of

acquiring, training, appraising, compensating employees
and attending to their labour relations, healthy, safety
and fairness concerns (Dessler, 2005:4). Rao (2004:3)
further postulates that Human resource management is
a process of bringing people and organisations together
so that the goals of each are met. It is that part of the
management process which is concerned with the
management of the human resources in an organisation.
It tries to secure the best from people by winning their
wholehearted cooperation. HRM may be simply defined
as the process of procuring, developing and maintaining
competent workforce to achieve the goals of an
organisation. DeCenzo and Robins (2003:3) aver that
HRM is concerned with the people dimension in
management. In further elaboration of the concept,
Armstrong (2003:3)avers that human resource
 Features of HRM:
 From the foregoing, a number of aspects about HRM
emerge:
 HRM seeks to attract, retain, develop, reward and
motivate employees for achievement of the
organisation’s strategic objectives;
 Both the employer and the employees are in a
symbiotic relationship and employees are not
considered as a liability.
 Features of HRM:
 The main features of HRM are:
 It is a pervasive force: present in all organisations and
at all levels;
 Action oriented: focus on action rather than record
keeping, written procedures or rules;
 People oriented: whether as individuals or as groups;
 Development oriented: seeks to develop people to
their full potential;
 Features of HRM:-Contd
 Interdisciplinary function
 Continuous and interdisciplinary function
 An emphasis of the strategic management of
people (the human capital of the organisation)
which achieves a fit or integration between the
business and the HR strategy;
 A comprehensive and coherent approach to the
provision of mutually supporting employment
policies and practices, i.e. the development of
integrated HR policies and practices (configuration
or bundling);
 The importance placed on gaining commitment to
the organisation’s mission and values-it is
commitment oriented;
 The treatment of people as assets rather than
costs-they are regarded as source of competitive
advantage and as human capital to be invested in
through the provision of learning and
development opportunities;
 An approach to employee relations that is unitary
rather than pluralist-it is believed that employees
 Evolution of Human Resource Management
 Pattanayak (2003:3) cites the founder of Sony
Corporation Akio Morita who postulates that “there
is no magic in the success of Japanese companies
in general and Sony in particular. The secret of
their success is simply the way they treat their
employees”. Under Morita, the whole process of
recruitment, selection, training and development,
performance appraisal and rewards was built on
the premise that employees were the most
valuable part of the company. Such employees
served the organisation through their talent,
creativity and drive. It is people who can add value
to an organisation in a manner that no other
resource can.
 The idea of staff welfare can be traced to the First
World War when a number of welfare officers
Table 1: Phases of Personnel Management and attendant

Functions
Phase Period Functions performed
Pre-phase one Between 1st & Recruitment, staff
WWII training, record keeping
and staff welfare
1 1950s Salary administration
and industrial relations
2 1960s-1970s Strategic manpower
planning, Performance
appraisal, Job design,
motivation, and other
comprehensive
personnel activities in
3 1980s the personnel function
Organisational strategic
management team- shift
from Personnel
Management to HRM
(expanded mandate)
4 1990s Emphasis on teamwork
strategic approach to
HRM for organisational
success through goal-
directed leadership
 Definitions of Personnel Management
 Personnel management can be defined as the process
of attracting, retaining and developing personnel
necessary for an organisation to meet its goals
(Okumbe, 2001). According to Flippo (1984), the
personnel function is concerned with procurement,
development, compensation, integration and
maintenance of an organisation for the purpose of
contributing towards accomplishment of that
organisation’s goals or objectives. The foregoing
definition highlights personnel management as the
process of planning, organising, directing and
controlling of the performance of those operative
functions. Personnel management is not an exclusive
province of the personnel managers but a function of
the managerial personnel with assistance of others to
realise the objectives of the organisation. Personnel
managers are first and foremost managers and
therefore they need to understand management
theory and practice.
 Main objectives of Personnel Management
 The main objectives of personnel management are:
 Attracting the kinds of human resources required by
an organisation;
 Developing the human resources;
 Motivating the human resources;
 Retaining the human resources;
 Table 2: A Distinction between HRM and Personnel

Management

Dimension Personnel Human Resource

Function
Orientation Maintenance Development
oriented oriented
Strategy Emphasis on Emphasis on strategy
implementation of
procedures
Focus Focus on employees’ Focus on employee
needs in their own requirements in light
right of business needs
Structure An independent Consists of
function with interdependent parts
independent sub-
Conflict functions
Presumption of union- Conflict dealt with by
management team leaders,
conflicts, reach manage climate and
Pay temporary
Emphasis ontruce
settling pay culture
more in terms of the
organisation’s internal
market
 A Distinction between HRM and Personnel
Management-Contd
Employee Employees seen as a cost Employees seen as an
perception to be maintained investment to be
nurtured as well as cost
Philosophy Reactive, servicing to be controlled
Proactive and innovative
function function (trying to
anticipate and getting
ready with appropriate
Scope Serving other responses)
Contributing “added
departments/units value” to business

Change Supporting change Stimulating change

Goals Challenging business Total commitment to

goals in light of effects on business goals
employees
Staff Less flexible approach to Completely flexible
deployments staff deployments approach to staff
deployments
Responsibility Exclusive responsibility of Responsibility of all
personnel department managers in the
organisation
 A Distinction between HRM and Personnel
Management-Contd

Dimensio Personnel Human resource function

n function
Motivator Emphasis is Emphasis is on higher
s put on order needs such as how
monetary to design a jobs that
terms stretch employees,
improving creativity and
problem solving skills,
Outcomes Improved how
Betterto use
empower
of people in
human
performance is all respects
resources leads to
the result of improved satisfaction and
improved morale
satisfaction
Rules and morale of Focus on the outlook,
Importance
devising clear impatience with rules
Guide to rules
Procedures Business need
managem
ent action
Behaviour Norms, Values, mission
reference customs and
practices
 A Distinction between HRM and Personnel Management-
Contd

Dimension Personnel HR
Management task Monitoring Nurturing
vis-à-vis labour
Key relations Labour- Customer
management
Initiatives Piecemeal Integrated
Speed of decision Slow Fast
Management role Transactional Transformative
Communication Indirect Direct
Prized Negotiation Facilitation
management skills
 A Distinction between HRM and Personnel Management-
Contd
Dimension Personnel HR

Selection Separate, marginal task Integrated key task

Conditions Separately negotiated Harmonisation

Labour management Collective-bargaining Individual contracts

contracts
Employment conditions Preference for collective Management-led
bargaining of pay planning of people
conditions resources and
employment conditions
Pay Job evaluation (fixed Performance related
grades)
Job categories and Many Few
grades
Job design Division of labour Teamwork

Training and Controlled access to Learning organisations

development courses
Focus of attention for Personal procedures Wide-ranging cultural,
intervention structural and personal
strategies
Shared interests Interests of the Mutuality of interests
organisation are
 Principles of Human Resource Management

 If a policy is to guide managerial decisions and actions, it must be

established by research and analysis. The observation is that many
personnel management principles have been established through
practice, experience and observation. Armstrong (1994) postulates
that there are four principles of HRM. These are:
 In any organisation, human resources are the most important resource
it has and, therefore the success of any organisation depends entirely
on how its workers are managed
 The success of any organisation is more easily achieved if the HR
policies and procedures are closely linked with, and make a major
contribution to, the achievement of its corporate objectives and
specific plans
 The corporate culture and the values, organisational climate and
managerial behaviour that emanates from the culture will exert a
major influence on achievement of excellence. Therefore, efforts must
be made to manage culture in such a way as to enable workers to
accept and adopt the values.
 Continuous effort is required to achieve integration whereby all
members of the organisation are involved and work together with a
sense of common purpose. Aswathappa (2005) adds the following
principles:
 Principle of individual development: to offer full and equal
opportunities to every employee to realise his/her full potential
 Principle of scientific selection: selection of the right person for the
right job
 Principle of free flow of communication-encourage all channels of
communication, formal, informal, upward, downward, horizontal etc
 Principle of participation-involve employees or their representatives at
every level of decision making
 Principle of fair remuneration-pay fair and equitable wages and
salaries commensurate with the job
 Principle of incentives to recognise and reward good performance
 Principle of dignity of labour-treat every employee with respect and
The Michigan School Human Resource Model
 Pattanayak (2003:4) cites Fomburn, Tichy and
Devanna (1984) who explained the human
resource cycle that consists of the four
processes or functions:
 Selection-matching available human
resources to jobs
 Appraisal-performance management
 Rewards-rewarding short-term and long
term achievements
 Development -developing high quality
employees
 Fomburn, et al (1984) note that the Human
Resource function should be linked to the line
organisation by providing the business with
good databases, by ensuring that senior
managers give HR issues as much importance
 The Harvard Framework
 The Harvard Framework of HRM was developed by Beer (1984) and it
is based on the belief that problems of historical personnel
management can only be solved when general managers develop a
view point of how they wish to see employees involved and developed
by the enterprise and the HRM policies and practices that they may
achieve by those goals. Without central philosophy or a strategic
vision, HRM is likely to remain a set of independent activities each
guided by its own set of practices and traditions. According to Harvard
School, HRM has two characteristic features:
 Line managers accept more responsibility for ensuring the
alignment of competitive strategy and HR policies; and
 The HR function has the mission of setting policies that govern how
personnel activities are developed and implemented in ways to
make them more mutually re-enforcing
 The Harvard model has integrated the history and practice of HRM,
emphasizing the fact that HRM is a management function rather than
personnel function only.
 The model below explains that HRM should evolve take due
consideration of stakeholder interests, situational factors, whose
outcome is commitment, congruence and cost-effectiveness. The long
term effects will include individual well being, organisational
effectiveness, and societal well being which can in turn impact the
stakeholder interest, situational factors and HRM policy choices.
 HR Managers Scope of Work
 Any manager must have some authority or right to do things in one’s
position. A human resource manager has authority over the following:
 Procurement-recruitment, selection, orientation and placement.
These include:
 Recruitment programmes
 Rejecting job applicants
 Establishing and determining entry points in wages and salaries and
pay grades
 Employment of individuals recommended by other departmental
managers
 Orientation programmes
 Employee training and development. This involves:
 Determining training needs
 Designing training programmes determining number of trainees in a
particular programme
 Determining the who will attend what training programme and when
 Evaluating training programmes
 Performance Review:
 Establishing and administering performance standards
 Determining and establishing merit ratings
 Establishing remedial measures
 The manager can also change recommendations about specific
individuals
 Salary and wage administration