HRM: Human Resource Management

Human resource is one of the most valuable and unique assets of an organization. According to Leon c. Megginson, HR refers to (the total knowledge, Skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes of an organization workforce.

HRM is one of the most complex and challenging fields of modern management. In this a HR manager has to handle the workforce and care their expectations to ensure their performance to the best. In past personnel management means command and control over the employees now it changed to great freedom and support to the employee.

Now a day’s human resource is also treated as critical assets with physical assets.

HRM is the management to acquire the competent workers / mgrs, development of employees, motivation of employees with the identification need, and to retain the manpower with providing the conducive work environment.

History of HRM

  1. Scientific Management Approach
  2. Human Relation Approach.
  3. Human Resource Approach.

S M A:
Before SMA employees were forced to work. Employer thought if you want production then employees should be constantly supervised. Any failure in target turned into disciplined or fired. SMA introduced the new idea about work designing and performance most efficiently. The SMA approach resulted in work method and techniques that emphasized the employee to perform.

H R A:
It refers that employee’s productivity not affected by job designing and rewards but also by the social and psychological factors. It stats that the feelings, emotions and sentiments of employees are greatly influenced by work conditions as group relationship and management support.

The existence of unions because of HRA. The rise of unionism gave workers the legal right to organize and to bargain collectively. Now employees talked about wages and benefits to job security and working conditions.

Some other thoughts which are related to HRA.
The HRA did not recognize the different job structure, differences and other factors because:

Each employee is unique with his or her wants, needs and values etc. This approach failed to recognize the other factor like performance appraisal, career development and career planning. It was concerned that good HRA alone was sufficient to a high level motivation, which is not true in practice.

Function of a HR Management
An effective manager should be able to handle human and non-human resources to bring about this alignment and achievement of goals. Managing people is one of the biggest challenges for any manager for the reasons below:

Individual differ from each and every aspects, their values / attitudes / beliefs / culture are different. The stimulating and motivational factors may not be same for all the employees.

Above all employees are very much different from the past; they know they are valuable assets.

According to famous industrialist Mr. John D Rockefeller “I will pay more for the ability to deal with the people than for any other ability under the sun”

Mainly you can divide HRM in two categories.

  1. Managerial functions.
  2. Operative functions.

1. Managerial functions:

Planning, Organizing, Staffing, directing and controlling.

Planning: Planning to keep in mind the forecast of Human Resource requirement. Foreseeing the changes in employee attitudes and evolving effective ways of handing these changes.

Organizing: Organizing the job responsibilities and classification of labour and relationship among the employees to perform better.

Staffing: Staffing is process to arrange or obtaining the capable persons it includes recruitment, selection, placement and induction etc.

Directing: Directing to set a common goal among the resources set at one all different departments with the exact policies.

Controlling: Controlling the aspects that confirm the plans to accomplish the goals and avoid any deviation.

2. Operative function:

Employment (Job Analysis, HR planning, recruitment, selection, placement and induction), Human resource development, compensation and employees relations.

Employment involves procuring and employing individuals with knowledge, skills, experience and aptitude. It includes functions such a job analysis, human resource planning, recruitment, selection, placement and induction.

Job Analysis: To satisfy performance of employees, his / her ability should be matched the requirement of job. A mismatch will result in poor performance, absenteeism and other problem. Job analysis is the process by which the tasks which comprise the job.

Human resource planning involves requirement assessment with taking into account transfer, retirement and attrition etc. Developing new plans to attract the resource from market.

Recruitment to a large extent depends on the effectiveness of its employees. Recruitment is the process of seeking and attracting prospective candidates against a vacancy in an organization.

Selection the process of identifying and establishing the credentials for a job to ensure success is referred to as selection. It includes scanning the application forms and CVs, involving the line managers or respective departments.

Placement After a selected candidate conveys his acceptance of the offer of employment made by an organization; his placement has to be based on the needs of organization.

Induction: about organization, procedure of job and responsibility, tasks to be performed.

Human resource development: Performance appraisal, training, management level training and career development.

Compensation: has to be adequate, equitable and fair to the employees. Compensation encompasses base salary, incentives, bonus and benefits and is based on job evaluation.

Its further includes: Job evaluation, wages, incentive, bonus and Fringe Benefits etc.

Employees Relations: It a vast concept, will discuss later.

HR policies and procedures

The HR policies of an organization should be based on ground realities and be employee-friendly. HR polices that are based on individual decisions of some top management staff would lead to employee frustration and their subsequent alienation from the organization.

If an organization believes that its employees are its most important assets then there is HR policies should be employees friendly to make them happy. If an organization is in growing stage then there policies should be in concern of training and development of employees. And where the employee treated as a factor of production then there is less HR work.

HR policies need to be updated to match the changing needs of the organization and the employees.

Roles of HR Executives in an organization

Service provider, Executive, Facilitator, Consultant and Auditor