Human Resource management is evolving rapidly.
Human resource management is both an academic theory and a business practice
that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a
workforce.
The terms "human resource management"
and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term
"personnel management" as a description of the processes involved in
managing people in organizations
Its
features include:
Ø
Personnel administration
Ø
Personnel management
Ø
Manpower management
Ø
Industrial management
But these traditional expressions are becoming
less common for the theoretical discipline. Sometimes even industrial relations
and employee relations are confusingly listed as synonyms, although these
normally refer to the relationship between management and workers and the
behavior of workers in companies.
The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the
assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as
such should not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and
filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that
virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the
main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of
knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of
process. HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of
workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the
managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they
can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the resources
needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments.
As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced,
are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall.
HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in risk reduction within
organizations
Synonyms such as personnel management are
often used in a more restricted sense to describe activities that are necessary
in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with payroll and
benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. So if we move to actual definitions,
Torrington
“a
series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing
organizations to agree about the objectives and nature of their working
relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled"
While Miller
(1987) suggests that HRM relates to:".......those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating and sustaining competitive advantage”
The goal of human resource management is to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining employees and also to manage them effectively. The key word here perhaps is "fit", i.e. a HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an organization's employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller, 1989).
The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines; therefore we need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace. Fields such as psychology, industrial engineering, industrial and organizational psychology, industrial relations, sociology, and critical theories: postmodernism, post-structuralism play a major role.
Many colleges and universities offer bachelor and master degrees in Human Resources Management. One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields for the HRM function
Ø Strategic
business partner
Ø Change
agent
Ø Employee
champion
Ø Administration
However, many HR
functions these days struggle to get beyond the roles of administration and
employee champion, and are seen rather as reactive than strategically proactive
partners for the top management. In addition, HR organizations also have the
difficulty in proving how their activities and processes add value to the
company. Only in the recent years HR scholars and HR professionals are focusing
to develop models that can measure if HR adds value.Critical Academic Theory
Postmodernism plays an important part in Academic Theory and particularly in Critical Theory. Indeed Karen Legge in 'Human Resource Management: Rhetoric’s and Realities' possess the debate of whether HRM is a modernist project or a postmodern discourse (Legge 2004).
In many ways, critically or not, many writers contend that HRM itself is an attempt to move away from the modernist traditions of personnel (man as machine) towards a postmodernist view of HRM (man as individuals). Critiques include the notion that because 'Human' is the subject we should recognize that people are complex and that it is only through various discourses that we understand the world.
Man is not Machine, no matter what attempts are made to change it i.e. Fordism / Taylorism, McDonaldisation (Modernism). Critical Theory also questions whether HRM is the pursuit of "attitudinal shaping" (Wilkinson 1998), particularly when considering empowerment, or perhaps more precisely pseudo-empowerment - as the critical perspective notes. Many critics note the move away from Man as Machine is often in many ways, more a Linguistic (discursive) move away than a real attempt to recognize the Human in Human Resource Management.
Critical Theory, in particular postmodernism (poststructuralist), recognizes that because the subject is people in the workplace, the subject is a complex one, and therefore simplistic notions of 'the best way' or unitary perspectives on the subject are too simplistic. It also considers the complex subject of power, power games, and office politics. Power in the workplace is a vast and complex subject that cannot be easily defined.
This leaves many critics to suggest that Management 'Gurus', consultants, 'best practice' and HR models are often overly simplistic, but in order to sell an idea, they are simplified, and often lead Management as a whole to fall into the trap of oversimplifying the relationship.
Business Practice
Human resources
management comprises several processes. Together they are supposed to achieve
the above mentioned goal. These processes can be performed in an HR department,
but some tasks can also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other
departments.
Ø Workforce
planning
Ø Recruitment
(sometimes separated into attraction and selection)
Ø Induction
and Orientation
Ø Skills
management
Ø Training
and development
Ø Personnel
administration
Ø Compensation
in wage or salary
Ø Time
management
Ø Travel
management (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
Ø Payroll
(sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
Ø Employee
benefits administration
Ø Personnel
cost planning
Ø Performance
appraisal
Careers
The sort of
careers available in HRM is varied. There are generalist HRM jobs such as human
resource assistant. There are careers involved with employment, recruitment and
placement and these are usually conducted by interviewers, EOE (Equal
Opportunity Employment) specialists or college recruiters.Training and development specialization training is often conducted by trainers and orientation specialists. Compensation and benefits tasks are handled by compensation analysts, salary administrators, and benefits administrators.
Professional Organizations
Professional
organizations in HRM include the Society for Human Resource Management, the
Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the International
Public Management Association for HR (IPMA-HR) and the International Personnel
Management Association of Canada (IPMA-Canada).Management Association of Nepal
[MAN]Now since we know what HR is and what it deals with lets study a very important topic which is ABSENTEEISM. The topic assigned to me by the company for project is absenteeism. Hence the job profile for me was working on the topic and assisting the Assistant Manager in her work. The office was situated in Surajpur Industrial Area. It is a an area wit h industries situates all around
No comments:
Post a Comment