Professional Documents
Culture Documents
HRM
HRM
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Khan Sarfaraz Ali
Human resource is an increasingly broadening term that refers to managing human capital, the
people of an organization. The field has moved from a traditionally administrative function to a
strategic one that recognizes the link between talented and engaged people and organizational
success. The field draws upon concepts developed in industrial/organizational psychology and
system theory. Human resource has at least two related interpretations depending on context. The
original usage derives from political economy and economics, where it was traditionally called
labor, one of four factors of production although this perspective is changing as a function of
new and ongoing research into more strategic approaches at national levels. This first usage is
used more in terms of human resources development, and can go beyond just organizations to the
level of nations.i The more traditional usage within corporations and businesses refers to the
individuals within a firm or agency, and to the portion of the organization that deals with hiring,
firing, training, and other personnel issues, typically referred to as human resources management.
Human resource management (HRM)1 is a business practice to managing the workforce.
It is one of several important functions in modern organizations. HRM helps to structure
employee and candidate information by skills, profiles and career preferences. It is helping talent
supply and demand by enabling communication, self-selection, and evaluation of human
resources needs. Usually, human resource management use computer systems to support these
functions including payroll, HR and skills database. A human resource management system also
includes the activities of human resources planning, selection, recruitment, orientation, training,
performance appraisal and compensation.
Though human resources have been part of business and organizations since the first days
of agriculture, the modern concept of human resources began in reaction to the efficiency focus
of Taylorism in the early 1900s. By 1920, psychologists and employment experts in the United
States started the human relations movement, which viewed workers in terms of their psychology
and fit with organizations, rather than as interchangeable parts. This movement grew throughout
the middle of the 20th century, placing emphasis on how leadership, cohesion, and loyalty
played important roles in organizational success. Although this view was increasingly challenged
by more quantitatively rigorous and less “soft” management techniques in the 1960s and beyond,
human resources development had gained a permanent role within organizations, agencies and
nations, increasingly as not only an academic discipline, but as a central theme in development
policy.
HRM is allied with people at work in an organization. It manages working employees
and workers in industry, offices and in all private or public fields or employment. It is defined as,
that phase of management, which deals with effective control, and use of manpower as
distinguished from other sources of power. In brief, HRM has to deal with people at work. It
relates to employees both as individuals as well as a group in order to obtain better results with
their working in association with others and their effective participation in organization’s works.
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HRM is a series of activities that largely involve hiring of employees, training and development, compensation, maintenance
and motivation to achieve the organizational goal.
Depending on the assumptions about the nature of the employment relationship, different HRM
models and practices have been developed to accommodate the diverse industry and workplace
contexts in which they operate. Both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ HRM approaches reflect their underlying
management theories as well as different national or industry environments.
Objectives of HRM
1. Personal Objectives:
a. It is concerned with the optimum utilization of the human resources within an
organization;
b. It is concerned with the creation of conditions in which each employee is encouraged to
make his best possible contribution to the effective working of the undertaking;
c. It endeavors to increase the productive efficiency to the workers through training,
guidance and counseling and;
2. Organizational Objectives:
a. To recognize the role of HRM in bringing about organizational effectiveness.
b. HRM is not an end itself. It is only a means to assist the organization with its primary
objectives.
c. Simply stated, the department exists to serve the rest of the organization.
Societal Objectives:
a. To be ethically and socially responsible to the needs and challenges of the society while
minimizing the negative impact of such demands upon the organization.
b. The failure of organizations to use their resources for the society’s benefit in ethical way
may lead to restrictions.