Introduction to

Human Resource
Management
Presented by:
Mohan Bhandari
Concept of Human Resource Management

• Human resource management is concerned with managing people in

organizations.
• It is important function for every manager.
• The people becomes human resources when they combine energy and
physical strength with competencies.
• Competencies consists of knowledge, skills, attitudes and potential for
growth.
• Human resources are people who are ready, willing and able to
contribute to organizational objectives.
Concept of Human Resorure Management

• Human resource management is a process concerned with the

management of human energies and competencies for
achieving organizational objectives through acquisition,
development, utilization and maintenance functions.
• HRM regards people as strategic resources. It views
employees as resources to be developed rather than as costs.
 Definition of HRM

• Human resource management refers to the policies and practices

involved in carrying out the people or human resource aspect of a
management position, including recruiting, screening, training,
rewarding, and appraising. - Gary Dessler

• Human resource is comprised of the acquisition, development,

motivation and maintenance function.

- DeCenzo and Robbins

 Characteristics of Human Resorure
Management
1. It is an art and a science:
2. It is pervasive:
3. It is a continuous process:
4. HRM is a service function:
5. HRM must be regulation-friendly:
6. Interdisciplinary and fast changing:
7. Focus on results:
8. People-centred:
9. Human relations philosophy:
10. An integrated concept:
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management
1. It is an art and a science:
The art and science of HRM is indeed very complex. HRM is both the art of
managing people by recourse to creative and innovative approaches; it is a
science as well because of the precision and rigorous application of theory
that is required.
2. It is pervasive:
Development of HRM covers all levels and all categories of people, and
management and operational staff. No discrimination is made between any
levels or categories. All those who are managers have to perform HRM. It is
pervasive also because it is required in every department of the organization.
All kinds of organizations, profit or non-­profit making, have to follow HRM.
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management
3. It is a continuous process:
First, it is a process as there are number of functions to be performed in a
series, beginning with human resource planning to recruitment to selection,
to training to performance appraisal.
To be specific, the HRM process includes acquisition (HR planning,
recruitment, selection, placement, socialization), development (training and
development, and career development), utilization (job design, motivation,
performance appraisal and reward management), and maintenance (labour
relations, employee discipline, grievance handling, welfare, and
termination). Second, it is continuous, because HRM is a never-ending
process.
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management

4. HRM is a service function:

HRM is not a profit centre. It serves all other functional departments. But
the basic responsibility always lies with the line managers. HRM is a staff
function – a facilitator. The HR Manager has line authority only within his
own department, but has staff authority as far as other departments are
concerned.
5. HRM must be regulation-friendly:
The HRM function has to be discharged in a manner that legal dictates are
not violated. Equal opportunity and equal pay for all, inclusion of
communities in employment and farmers in the benefits and non-violation
of human rights must be taken care of by the HRM.
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management
6. Interdisciplinary and fast changing:
It is encompassing welfare, manpower, personnel management, and keeps
close association with employee and industrial relations. It is multi-
disciplinary activity utilizing knowledge and inputs from psychology,
sociology, economics, etc. It is changing itself in accordance with the
changing environment. It has travelled from exploitation of workers to
treating them as equal partners in the task.
7. Focus on results:
HRM is performance oriented. It has its focus on results, rather than on
rules. It encourages people to give their 100%. It tries to secure the best from
people by winning the whole hearted cooperation. It is a process of bringing
people and organization together so that the goals of each are met. It is
commitment oriented.
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management
8. People-centred:
HRM is about people at work both as individuals and a group. It tries to help
employees to develop their potential fully. It comprises people-related
functions like hiring, training and development, performance appraisal,
working environment, etc.
HRM has the responsibility of building human capital. People are vital for
achieving organizational goals. Organizational performance depends on the
quality of people and employees.
9. Human relations philosophy:
HRM is a philosophy and the basic assumption is that employees are human
beings and not a factor of production like land, labour or capital. HRM
recognizes individuality and individual differences. Every manager to be
successful must possess social skills to manage people with differing needs.
 Characteristics of Human Resource Management

10. An integrated concept:

HRM in its scope includes Personnel aspect, Welfare aspect and Industrial
relations aspect in itself. It is also integrated as it concern with not only
acquisition, but also development, utilization, and maintenance.
Objectives of Human Resource
Management
Objectives of Human Resource Management

HRM is useful not only to organization, but the employees

working therein, and also the society at large also find it
useful. The objectives can be as under:
1. Organizational Objectives:
2. Functional Objectives:
3. Personal Objectives:
4. Societal Objectives:
Objectives of Human Resource Management

1. Organizational Objectives:
HRM is a means to achieve efficiency and effectiveness. It serves
other functional areas, so as to help them to attain efficiency in their
operations and attainment of goals to attain efficiency.
Acquiring right man for the right job at right time in right quantity,
developing through right kind of training, utilizing the selected
workforce, and maintaining the workforce are the organizational
objectives of HRM. Succession planning is an important issue to be
taken up as a contemporary organizational objective.
Objectives of Human Resource Management

2. Functional Objectives:
HRM performs so many functions for other departments. However, it must see
that the facilitation should not cost more than the benefit rendered.
3. Personal Objectives:
In today’s world there is shortage of requisite talent. Employees are encouraged
by competitive firms to change the jobs. HRM has the responsibility to acquire,
develop, utilize, and maintain employees.
This would be possible only when the HRM helps employees to achieve their
personal goals to get their commitment. Creating work-life balance for the
employees is a personal objective.
Objectives of Human Resource Management

4. Societal Objectives:
HRM must see that the legal, ethical, and social environmental issues are
properly attended to. Equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work are the
legal issues not to be violated. To take care of farmers (whose land has been
acquired for the factory) and tribal’s (who are displaced by industries and
mining companies) are the ethical issues.
The results are clear when these issues are not taken care of. To help the society
through generating employment opportunity, creating schools and dispensaries,
helping women empowerment are the social responsibility issues.
Functions (Components) of Human Resource
Management
1. Acquisition
2. Development
3. Utilization
4. Maintenance
Functions (Components) of Human Resource
Management
1. Acquisition function
It is staffing function. It ensures entry of the right number of employees at the
right place at the right time in the organization. It consists the following activities.
- Human resource planning
- Job analysis
- Recruitment
- Selection
- Socialization
Functions (Components) of Human Resource
Management
2. Development function
This function ensures proper competencies of employees to handle
jobs. It consists of the following activities.
- Analyzing development needs
- Employee training
- Management development
- Career development
Functions (Components) of Human Resource
Management
3. Utilization function
Utilization is employing people productivity for higher performance. This
function ensures willingness of employees for increasing productivity. It is
performing at higher levels. It consists of employing people productivity
through:
- Motivation
- Performance appraisal
- Compensation management
Functions (Components) of Human Resource
Management
4. Maintenance function
Maintenance function is concerned with retention of competent
employees in the organization. It ensures that employees maintain
their loyalty and commitment to the organization. It consists of:
- Employee discipline
- Labour relations
- Employee welfare
CHALLENGES OF HRM/ CONTEMPORARY
HRM ISSUES
• Globalization
• Technological Changes
• Work force diversity
• Complexities
• Detaching behavior of employees
• Change management
• Ethic and social responsibilities
 CHALLENGES OF HRM/
CONTEMPORARY HRM ISSUES
• Globalization: Organizations nowadays, are no more limited to national boundary.
They are extending their areas of business operation to other countries as well. Without
extending business to global market, organizations can not utilize various resources.
This has created a big challenge to HRM.
• Technological changes: Leading global organizations are investing huge capital in
technology innovation. New technology has changed the way of doing the things as well
as it reduces the cost of the product significantly. Because of changes in technology,
organizations are supposed to train their human resources to cope with those changes.
On one hand, human resource management need to work for making employees ready to
accept changes. On the other hand, it needs to work hard to train its employees.
 CHALLENGES OF HRM/
CONTEMPORARY HRM ISSUES
• Workforce diversity: Because of globalization, organizations need large amount of human
resource. Skilled, semi-skilled, and unskilled human resource is hired at large number. Legal
compliance has forced that hire should be based on diversities. Large global organizations
hire employees from different countries. Such workforce obtained from different ethnicity,
caste, religion, socio-economic background etc. creates challenge to manage. HRM is
responsible to understand its heterogeneous needs and should plan for the common
motivating tools to satisfy employees.
• Complexities: Organizations are getting bigger day by day. They are extending product line
and depth. Organizations need to innovate and offer new products to customer. For this, large
number of job centers are created which adds further complexity in managing the
organizational structure. Similarly, innovation and development, increasing size of
employees, changing expectation of employees as well as customers, etc. also increase the
level of complexity in managing business activities. Human resource management needs to
settle such complexities.
 CHALLENGES OF HRM/ CONTEMPORARY
HRM ISSUES
• Detaching behavior of employees: Most of the employees are driven by individual
objectives rather than organizational objectives. They may refuse their responsibilities
in many cases. They always search for better opportunities. Employees never reveal
their plan to management. So, organizations should compromise to handle human
resources. This major task is to be conducted by HRM. Planning regarding employee
acquisition, development, utilization and maintenance may not fit in such situation.
• Change management: Most of the human resource refuses or resists change in the
job, job center, job mates, working procedure as well as organizational environment.
But, HRM has to manage the people in order to cope with the entire change in
business environment Competent and committed employees of organization need to
be used for the organizational need. Because of the resistivity in the employees, it
becomes really challenging. HRM initiates different motivational tools to make them
to accept the change.
 CHALLENGES OF HRM/
CONTEMPORARY HRM ISSUES
• Ethic and social responsibilities: Ethic and social responsibilities are the growing
concern of HRM. The most important ethical concern of HRM is to know how an
organization should treat human resources and how to groom them for
organizational productivity. HRM is responsible to use best leadership guidance for
cultural training to employees to maintain ethical behavior and social
responsibility. To maintain organizational benefit and bearing social responsibility
are conflicting actions.
Challenges and Responsibilities for HR Managers
• HR and improving productivity
• HR and corporate strategy
• HR and employee commitment
• HR and transferring knowledge
• HR and service organizations
• HR and responsiveness
 Difference Between Personnel Management and HRM
BASIS FOR HUMAN RESOURCE
PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
COMPARISON MANAGEMENT

The branch of management that focuses

The aspect of management that is
on the most effective use of the
concerned with the work force and their
Meaning manpower of an entity, to achieve the
relationship with the entity is known as
organizational goals is known as Human
Personnel Management.
Resource Management.

Approach Traditional Modern

Treatment of
Machines or Tools Asset
manpower
Type of function Routine function Strategic function
Basis of Pay Job Evaluation Performance Evaluation
Management Role Transactional Transformational
BASIS FOR PERSONNEL HUMAN RESOURCE
COMPARISON MANAGEMENT MANAGEMENT
Communication Indirect Direct
Labor
Collective Bargaining Contracts Individual Contracts
Management
Initiatives Piecemeal Integrated
Management
Procedure Business needs
Actions
Decision
Slow Fast
Making
Job Design Division of Labor Groups/Teams
Primarily on mundane activities
Treat manpower of the
like employee hiring,
Focus organization as valued assets, to
remunerating, training, and
be valued, used and preserved.
harmony.
 differences between Personnel Management and Human Resource
Management
• The part of management that deals with the workforce within the enterprise is
known as Personnel Management. The branch of management, which focuses on
the best possible use of the enterprise’s manpower is known as Human Resource
Management.
• Personnel Management treats workers as tools or machines whereas Human
Resource Management treats it as an important asset of the organization.
• Human Resource Management is the advanced version of Personnel Management.
• Decision Making is slow in Personnel Management, but the same is comparatively
fast in Human Resource Management.
• In Personnel Management there is a piecemeal distribution of initiatives. However,
integrated distribution of initiatives is there in Human Resource Management.
 differences between Personnel Management and Human Resource
Management
• In Personnel Management, the basis of job design is the division of work while, in the case
of Human Resource Management, employees are divided into groups or teams for
performing any task.
• In PM, the negotiations are based on collective bargaining with the union leader. Conversely,
in HRM, there is no need for collective bargaining as individual contracts exist with each
employee.
• In PM, the pay is based on job evaluation. Unlike HRM, where the basis of pay is
performance evaluation.
• Personnel management primarily focuses on ordinary activities, such as employee hiring,
remunerating, training, and harmony. On the contrary, human resource management focuses
on treating employees as valued assets, which are to be valued, used and preserved.
 HRM environment

• 1. Workforce Diversity:
• 2. Economic and Technological Change:
• 3. Globalization:
• 4. Organizational Restructuring:
• 5. Changing Nature of Work:
 HRM environment
• 1. Work force Diversity:
• Diversity has been defined as any attribute that humans are likely to use to tell themselves, that
person is different from me and, thus, includes such factors as race, sex, age, values, and cultural
norms’. The Nepalese work force is characterized by such diversity that is deepening and spreading
day by day.
• It is likely to be more diverse as women, minority- group members, and older workers flood the
work force. With the increasing number of women entering the work force due to a combination of
factors like women’s emancipation, economic needs, greater equality of sexes, education and so on,
additional pressures of managing a different set of problems at the work place have arisen.
• However, increasing number of women in the work force has necessitated the implementation of
more flexible work scheduling, child care facilities, maternity and paternity leave, and transfer to the
location of the husband’s place of posting.
• Also, as the work force ages, employers will have to grapple with greater health care costs and
higher pension contributions. On the whole, the increased diversity of work force will place
tremendous demands on the HR management function.
 HRM environment
• 2. Economic and Technological Change:
• Along with time, several economic and technological changes have occurred that have altered
employment and occupational pattern. In Nepal too, there is a perceptible shift in occupational
structure from agriculture to industry to services.
• The Economic Policy, has led to liberalization and globalization giving genesis to multinational
organizations with their multicultural dimensions having certain implications for HRM. The
implications of globalization for HRM are discussed subsequently. The Nepalese economy has
already become an open economy.
• Technology has become the hallmark of the modem organizations. As such, modem organizations
have become the technology-driven organizations. So to say, men are replaced by machinery.
Manufacturing technology, for example, has changed to automation and robotization.
 HRM environment
• 3. Gloibalization
• There has been a growing tendency among business firms to extend their sales or manufacturing to
new markets aboard. The rate of globalization in the past few years in Nepal has been nothing short of
phenomenal.
• Globalization increases competition in the international business. Firms that formerly competed only
with local firms, now have to compete with foreign firms/competitors. Thus, the world has become a
global market where competition is a two-way street.
• Globalization has given genesis to the multinational corporations (MNCs). The MNCs are
characterised by their cultural diversities, intensified competition, variations in business practices and
so on.
• Given these conditions, from tapping the global labour force to formulating selection, training and
compensation policies for expatriate employees have posed major challenges for HRM in the next few
years. This has underlined the need for studying and understanding HRM of multinational
organisations or international organizations separately.
 HRM environment
• 4. Organizational Restructuring:
• Organizational restructuring is used to make the organization competitive. From this point of view,
mergers and acquisitions of firms have become common forms of restructuring to ensure
organizational competitiveness. The mega-mergers in the banking, telecommunications and
petroleum companies have been very visible in our country. Downsizing is yet another form of
organizational restructuring.
• As a part of the organizational changes, many organizations have “rightsized” themselves by
various ways like eliminating layers of managers, closing facilities, merging with other
organizations, or out placing workers.
• There has been a practice to flatten organizations by removing several layers of management and
to improve productivity, quality, and service while also reducing costs. Whatever be the form of
restructuring, jobs are redesigned and people affected.
• One of the challenges that HRM faces with organizational restructuring is dealing with the human
consequences of change.
 HRM environment
• 5. Changing Nature of Work:
• Along with changes in technology and globalization, the nature of jobs and work has also changed. For
example, technological changes like introduction of fax machines, information technology, and personal
computers have allowed companies to relocate operations to locations with lower wages. There is also a trend
toward increased use of temporary or part-time workers in organizations.
• One most significant change in the nature of work is that it has changed from manual to mental/ knowledge
work.
• As a result, the organizations are giving and will give growing emphasis on their human capital i.e., the
knowledge, education, training, skills, and expertise of employees, the expense of physical capital like
equipment, machinery and physical plants This growing emphasis on education and human capital has,
among other things, changed the nature of economy as service-oriented economy.
• In the changed economic scenario, jobs demand a certain level of expertise that is far beyond that required of
most workers 20 or 30 years ago. This means that companies are relying more on employee’s creativity and
skills, i.e., employee’s brain power.
Any Queries???