Basic Concepts of HRM

• Liberalization and globalization along with the

advancements in informational technology has
brought to center stage the importance of
human resources
• In a competitive scenario, effective utilization of
human resources has become necessary and the
primary task of organizations is to identify,
recruit, and channel competent human resources
into their business operations for improving
productivity and functional efficiency.
• Effective utilization of human resources would lead to
both accomplishment of individual goal and
organizational goals and creation of assets at the
national level and become vital for the very survival,
growth, and development of the organizations
• Management has been defined as development of
people ; the process of decision making and control
over actions of human beings; planning, organizing,
and controlling of people and resources. The process
of accomplishing the desired organizational objectives;
effective utilization of available resources for delivery
of goals and services etc.
• Then HRM can be defined within this backdrop.
HRM is the function performed in organizations
that facilitates the most effective use of people
to achieve individual and organizational goals.
The common use of term to describe unit or
department concerned for people in
organizations are personnel, HRM, industrial
relations, employee development etc. In some
organizations, human resources management
functions are still performed under the
‘personnel department’.
• Human resource management is concerned with all
aspects of how people are employed and managed in
organizations
• It covers activities such as strategic HRM, human
capital management, knowledge management ,
corporate social responsibility, organizational
development, resourcing( workforce planning,
recruitment, selection, and talent management)
learning and development, performance and reward
management, employee relations, employee
wellbeing, and the provision of employee services
 The goals of HRM
• support the organization in achieving its
objectives by developing and implementing HR
strategies that are integrated with the business
strategy
• contribute to the development of a high –
performance culture
• ensure that the organization has talented,
skilled, and engaged people it needs
• create a positive employment relationship
between management and employees and a
climate of mutual trust
• Encourage the application of an ethical
approach to people management
• ensure and create the environment of
organizational adoption coping with change
factors
 Hard and Soft HRM
• Storey(1989) has made a distinction between Hard and Soft HRM
• The hard approach focuses on the quantitative and strategic
aspects of managing human resources. It is rational approach,
which deals with human resources like any other economic factor.
It emphasizes the need for managing people to enhance their
contribution to improve the quantitative advantage of the
organization
• The soft approach to HRM, whose roots can be traced to human
relation school, emphasizes factors such as communication,
motivation, and leadership. It treats employees as the essential
means of realizing organizational objectives rather than more
objects. It focuses on engendering commitment among employees
by winning their hearts
 HRM functions:
• Helping the organization reach its goals.
• efficiently employing the skills and abilities of the
workforce
• providing well-trained and well motivated employees
• increasing employee’s job satisfaction and self
actualization
• achieving quality of work life
• communicating HRM policies to all employees
• maintaining ethical policies and socially responsible
behavior
• managing change
• managing increased urgency and faster cycle time
 Development of HRM concepts
• HRM concepts as we understand today – dates
back to 400 BC(Chaldeans Inventive plan)
Babylonian codes or Hammurabi around 1800 BC.
The Chinese as early as 1650 BC had originated
the principle of division of labor(specialization).
The span of management and the related
concepts of organization were well understood
by Moses around 1200 BC. In India, Kautilya
observed a sound base for systematic
management of human resource as early as 4th
century.
• prior to Industrial revolution, the status of labour was
extremely low and the human relationships between
employer and the employees were characterized by
slavery, serfdom, and guild system
• Slavery was based on negative incentive , and serfdom
was based on positive incentive system
• But both the system were replaced with the growth of
manufacturing and commercial enterprises by the guild
system,. Guild system marked the beginning of human
resource management for selection, training ,and
development of workers and emergence of collective
bargaining for wages and working conditions.
• The Industrial revolution followed by the new economic
doctrine of Lasseiz faire, which deteriorated the employer-
employee relationship due to unhealthy work environment,
long working hours, fatigue, monotony, strain etc
• reviewing the history, it is observed that after first world
war(1917), personnel management discipline emerged as a
new field of knowledge which made business expansion,
labour strategies, and higher rates to employee etc. But
great depression again threw many personnel's out of jobs
and this created a disillusion for the profession. And again
after depression , the business profession had reached the
stage of maturity and organizations started giving
importance to it like other core functions, viz. production
and marketing
• Thus the evolution of HRM can be traced back to the
HR movement in the modern age, that is, up to 1930’s
it was referred to as personnel management and the
focus was on employer- employee relation. Studies on
HR were initially guided by Taylor’s scientific
management principles and then graduated through
the Howthorne studies to the behavioural school
based on the theories of Abraham Maslow, Herzberg,
and Douglas MacGregor etc. In this 21st century,
further development in this field has brought by the
arrival of new knowledge's and IT era
 Factors which are responsible for
development of HRM
• Technological changes
• Rising competition
• The rise of consumerism, government
protection
• Social changes
• The political development , restructured
trade unions
• The structural change in employment etc
 Characteristics of HRM
• Explicit relation between HRM and business
strategy
• Increases employee commitment
• Recognition of common interests and needs
• Responses for influences of social, economic,
political and cultural contexts
• Increase in the role of line managers
• A normative approach etc
 HR challenges
• Managing change
• Leadership development
• learning and development
• staffing challenges
• succession planning and building the talent pipeline
• Measurement of employee effectiveness
• war for talent
• Retaining and rewarding top level employees
• Building an attractive culture
• Responding to globalization
• workforce diversity
• keeping work-life balance and flexibility
• aging workforce and generation gap
• Better compensation