HRM Chapter one
Chapter One
INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Objectives:
After studying this chapter, you would be able to:
1) Know the basic concepts of human resource management (HRM)
2) Be acquainted with the major human resource management
functions.
3) Understand personnel issues under different schools of thoughts
INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
What is human resource management?
Before giving an answer to this question, it would be better to define
"management" it self. The reason to this is that human resource management
belongs to the broader field of study and practice known as management.
Management can be defined as the process of reaching organizational goals by
working with and through people and other resources. Management in all areas of
life implies achieving goals with effective and efficient use of organizational
resources.
Organizational resources can be grouped into four major categories:
· Human resources
· Financial resources
· Physical resources
· Information resources
Human resources are among the fundamental resources available to any
organization. Emphasizing the importance of human resources, some prominent
writers define management as the process of getting things done with and
through other people.
Human resource management (HRM) is thus a part of the field of management.
HRM, can be defined as the utilization of human resources to achieve
organizational objectives. It can broadly be seen as that function of all
organizations which provides for effective utilization of human resources to
achieve both the objectives of the organization on one hand and the satisfaction
and development of employees on the other hand (Glueck, 1992).
In defining and studying human resources management some points need to be
emphasized:
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· Human resources management is concerned with the people dimension of
the organizational management.
· Human resource management is a pervasive activity, meaning a universal
activity in any type of organization : government, business, education,
health, defense, recreation, etc.
· The human resource is said to be the most important ( or critical) element
in an organization since people make the decisions concerning all other
organizational resources. Therefore, getting and keeping good people is
critical to the success of every organization, whether profit or non-profit,
public or private.
In an organization, managers at all levels must concern themselves with human
resource management at least to some extent. Basically, it has been said,
managers get things done through the efforts of others, which basically requires
effective human resource management (Monday & Noe, 1990).
A human resource manager is an individual who normally acts in an advisory, or
"staff", capacity, working with other managers to help them deal with human
resource matters. The human resource manager is primarily responsible for
coordinating the management of human resources to help the organization
achieve its goals.
Some writers in the field and other management people may use such names as
"personnel", "personnel management", "manpower management", and "employee
relations" to say the same thing: human resource management.
Major Human Resource Management Functions
Human resource management functions are the set of activities performed in
utilizing human resources for better achievement of organizational objectives.
Following are the major elements (Mondy & Noe, 1990):
1. Human Resource Planning
Human resource planning (HRP) is the process of systematically reviewing
human resource requirements to ensure that the required numbers of
employees, with the required skills, are available when they are needed.
HRP is the process of matching the internal and external supply of people
with job openings anticipated in the organization over a specified period of
time.
2. Recruitment
Recruitment is the process of attracting individuals in sufficient numbers
and encouraging them to apply for jobs with the organization. It is the
process of identifying and attracting a pool of candidates, from which some
will later be selected to receive employment offers.
3. Selection
Selection is the process of choosing from a group of applicants the
individuals best suited for a particular position. Whereas recruitment
encourages individuals to seek employment with a firm, the purpose of the
selection process is to identify and employ the best qualified individuals for
specific positions.
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4. Orientation
Orientation is the formal process of familiarizing new employees with the
organization, their job, and their work unit. Through orientation (also called
socialization or induction) new employees will acquire the knowledge, skills,
and attitudes that make them successful members of the organization.
5. Training and Development
Training and development aim to increase employee's ability to contribute
to organizational effectiveness. Training is a process designed to maintain
or improve performance (and skills) in the present job. Development is a
programme designed to develop skills necessary for future work activities.
It is designed to prepare employees for promotion.
6. Compensation Administration
Compensation administration refers to the administration of every type of
reward that individuals receive in return for their services. In its boarder
sense, compensation represents all sorts of rewards that individuals receive
as a result of their employment.
7. Performance Evaluation
Performance evaluation is a formal system of periodic review and
evaluation of an individual's job performance.
8. Safety and Health
Safety involves protecting employees from injuries caused by work-related
accidents. Health refers to the employees freedom from illness and their
general physical and mental well-being. These aspects of the job are
important because employees who work in a safe environment and enjoy
good health are more likely to be productive and yield long-term benefits
to the organization.
9. Promotions, transfers, demotions and separations
Promotions, transfers, demotions, and separations reflect an employee's
value to the organization. High performers may be promoted or
transferred to help them develop their skills, while low performers may be
demoted, transferred to less important positions, or even separated.
10. Human Resource Research
Human resource research is a systematic gathering, recording, analyzing,
and interpretation of data for guiding human resource management
decisions. Every human resource management function needs effective
research.
11. Other areas such as employee and labour relations, collective bargaining,
employee rights and discipline, and retirement are also concerns of
human resource management.
Historical Development: an overview
Personnel, according to some writers, at least in a primitive form, have existed
since the dawn of group effort. Certain personnel functions, even though informal
in nature, were performed whenever people came together for a common
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purpose. During the course of this century, however, the processes of managing
people have become more formalized and specialized, and a growing body of
knowledge has been accumulated by practitioners and scholars.
For many decades such responsibilities as selection, training and compensation
were considered basic functions constituting the area traditionally referred to as
personnel. These functions were performed without much regard for how they
related to each other. From this narrow view the world has seen the emergence
of what is now known as human resources management.
Human resources management (HRM), as it is currently perceived, therefore,
represents the extension rather than the rejection of the traditional requirements
for managing personnel effectively.
Understanding Personnel issues under different schools of thoughts:
Scientific management and human Relations School
1. Scientific Management
Scientific management is one of the classical schools of thoughts in
management. This approach was initially formulated with the aim of
increasing productivity and makes the work easier by scientifically studying
work methods and establishing standards.
Frederick W. Taylor played the dominant role in formulating this theory and
he is usually named as the father of scientific management. Scientific
management, sometimes called Taylorism, has a strong industrial
engineering flavor. Taylor himself was a mechanical engineer whose primary
aim was maximizing profits and minimizing costs of production. The guiding
principle of this school was "getting the most out of workers".
Taylor disliked wastage and inefficiency. During his time, in some working
areas, employees tended to work at a slower pace. And this tendency,
according to him, was a cause for less productivity and efficiency. Managers
were unaware of this practice because they had never analyzed the jobs
closely enough to determine how much the employees should be producing.
Frederick Taylor based his management system on production-line time
studies. Instead of relaying on traditional work methods, he analyzed and
timed each element of workers' movements on a series of jobs.
Once Taylor has designed the job, he thereby established how many workers
should be able to do with the equipment and materials at hand. Next, he
implemented a piece-rate pay system. Instead of paying all employees the
same wage, he began increasing the pay of each worker who met and
exceeded the target level of output set for his job.
Taylor encouraged employers to pay more productive workers at a higher
rate than others. To realize this he developed a differential rate system,
which involves the compensation of higher wages to more efficient workers
(Stoner & Freeman, 1992).
Frederick Taylor rested his philosophy on some basic principles (Stoner &
Freeman, 1992):
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1. The development of a true science of management, so that the best
method for performing each task could be determined.
2. The scientific selection of workers, so that each worker would be given
responsibility for the task for which he best suited.
3. The scientific training (education) of the worker.
4. Intimate, friendly cooperation between management and labour.
5. A division of responsibility between management and labour.
Frederick Taylor saw scientific management as benefiting both
management and the worker equally: management could achieve more
work in a given amount of time; the worker could produce more and hence
earn more-with little or no additional effort. Taylor strongly believed that
employees could be motivated by economic rewards, provided those
rewards were related to individual performance.
Scientific management, according to Rue and Byars (1992), was a complete
mental revolution for both management and employees toward their
respective duties and toward each other. It was, at that time, a new
philosophy and attitude toward the use of human effort. It emphasized
maximum output with minimum effort through the elimination of waste and
inefficiency at the operative level.
Scientific management basically had a focus on such areas as:
¨ techniques of production
¨ the most efficient method
¨ rigid rules of performance
¨ using the shortest time possible
¨ workers productivity /efficiency
¨ minimum cost of production hence maximum profit
¨ highly refined tools and materials
¨ training and closer supervision, etc.
Scientific management, because of its fundamental ideas, has been subject
to strong critics. This school of thought was and still is considered to be
limited by its basic assumptions, particularly, about human beings.
During the time of Taylor, the popular model of human behavior held that
people were rational and motivated primarily to satisfy their economic and
physical needs. Employees were considered as an extension of machine, as
a factor of production, and as an economic unit. Thus, employees, according
to Taylor, could be motivated solely by economic rewards or material gain.
Nevertheless, the Taylor's model of motivation overlooked the human desire
for job satisfaction and the social needs of workers as a group, failing to
consider the tensions created when these needs are frustrated.
Furthermore, the emphasis on productivity and profitability led some
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managers to exploit both workers and customers of the organization. As a
result more workers started to join labour unions to challenge the behavior
of management.
2. The Human Relations Movement
The human relations movement, as the name implies is said to stress the
human element in the work place. This movement was started as a
reaction against the doctrines and practices of scientific management.
According to the beliefs of this theory, labour is not a commodity to be
bought and sold. Workers must be considered in the context of the groups
of which they are a part (Griffith, 1979).
The human relation was interdisciplinary in nature. It was founded on new
knowledge's developed in the areas of psychology, group dynamics,
sociology, political science, and labour economics.
The human relations movement basically grew from the Howthrone
Experiments conducted by a scholar known as Elton Mayo. After extensive
studies, Elton Mayo argued that workers respond primarily to other social
context of the work place, and his conclusions include:
¨ Work is a group activity
¨ the need for recognition, security, and a sense of belonging is more
important in determining workers' morale and productivity than the
physical conditions under which he works.
¨ The worker is a person whose attitudes and effectiveness are
conditioned by social demands from both inside and outside the work
place.
¨ Informal groups within the work place exercise strong social controls
over the work habits and attitudes of the individual worker.
The proponents of scientific management are criticized to look on the
employee as an economic unit, a factor of production, and an extension of a
machine who is motivated only by a desire for material gain. The human
relationists, on the other hand, considered the worker as a complete human
being with attitudes and needs which profoundly affected his work. It
follows then that organizations must provide for the satisfaction of all
human needs to obtain the most from their employees.
Scientific management did not consider the existence of informal
relationship as it exists side by side with the formal one. As recognized by
the human relationists, informal organizations exist and play important part
in the life of the worker. Informal organizations consist of social
relationships among employees.
Informal organization is voluntary in origin, its purpose is not clear, it has no
hierarchy of positions and it ceases to exist when its members left. Many
workers get their satisfaction in the informal groups where they are treated
as individuals, not as a part of a machine in the plant. The friendliness and
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recognition of their co-workers compensate for their impersonal treatment
by the large and complex formal organization.
In these informal and shifting groupings, leaders arise. They are not elected
or appointed, they have no legal standing, but they assume leadership roles
on the basis of their colleagues' esteem, and together they constitute the
informal authority structure.
The attitude of an employee's primary group, as voiced by the group leader,
may determine whether an official directive will be supported or subverted,
whether employees will cooperate with administrators, or whether work
norms will be raised or lowered. The group can influence a member to
interpret rules narrowly or broadly, to slow down to speed up, to comply or
resist.
A skillful administrator knows the various informal organization in his work
environment and he knows their leaders. In discussion with the leaders of
informal groups, he hears opinions, which might not be openly expressed in
formal meetings. This leader recognizes that the informal organization adds
a flexible dimension, which enables the formal organization to adjust to
special cases and situations.
After several studies and investigations Elton Mayo and his associates tried
to show that workers primarily respond to group, not as individuals. It
follows, then, that administrators should not deal with workers as individual
units, isolated from those they work with, but as members of work groups
subject to group pressure.
The human relations movement also emphasizes that:
· Communication is the life blood of an organization. Therefore, unlike
the thinking of the classical school, information must flow freely, up,
down, and horizontally through established net works of the formal
organization and non-official networks of the informal organization,
· Participative decision making has strong motivating force.
Participation in decision making increases members' level of
satisfaction, their enthusiasm for their organization and their positive
attitude towards their organization and their superiors.
Reading Assignment: Identify the difference between Humana Resource
Management (HRM) and Personel Management (PM)
Review and Discussion Questions
1. Define " management".
2. What are the major categories of organizational resources?
3. What is human resource management (HRM)?
4. "HRM is a pervasive activity". Explain
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5. Human resources are said to be the most important element in organizations.
Why?
6. Define the following terms:
a) Human resource planning b) Recruitment c) Selection
d) Orientation e) Training and development
f) Compensation administration g) Performance evaluation
7. Define "Scientific Management". Who played the dominant role in
formulating this theory?
8. What are the basic principles of Scientific Management?
9. What is "Human Relations Movement"?
10. Describe the major conclusions drawn from the Howthrone Experiment.
11. How do you compare " Scientific Management" and "Human Relations
Movement"?
References:
1. Glueck, William, Personnel: A Diagnostic Approach, (Plano, Texas: Business
Publications, Inc. 1992).
2. Mondy, Wayne and Robert Noe, Human Resource Management, (Boston:
Allyn and Bacon, 1990).
3. Stoner, James and Edward Freeman, Management, (5th Ed. Englewood Cliffs,
NJ: Prentice Hall 1992).
4. Rue, Leslie and Lioyd byars, Management: Skills and Applications, (6th
Ed., Illinois: Irwin, 1992).
5. Griffith, Francis, Administrative Theory in Education: Text and Readings,
(Michigan: Pendell Publishing Company, 1992).
6. Milkovich, George and John W. Boudreau Human Resource Management,
(Homewood, Ill: Irwin, 1991).
7. Griffin, Ricky, Management, (3rd Ed., Boston: Houghton Miffin Company,
1990).
8. Barney, Jayb, The Management of Organization Strategy, Structure,
Behaviour, (Hoston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992).
