HRMA 340: Human Resource

Management
First Semester- 2024-25

Lecture 1: HRM: An Overview

Lecture Outline
1. Introduction
2. Defining HRM
3. HRM Functions
4. HRM vs Personnel Management
5. Operational vs Strategic HR
6. Approaches to HRM
7. Who Performs Human Resource Management Tasks?
Introduction
 Management in general involves five basic Functions:
 Planning: Establishing and developing goals, standards, rules, and procedures.
 Organizing: Giving each subordinate a specific task, delegating authority, and
coordinating the work of subordinates.
 Staffing: Determining what type of people should be hired; recruiting prospective
employees; selecting employees; setting performance standards; compensating
employees; evaluating performance; counselling employees; training and developing
employees
 Leading: Getting others to get the job done; maintaining morale; and motivating
subordinates.
 Controlling: Setting standards such as sales quotas, quality standards, or production
levels, etc.
Throughout this course, we will be focusing on one of these functions
which is the STAFFING, PERSONNEAL MANAGEMENT OR HUMAN
RESOURCE MANAGEMENT (HRM).
Defining HRM
 HRM is to ensure that the employees of an organization are used in such a way that
the employer obtains the greatest possible benefit from their abilities and the
employees obtain both material and psychological rewards from their work
(Graham, 1978).

 HRM is a distinctive approach to employment management which seeks to achieve

competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of a highly committed
and capable workforce, using an integrated array of cultural, structural and
personnel techniques. (Storey,1995).

 Simply, HRM is the use of individuals to achieve organizational objectives (Mondy &
Martocchio, 2016).

 Dessler (2020) sees HRM as the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and
compensating employees, and of attending to their labor relations, health and
safety, and fairness concerns.
HRM Functions

Source: Mondy & Martocchio, 2016, p 26.

1. Staffing
 Staffing is the process through which an organization ensures
that it always has:
 Required number of employees
 Employees with appropriate skills
 Employees in the right jobs at the right time
 The staffing process involves human resource planning, job
analysis, recruitment, and selection.

HR Planning Job Analysis Recruitment Selection

Human Resource Planning
 Human resource planning is the systematic process of
matching the internal and external supply of people with the
job openings that are anticipated for the organization.

 The data collected as part of human resource planning

enables the recruitment process and other HR actions.
Job Analysis
 Job analysis is the systematic process of determining the
skills, duties, and knowledge required for performing the jobs
in an organization.
 It impacts almost every aspect of HRM, including planning,
recruitment, and selection.
 Basic steps in job analysis include:
 Deciding the use of the job analysis information
 Reviewing relevant background information including organization
charts
 Analyzing the job
 Verifying the information
 Developing job descriptions and job specifications.
Recruitment and Selection
 Recruitment is the process of attracting enough qualified
people to apply for jobs with an organization.
 Must be timely
 Applicants need appropriate qualifications
 Need sufficient number of applicants
 Selection is the process of identifying which of these
applicants are best suited for particular positions and for the
organization in general.
 Successful achievement of these sub-functions is vital in order
for the organization to meet its mission.
2. Performance Management
 Performance management is a goal-oriented process that is
directed toward ensuring that organizational processes are
in place to maximize the productivity of employees, teams,
and ultimately, the organization.
 It is the process of identifying, measuring, managing, and
developing the performance of the human resources in an
organization.
Performance Appraisal

 Performance appraisal is a formal system of review and

evaluation of individual performance.
 It gives employees the opportunity to receive feedback on
their strengths and areas for development. Also, it helps them
stay on track, which often leads to greater satisfaction and
productivity.
 Even though performance appraisal is an important part of
performance management, performance management is
broader in scope and is the main goal of all performance
appraisal activities.
3. Human Resource Development
 Human resource development is a major HRM function
consisting not only of training and development but also of
career planning and development activities, and organization
development.
 Organization development (OD) is planned and systematic attempts to
change the organization (corporate culture), typically to a more
behavioral environment.
 Career planning is the deliberate process through which someone
becomes aware of personal skills, interests, knowledge, motivations, and
other characteristics and establishes action plans to attain specific goals.
 Career development is the lifelong series of activities that contribute
to a person’s career exploration, establishment, success, and
fulfillment.
Training and Development

Training Providing learners with knowledge and skills needed for

their present jobs- Relatively short-term focus.
Development Offering learning that goes beyond present job- Relatively
long-term focus.

Training Development
Focus Current job Current and future jobs
Scope Individual employees Work group or organisations

Time Immediate Long term

Frame
Goal Fix current skill deficit Prepare for future work
demands
 4. Compensation
All rewards that individuals receive as a result of their employment could be
Financial or Nonfinancial compensation.
Direct (Core Pay that an employee receives in form of
Compensation) wages, salaries, bonuses, or commissions.
Financial

Indirect All benefits that an employee receives such as

(Employee paid vacations, sick leave, holidays, medical
Benefits) insurance.

Satisfaction that employees receive from:

Nonfinancial

 Job itself
 Psychological and/or physical environment
5. Internal Employee Relations
 Internal employee relations are the HRM activities associated
with the movement of employees within the organization, such
as:
 Promotion: The movement of a person to a higher-level position in
the organization.
 Demotion: The process of moving a worker to a lower level of
duties and responsibilities, which typically involves a reduction in
pay.
 Termination: The most severe penalty that an organization can
impose on an employee.
 Resignation: The employee’s decision to end his/her employment
relationship.
6. Safety and Health
 Safety: Protecting employees from injuries caused by work-
related accidents.
 Health: Employees' freedom from illness and their general
physical and mental well-being.
o Employees who work in a safe environment and enjoy good
health are more likely to be productive. The higher
productivity, coupled with lower long-term healthcare costs,
benefits the organization.
Interrelationships of HRM
Functions
 All HRM functions are interrelated so that each function
affects the others. For example:
1. A pay-for-performance compensation plan depends upon reliable
and valid performance appraisal practices.

2. A firm that emphasizes recruiting top-quality candidates but neglects

to provide satisfactory compensation is wasting time, effort, and
money.

3. When a firm pays below-market wages, the firm will always be hiring
and training new employees, only to see the best leave for a
competitor’s higher wages.
HRM vs Personnel Management
Personnel Management HRM
Employee focused Business partner
Operational and administrative Strategic
Reactive Proactive
Fragmented and ad hoc Integrated and coordinated
policies and practices policies and practices
Focus on Administrative Focus on adding value
related work
Source: Crawshaw et al., 2014, p.33
Operational HRM
 Operational HR encompasses the highly visible, daily
tactical operations essential to maintaining a
workforce.

 The primary function is to maintain compliance and

this is accomplished by keeping up on labour laws
and making certain they are consistently followed.
Strategic HR
 Covers the concepts and practices that guide and
align Human Resource Management philosophy,
tactical planning and practice with the strategic and
long term goals of an organization.

 It deals with concerns regarding structure, quality,

culture, values, commitment, and matching resources
to future needs and other longer term people issues.
Operational vs Strategic HR
 Approaches to HRM

Hard HRM (Instrumental HRM) Soft HRM (Humanistic HRM)

Employees are a (human) Employees are a source of

resource to be utilised competitive advantage
Deployment Development
Control Commitment
Direction Involvement
Rigidity Flexibility
Performance measurement Performance enabling
Source: Crawshaw et al., 2014, p.33
Who Performs Human
Resource Management Tasks?
 The person or units who perform the HRM tasks have changed
dramatically in recent years, and today there is no typical HR
department. Many of these changes are being made so that HR
professionals can accomplish a more strategic role. Also, the recent
recession forced some HR departments to accomplish more with less,
and some companies have downsized the HR department to keep
production-oriented people.
 Human resource professionals

 Line managers

 HR outsourcing

 HR shared service centers

 Professional employer organization (employee leasing)

Human Resource Professional
 Historically, the human resource professional was responsible for
all HR functions and acted in an advisory capacity, working with line
managers to help them deal with their areas’ human resource
matters.
 The HR manager was primarily responsible for coordinating the
management of human resources to help the organization achieve
its goals.
 There was a shared responsibility between line managers and
human resource professionals.
 Frequently, the line manager went to HR for guidance in topics such
as selection, training, promotion, and taking disciplinary action.
Line Managers
 Individuals directly overseeing the accomplishment of the
organization’s primary goals are line managers.

 As organizations change, line managers are performing some

duties typically done by human resource professionals. This
has been simplified by the automation of processes that
require a manager’s approval, record-keeping, or input, and
processes that support the manager’s job.

 Everything from recruitment and selection to performance

appraisal and employee development can be automated to
assist line managers.
Human Resource Outsourcing
 Outsourcing: Is the act of contracting with a third party to perform some
service

 Human resource outsourcing (HRO): Is the process of hiring external HR

professionals to do the HR work that was previously done internally.

 The key to HR outsourcing success is to determine which functions to

outsource, the extent to which they should be outsourced, and which
functions to keep in-house.

 HR outsourcing focuses primarily on routine, transaction-oriented

processes and clerical work. This permits HR to focus on more strategic
areas. HR outsourcing is done basically in two ways: discrete services (one
element of business process) and business process outsourcing (majority
of HR services).
HR Shared Service Centers (SSCs)
 A shared service is an accountable entity within a multi-unit
organization tasked with supplying the business units with
specialized services.
 It takes routine activities dispersed throughout the
organization and consolidates them in one place.
 Shared service centers provide an alternative to HR
outsourcing and can often provide the same cost savings.
 The most common HR functions that use SSCs are benefits
administration, payroll, recruitment, global training and
development, succession planning, and talent retention.
Professional Employer Organization
(Employee Leasing)
 A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) is a company
that leases employees to other businesses. When a decision is
made to use a PEO, the company releases its employees, who
are then hired by the PEO. The PEO then manages the
administrative needs associated with employees, pays their
salaries, and manages their benefits
 Advantages:
 Economies of scale (lower cost for the client company)
 Greater job mobility for workers
 Job security through leasing company ( no layoffs and loss of seniority)
 PEO can handle compliance requirements of programs
List of References and Readings for
this Lecture
Chapter 1: Mondy, R. & Martocchio, J. (2016). Human Resource
Management, Global Edition. 14th ed. Essex: Pearson Education
Limited

Chapter 1: Dessler, G. (2020). Fundamentals of Human Resource

Management, Global Edition. 5th ed, Pearson Education Limited