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Since there were demand and supply towards human resources, especially in the business world, whether or not it was for either supply and mobilization of simple manpower or effective use of expert manpower, it is generally agreed that the activities of effectively and efficiently making use of people’s skills and relevant ability to the work and ,going further, applying these things into practice have been regarded as an essential factor in competing with rivals and making more profit by it.
With the advent of the term, it is true that the term has been gone through the process of redefinition several times by many scholars. What is more, people have had slightly different ,or sometimes quite different, evaluation and opinion about effective value and usefulness of it.
This essay will deal with the question as to how the term ‘Human Resource Management’ has been perceived. It will look at its history and recent theories as well as making attempt to show its impact in Britain.
In order to define and fully understand the term ‘Human Resource Management’, it is important to trace its origin and phases it passed through. The roots of this profession can be found in the nineteenth century when pressure for reform of working conditions from members of labour movement and work of social performers like Robert Owen and Rowntree, which had been called the movement towards ‘industrial betterment’ made possible emergence of the earliest attempts at welfare policies. At the beginning responsibilities of the first welfare workers were mainly in “dispensing benefits to the deserving and unfortunate employees”(Torrington et al., 11 ).
The World War I pushed welfare workers to higher position, welfare services were made obligatory at Munitions factories; it was an industrial relations function in its modern sense that started to shape. The inter-war period characterised by the shift in the focus of the welfare officers from caring one to more organizational, to objectives such as staffing and training. In the 10s and 10s “in the large organizations, such as ICI…and Mark & Spencer, the first specialist personnel departments were formed”(Tyson and York, 000 55). Following new developments in works of thinkers like Taylor (1856-115), Fayol (1841-15) and Mayo (1880-14) personnel managers became more aware of administrative processes and management itself (Torrington et al, 00).
Second World War saw an embrace of personnel management practices not only by war factories were it expanded in its staffing aspects, but also by many anxious companies, which wanted to have maximum productivity; rise of trade unions, which helped to acquire new skills by practitioners in bargaining and institution such as joint consultation committees were established (Bratton and Gold, 1, 00).
During the next twenty years after Second World War personnel management grew once more in its position and became preoccupied with effectiveness of whole organisation, its focus changed from dealing mainly with employees towards dealing with management more than with employees (Tyson and York, 000). Next stage of development of personnel management from the 170s to the early 180s is usually associated with planning or workforce planning boosted by new technology (Torrington and Hall, 18).
The most recent phase of these profession took place from the late 180s when term Human resource management emerged in Britain. It is largely associated with “change of emphasis and attitude” (Torrington et al., 11 7) towards managing of human resource. For the last twenty five years academics and practitioners were arguing about origin and nature of human resource management and its definition. These are some definitions given to the human resource management at different time and by different authors
The main dimension of HRM [involve] the goal of integration [i.e., if human resources can be integrated into strategic plans, if human resource policies cohere, if line managers have internalised the importance of human resources and this is reflected in their behaviour and if employees identify with the company, then the company’s strategic plans are likely to be more successfully implemented], the goal of employee commitment, the goal of flexibility/adaptability [i.e., organic structures, functional flexibility], the goal of quality [i.e., quality of staff, performance, standards and public image].
(Guest, 187; cited by Legge, 15 65)
HRM is a strategic approach to the acquisition, motivation, development and management of the organization’s human resources. It is devoted to shaping an appropriate corporate culture and introducing programmes which reflect and support the core values of the enterprise and ensure its success.
(Armstrong, 11 4)
Human resource management 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 array of cultural, structural and personnel techniques.
(Storey, 15 5)
The Personnel function in organisations… can be considered in… terms of managing people [and] it is more likely to be described as Human Resource Management, it is the personnel specialist who helps to define the rules for managing people, but the fulfilment of personnel relations in the organisation resides, ultimately, in the quality of leadership provided by managers and supervisors.
(Cole, 171)
Human resource management (HRM) is a strategic approach to managing employment relations which emphasizes that leveraging people’s capabilities is critical to achieving sustainable competitive advantage, this being achieved through a distinctive set of integrated employment policies, programmes and practices.
(Bratton and Gold, 00 7)
Most of the authors, who wrote on this subject belong to different theoretical schools, which put out different models of Human Resource Management. There are at least five of them The Forbrun, Tichy and Devanna model, The Harvard model, The Guest model, The Warwick model and The Storey model. The Storey model of human resource management became very popular and has been referred to by many authors (Legge, 15; Bach and Sisson, 000; Armstrong, 000). Storey distinguishes two versions of Human Resource Management on of which can be identified as ‘soft’ and reflects developmental humanism, another as ‘hard’ and represents utilitarian instrumentalism. Most of the other models can be put under one or another version of human resource management in Storey model. Armstrong described Storey’s ‘hard’ approach to human resource management as emphasis on the importance of calculative and business strategic aspects of managing people as a resource.; in this context, it’s emphasizing resource management. The difference between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ described by Storey is in the way it sees people as “valued assets, a source of competitive advantage through their commitment, adaptability and high quality (of skills, performance and so on)”(Storey, 18; cited by Armstrong, 000). However it is difficult to find in the reality a clear version of human resource management suggested by Storey; it is more likely that organisation will have a mixture of ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ versions.
The question ‘is there difference personnel management and human resource management’ is put on the pages of nearly all book about Human Resource Management or Personnel Management. This is very important question for understanding terminology but unfortunately there is no consistency and actually big diversity in answers for it. For some authors like Armstrong, who gives an answer for the question sated above “it is simply a re-labelling and repackaging of ‘progressive’ personnel management”(Bratton and Gold, 00)
HRM is regarded by some personnel managers as just a set of initials or old wine in new bottles. It could indeed be no more and no less than another name for personnel management, but as usually perceived, at least it has the virtue of emphasising treating people as a key resource, the management of which is the direct concern of top management as part of the strategic planning processes of the enterprise. Although there is nothing new in the idea, insufficient attention has been paid to it in many organizations. The new bottle of label can help to overcome that deficiency.
(Armstrong, 187; cited by Armstrong, 000)
Other authors defend that HRM is a completely new way of management people and have more differences than similarities with Personnel Management. “David Guest (187) emphasises the differences between the two approaches in his model illustrating ‘stereotypes of personnel management and human resource management’”(Torrington et al., 00 10)
As it can be seen from everything that have been said above Human Resource Management is more likely to be a new approach to the Personnel Management equipped with the new techniques and approaches. The history of Personnel Management, which has been outlined above, shows a very interesting pattern. Firstly, throughout the years this profession added a new ways of carrying out work and a new techniques brought by changes of the historical situation. Secondly, each time a new change appear in the work, profession changed its name which was largely associated with the part it played in particular time. It seems that argument putted by Torrington is largely correct
Personnel management has grown through assimilating a number of additional emphases to produce an ever-richer combination of expertise. HRM is no revolution but a further dimension to a multi-faceted role.
(Torrington, 18; cited by Armstrong, 000)
Since its emergence in Great Britain the term ‘Human Resource Management’ have been associated with coming of the new ideas and practices. It can be argued that there are no new ideas and practices but new approach, new emphasis and new angle from which we view the old ideas and practices. Some of them will be explored to show to what extend, if any, they have effected British employee relations is the last twenty five years.
First of all an important part of any organisation is it’s employee, their involvement and commitment to the organisation and its goals. In theory Human Resource Management should try to achieve next outcome thought its practices a “committed employee” who “will willingly identify with corporate goals and work flexibly to achieve them”(Pilbeam and Corbridge, 00 1). Some part of employee commitment had been measured in WERS thought these statements
• I share many of the values of my organisation;
• I feel loyal to my organisation; and,
• I am proud to tell people who I work for.
(Cully et al., 1 185)
The respond from employees of all levels were mostly united in agreeing to all statements, yet most widespread commitment and especially loyalty were shown by professional managerial staff, the least by skilled workers. It should be pointed out that commitment usually exist in close link with job satisfaction and job security (Cully et al., 1). In part of involvement some sings of differences, brought by new practices, can be seen for activities like regular meetings, problem-solving groups and staff attitude surveys, yet this changes occur in less than a half of workplaces (Sisson and Storey, 000). However, in less than a half of organizations participating in groups are rewarded; surveys taking place mainly in large organizations.
The training and development is second in line of practices. The term human resource management by itself gives emphasis to the human capability or managing people as recourse, which “implies that people are an investment; the latter that people are a cost, or commodity, to be minimized and to be efficiently deployed. If HRM is to have a distinguishing characteristic, however, which marks it out as a different way of managing, it has to be…in focusing on the development of people” (Hendry, 15 4). Training had been received by employees as formal ‘off-the-job’ training in over eighty per cant places. The proportion of employees received training varied depending on sector of business and size as well as occupation of employee. In public sector it was higher than in workplace which is a part of bigger organisation (57 per cent and 47 respectively). Availability of employee development plan will be discussed later.
The biggest issue is the strategic integration, which often pointed out as crucial element of HRM in it distinction from personnel management (Beardwell and Holden, 001). The vertical integration is aimed to “achieve a close relationship between business strategy and people management strategy” at the same time horizontal integration is aimed to “ensure that personnel and development activities are mutually reinforcing… in other words, the pursuit of a business focus to people management which creates and sustains competitive advantage”(Pilbeam and Corbridge, 00 1).In pursuit of strategic integration several problems occur first and foremost is how to assess integration and on what level it should be to be recognised as one (Pilbeam and Corbridge, 00). Workplace Employee Relations Survey 18 demonstrate that nearly seventy per cant of workplaces had a formal strategic plan, which enclosed as it part the employee development plan, over eighty per cent of human resource managers from these participated in its preparation (Cully et al., 1) The links between corporate strategy and Human Resource Strategy are very problematic to find and measure. Depending on the size of the organisation there can be no link (usual cause is insufficient human resource strategy) or Human Resource Strategy is driven by corporate, in other cases it could be other way around. Some authors stress that integration depends on several factors position of most senior human resource manager/director, attitude of company towards people’s value and so on. Research conducted by Hall and Torrington in 18 shows increase in a senior positions among human resource practitioners between 184 and 14 up to 6 pre cent, then again only a little over fifty per cent of them had role which included decision-making (Torrington et al., 00).
The table below shows the use practices, however, the use of some of them could be more widespread
Table 1.1 Percentage of workplaces using ‘new’ management practices and employee involvement schemes.
Appraisal and reward
Most non-managerial employees have performance formally appraised 56
Individual PRP scheme for non-managerial employees 11
Employee share ownership scheme for non-managerial employees 15
Profit-sharing scheme operated for non-managerial employees 0
Involvement and participation
Workplace level joint consultative committee 8
Regular meetings of entire workforce 7
Problem-solving groups (e.g. quality circles) 4
Staff attitude survey conducted in last five years 45
Workplace operates a system of team briefing for groups of employees 61
Most employees work in formally designated teams 65
Training and development
Most employees receive minimum of five days training a year 1
Most supervisors trained in employees relations skills 7
Status and security
Guaranteed job security or no compulsory redundancy policy 14
‘Single status’ between managers and non-managerial employees 41
Workplace operates a just-in-time system of inventory control
Attitudinal test before making appointments
Base all workplaces with 5 or more employees
Figures are weighted and based on response from 1,6 managers
(Source Cully et al., 18; cited by Sisson and Storey, 000)
During the last quarter of the century debates never stopped concerning definition and impact of Human Resource Management in Britain. It can’t be argued that since 180’s management of employee relations has passed through major changes, which occur in all its aspects. The whole business environment has changed, some miner and some radical. However, the main subject of now human resource management didn’t it is still people (Millward, 000).
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