HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

According to Flippo “Personnel management, or say, human resource management is

the planning, organising, directing and controlling of the procurement development
compensation integration, 4intenance, and separation of human resources to the end
that individual, organisational and social objectives are accomplished”.

According to Leon C. Megginson “From the national point of view human resources
are knowledge, skills, creative abilities, talents, and attitudes obtained in the
population; whereas from the view-point of the individual enterprise, they represent
the total of the inherent abilities, acquired knowledge and skills as exemplified in the
talents and aptitude of its employees”.

Objectives:
The primary objective of HRM is to ensure the availability of right people for right
jobs so as the organisational goals are achieved effectively.

This primary objective can further be divided into the following sub-objectives:
1. To help the organisation to attain its goals effectively and efficiently by providing
competent and motivated employees.

2. To utilize the available human resources effectively.

3. To increase to the fullest the employee’s job satisfaction and self-actualisation.

4. To develop and maintain the quality of work life (QWL) which makes employment
in the organisation a desirable personal and social situation.

5. To help maintain ethical policies and behaviour inside and outside the organisation.

6. To establish and maintain cordial relations between employees and management.

7. To reconcile individual/group goals with organisational goals.

Importance of Human Resource Management

Recruitment and Training

This is one of the major responsibilities of the human resource team. The HR managers come up
with plans and strategies for hiring the right kind of people. They design the criteria which is best
suited for a specific job description. Their other tasks related to recruitment include formulating
the obligations of an employee and the scope of tasks assigned to him or her. Based on these two
factors, the contract of an employee with the company is prepared. When needed, they also
provide training to the employees according to the requirements of the organisation. Thus, the
staff members get the opportunity to sharpen their existing skills or develop specialised skills
which in turn, will help them to take up some new roles.
Performance Appraisals
HRM encourages the people working in an organisation, to work according to their potential and
gives them suggestions that can help them to bring about improvement in it. The team
communicates with the staff individually from time to time and provides all the necessary
information regarding their performances and also defines their respective roles. This is
beneficial as it enables them to form an outline of their anticipated goals in much clearer terms
and thereby, helps them execute the goals with best possible efforts. Performance appraisals,
when taken on a regular basis, motivate the employees.
Maintaining Work Atmosphere
This is a vital aspect of HRM because the performance of an individual in an organisation is
largely driven by the work atmosphere or work culture that prevails at the workplace. A good
working condition is one of the benefits that the employees can expect from an efficient human
resource team. A safe, clean and healthy environment can bring out the best in an employee. A
friendly atmosphere gives the staff members job satisfaction as well.
Managing Disputes
In an organisation, there are several issues on which disputes may arise between the employees
and the employers. You can say conflicts are almost inevitable. In such a scenario, it is the
human resource department which acts as a consultant and mediator to sort out those issues in an
effective manner. They first hear the grievances of the employees. Then they come up with
suitable solutions to sort them out. In other words, they take timely action and prevent things
from going out of hands.
Developing Public Relations
The responsibility of establishing good public relations lies with the HRM to a great extent. They
organise business meetings, seminars and various official gatherings on behalf of the company in
order to build up relationships with other business sectors. Sometimes, the HR department plays
an active role in preparing the business and marketing plans for the organisation too

Functions:
We have already defined HRM. The definition of HRM is based on what managers
do. The functions performed by managers are common to all organizations. For the
convenience of study, the function performed by the resource management can
broadly be classified into two categories, viz.

(1) Managerial functions, and

(2) Operative functions (see fig. 1.2).

These are discussed in turn.

(1) Managerial Functions:

Planning:
Planning is a predetermined course of actions. It is a process of determining the
organisational goals and formulation of policies and programmes for achieving them.
Thus planning is future oriented concerned with clearly charting out the desired
direction of business activities in future. Forecasting is one of the important elements
in the planning process. Other functions of managers depend on planning function.

Organising:
Organising is a process by which the structure and allocation of jobs are determined.
Thus organising involves giving each subordinate a specific task establishing
departments, delegating authority to subordinates, establishing channels of authority
and communication, coordinating the work of subordinates, and so on.

Staffing:
TOs is a process by which managers select, train, promote and retire their
subordinates This involves deciding what type of people should be hired, recruiting
prospective employees, selecting employees, setting performance standard,
compensating employees, evaluating performance, counseling employees, training
and developing employees.

Directing/Leading:
Directing is the process of activating group efforts to achieve the desired goals. It
includes activities like getting subordinates to get the job done, maintaining morale
motivating subordinates etc. for achieving the goals of the organisation.

Controlling:
It is the process of setting standards for performance, checking to see how actual
performance compares with these set standards, and taking corrective actions as
needed.

(2) Operative Functions:

The operative, also called, service functions are those which are relevant to specific
department. These functions vary from department to department depending on the
nature of the department Viewed from this standpoint, the operative functions of
HRM relate to ensuring right people for right jobs at right times. These functions
include procurement, development, compensation, and maintenance functions of
HRM.

A brief description of these follows:

Procurement:
It involves procuring the right kind of people in appropriate number to be placed in
the organisation. It consists of activities such as manpower planning, recruitment,
selection placement and induction or orientation of new employees.

Development:
This function involves activities meant to improve the knowledge, skills aptitudes and
values of employees so as to enable them to perform their jobs in a better manner in
future. These functions may comprise training to employees, executive training to
develop managers, organisation development to strike a better fit between
organisational climate/culture and employees.

Compensation:
Compensation function involves determination of wages and salaries matching with
contribution made by employees to organisational goals. In other words, this function
ensures equitable and fair remuneration for employees in the organisation. It consists
of activities such as job evaluation, wage and salary administration, bonus, incentives,
etc.

Maintenance:
It is concerned with protecting and promoting employees while at work. For this
purpose virus benefits such as housing, medical, educational, transport facilities, etc.
are provided to the employees. Several social security measures such as provident
fund, pension, gratuity, group insurance, etc. are also arranged.

PROCESS OF HRM

The following are the various HR processes:

1. Human resource planning (Recruitment, Selecting, Hiring, Training, Induction,

Orientation, Evaluation, Promotion and Layoff).
2. Employee remuneration and Benefits Administration
3. Performance Management.
4. Employee Relations.

The efficient designing of these processes apart from other things depends upon the degree of
correspondence of each of these. This means that each process is subservient to other. You start
from Human resource Planning and there is a continual value addition at each step. To
exemplify, the PMS (performance Management System) of an organization like Infosys would
different from an organization like Walmart. Lets study each process separately.

Human Resource Planning: Generally, we consider Human Resource Planning as the process
of people forecasting. Right but incomplete! It also involves the processes of Evaluation,
Promotion and Layoff.

▪ Recruitment: It aims at attracting applicants that match a certain Job criteria.

▪ Selection: The next level of filtration. Aims at short listing candidates who are the
nearest match in terms qualifications, expertise and potential for a certain job.
 ▪ Hiring: Deciding upon the final candidate who gets the job.
▪ Training and Development: Those processes that work on an employee onboard for his
skills and abilities upgradation.

Employee Remuneration and Benefits Administration: The process involves deciding upon
salaries and wages, Incentives, Fringe Benefits and Perquisites etc. Money is the prime motivator
in any job and therefore the importance of this process. Performing employees seek raises, better
salaries and bonuses.

Performance Management: It is meant to help the organization train, motivate and reward
workers. It is also meant to ensure that the organizational goals are met with efficiency. The
process not only includes the employees but can also be for a department, product, service or
customer process; all towards enhancing or adding value to them.

Nowadays there is an automated performance management system (PMS) that carries all the
information to help managers evaluate the performance of the employees and assess them
accordingly on their training and development needs.

Employee Relations: Employee retention is a nuisance with organizations especially in

industries that are hugely competitive in nature. Though there are myriad factors that motivate an
individual to stick to or leave an organization, but certainly few are under our control.

ROLE AND RESPONSIBLITIES OF HR MANAGER

Human resource (HR) department deals with wide range of activities from strategic planning
level to the day to day operations level. Therefore defining roles and responsibilities of HR
manager is a quite complex task but some of the functions carried are summarized below.

▪ Involvement in the strategic planning process

HR manager gets involved in the strategic planning process of the organization and identifies HR
as a core competency of the organization. When HR is assumed as a core competency HR
becomes a competitive advantage for the organization and HR manager is responsible of
developing the HR of organizations to bring the stated competitve advantage to the organization.

▪ Forecasting the labour requirement

The HR manager holds the responsibility of forecasting the labour requirement of the
organization in the future based on the future level of sales/production level of the organization.
The labour forecast may identify the need for need for hiring or firing employees.

▪ Recruitment
Once the labour forecast is done organization can identify the need for more labour in the
organization if the existing workforce is not sufficient to handle the future workload. In such a
situation HR manager has to recruit new potential candidates to fill the vacancies. Recruitment is
the process of creating a pool of potential candidates who can be employed to fill the vacancies.

▪ Selection
Selection is the process by which the most suitable candidate is selected from the recruited pool
of candidates. Selection is done by carrying out various types of tests and interviews. HR
department/manager is responsible of selecting the most suitable employees to fill existing
vacancies.

▪ Induction
Induction is the process by which new employees are made familiarized with the organizational
environment. Once the employees are selected they need to be introduced to other staff of the
organization and they should be given necessary guidelines about the organizational culture and
the procedures.

▪ Training
Once the employees are done with the induction they become an employee of the organization
but the skills they possess may not be adequate to carry out required tasks. The need for training
arises when the there is a gap between expected level of skills and the current level of skills of an
employee. If a there is a training need HR department has to design training programs and
execute them.

▪ Motivation
HR manager is responsible of motivating employees to carry out their duties of a timely and
accurate basis.

▪ Performance Appraisal
This is where the employees performance are evaluated based on expected level and the actual
level of the performance. HR department needs to design performance appraisal systems to
appraise the employee performance on a fairly manner.

▪ Rewarding employees
Once the employee performance evaluation is done HR department needs to design good
employee rewarding packages to reward well performing employees. These rewards could be
of monetary or non monetary in nature.

▪ Managing Carrier Growth of employees/Promotions

HR department is responsible of managing the carrier growth of employees where they needs to
promoted in the carrier ladder if they are suitable to fill existing vacancies in high ranks of the
organizational structure.
▪ Managing redundancy
When the organization decides that thy no longer need the service of certain employee they need
to be sent to be given the redundancy notices and have to be paid the redundancy charges.
HR department has to manage this process.

▪ Managing employee grievance

HR department needs to accept the grievance and complaints submitted by the employees about
their problems. HR department need to listen to grievance and should come up with solutions to
solve problems.

▪ Managing complains about employees

There can be complaints about employees regarding poor performance, bribery, misbehavior and
so on. HR department needs to hear those complains and make necessary steps
(advising/punishing employees) to solve those issues.

Recent Trends in HRM

1. Globalization and its implications

Business today doesn’t have national boundaries – it reaches around the world. The rise of
multinational corporations places new requirements on human resource managers. The HR
department needs to ensure that the appropriate mix of employees in terms of knowledge, skills
and cultural adaptability is available to handle global assignments. In order to meet this goal, the
organizations must train individuals to meet the challenges of globalization. The employees must
have working knowledge of the language and culture ( in terms of values, morals, customs and
laws) of the host country.
2. Changing skill requirements

Recruiting and developing skilled labor is important for any company concerned about
competitiveness, productivity, quality and managing a diverse work force effectively.
Skill deficiencies translate into significant losses for the organization in terms of poor-quality
work and lower productivity, increase in employee accidents and customer complaints. Since a
growing number of jobs will require more education and higher levels of language than current
ones , HRM practitioners and specialists will have to communicate this to educators and
community leaders etc. Strategic human resource planning will have to carefully weigh the skill
deficiencies and shortages. HRM department will have to devise suitable training and short term
programmes to bridge the skill gaps & deficiencies.
3. Better appraisal and reward systems: organizations will be required to share gains of higher
periodicity with workers more objective and result oriented systems of performance, appraisal
and performance linked compensation will have to be developed.

4. New personnel policies: new and better polices will be required for the work force of the
future. Traditional family management will give way to professional management with greater
forces on human dignity.

Thus, in future personnel management will face new challenges and perform new
responsibilities. Participative leadership will take the place of autocratic leadership.
Creative skills will have to be redeveloped and rewarded emphasis will shift from legal
and rule bound approach to more open and humanitarian approach.

5. Continuous improvement programs

Continuous improvement programs focus on the long term well being of the organization. It is a
process whereby an organization focuses on quality and builds a better foundation to serve its
customers. This often involves a company wide initiative to improve quality and productivity.
The company changes its operations to focus on the customer and to involve workers in matters
affecting them. Companies strive to improve everything that they do, from hiring quality people,
to administrative paper processing, to meeting customer needs.

06 . Employee involvement

For today’s organization’s to be successful, there are a number of employee involvement

concepts that appear to be accepted. These are delegation, participative management, work
teams, goal setting, employee training and empowering of employees. HRM has a significant
role to play in employee involvement. What is needed is demonstrated leadership as well as
supportive management. Employees need to be trained and that’s where human resource
management has a significant role to play. Employees expected to delegate, to have decisions
participatively handled, to work in teams, or to set goals cannot do so unless they know and
understand what it is that they are to do.