Chapter One

Introduction to Human Resources Management

By: Workineh B. (PhD)

E-mail:
wrokinehb@gmail.com/
wbayisa@yahoo.com
Tele. +2519-11-87-92-41
Organizations are made up of people and function through
people. With out people organization can not exist.
The resource of money, men, material and machineries are
collected, coordinated and utilized through people.
With out united human efforts no organization can achieve
its goals.
These resources by themselves can not fulfill the
objectives of the organization. They need to be united in
to a team.
It is through the combined effort of people that material
and monetary resources are effectively utilized for the
attainment of common objectives
All the activities of an organization are initiated and
completed by the person who makes up the organization
(called Human Resource and it is the most important
factor of production)
 1.MEANING AND DEFINITION
What is Human Resource Management?
Let us understand it by dividing the term in to its parts
•Human- People, us
•Resource- assets/Costs for an organization
•Management- Coordination and control of resources to
achieve set goals.
Human Resources- refer to the knowledge, skills, creative
abilities, talents, and aptitudes obtained in the population
(from the national point of view)
Human resource management (HRM) is a management
function that helps manager’s recruit, select, train and
develops members for an organization, separation of
human resources to the end that individual, organizational
and societal objectives are accomplished.
Human Resource Management has been defined as the
function or a unit in an organization that facilitate the most
effective utilization of human resources to achieve the
objectives of both the organization and the employees.
Human Resource (HR) Management

 The design of formal systems in an organization to

ensure effective and efficient use of human talent to

accomplish organizational goals.

Who Is an HR Manager?
Human Resource Management Functions; Roles
and Career:
Human Resource is liaison between management and employees
but the role has evolved over time. HR pros now work for
performance improvement, business effectiveness and cost
analysis . But in nutshell, HR is an employee function.
• Human resource Planning
• Recruitment and Selection
• Placement and Orientation
• Performance appraisal
• Counseling
• Career Planning
•Training and Development
•Job Evaluation
•Transfer, Promotion and Demotion
•Job analysis
•Job design
• Communicating Polices
• Compensation
• Labor relations
• Safety and Health Management and the like.
Characteristics (Features) of Human Resource
Management

 Comprehensive function
Human Resource management is concerned with
managing people at work. It covers all type of people in
the organization
 People- oriented
Human Resource Management is concerned with
employees as an individual as well as groups. It is
the task of dealing with human relation ship with
an organization .
 Action oriented
Human Resource Management focuses on action
rather than on record keeping or procedures.
It stresses the solution of personnel problems to
achieve both organizational objectives and
employee’s personal goal
4. Individual oriented
Under Human Resource Management, every
employee is considered as an individual so as to
provide service and programs to facilitate employee
satisfaction and growth.
 Development oriented
Human Resource Management is concerned with
developing potential of employees so that they got
maximum satisfaction from their best effort to the
organizations
 Future oriented
Human resource management is concerned
with helping organizations to achieve its
objectives in the future by providing
competent and well motivated employees
 Challenging Function
Managing of Human Resource is a challenging job due
to dynamic nature of people.
People have sentiments and emotions so they can not be
treated like machines. It is, therefore, necessary to handle
them tactfully. It is not simply managing people but
administrating a social system.
 Continuous Function
Management of Human Resource is an on going or
never ending exercise rather than a ‘one shot’
function
 Pervasive function
Human Resource Management is inherent in
all organizations and at all levels. Each and
every manager is involved with human
resource function.
 Science as well as an art
Human Resource Management is a science as it
contains an organized body of knowledge
consisting of principles and techniques. It is also
an art because it involved application of
theoretical knowledge to the problems of human
resource.
 Globally oriented
Human Resource Management is not only an
American function or activity; it is being
practiced efficiently and continuously in Mexico,
Poland, Hong Kong and all over the world.
Goals/Objectives of Human Resource Management

The contributions of HRM makes to organizational

effectiveness include the following
 Helping the organizations reach goals
 Efficiently employing the skills and abilities of the work
force
 Providing the organization with well- trained and well –
motivated employees
 Developing and maintaining a quality of work
life that makes employment in the organization
desirable.
Communicating HRM policies to all employees
 Helping to maintain ethical policies and socially
behavior
 Managing Change to the mutual advantage of
individuals, groups, the enterprise, and the public.
 Increasing employees’ job

satisfaction

Employees must feel that the

job is right for their abilities

and that they are being

treated equitably
Human Resource Management Out Comes
(Effectiveness Criteria)
 Attraction of employees
An important HRM goal is the attraction of the necessary
number and type of employees to the organization.
Attracting and retaining HR is probably the biggest
problem facing human resource manager in to days work
environments.
High performance

High employee performance is clearly one of the

important HRM goals, both from the organization and
the employees view point.
Attendance and Retention
Organizations often confronted a serious problem of
keeping their labor forces working. This problem
manifests itself in two ways.
The first occur when employees temporarily stay away
from the work, referred to as “absenteeism”.
The second occurs when employees leave permanently,
called “turnover”. Absenteeism and turnover are the
opposite of attendance and retention, respectively.
Satisfied employees
Job satisfaction refers to how pleased an employee
is with his or her job and organizations .
The nature of supervision, organizational polices
and practice, compensation and benefit packages
and working condition are the major factors that
influence employees feeling about their jobs and the
organizations.
Legal requirements
Meeting legal requirement is one of the most
important HRM goal (objectives). As you know
every HRM decisions has legal implication.

Because supervisors and managers make many HRM

decisions, it also critical that they have the basic
understanding of these laws.
Counter Productivity

Counter productive behavior includes a wide range of

possible problems such as stealing on the job,
engaging in fights and sabotaging company
equipment.
From HRM perspectives, several things can be
done to reduce counter productive behavior,
includes:
•Careful selection of employees
•Surveillance of work place
•Thorough investigation of possible employee
misconduct and taking timely disciplinary action
Cost containment (Keeping expenses down)
Now time cost containment is a critical HRM goal.
Compensation and benefit costs can be extremely
high. This is particularly true in organizations that
are labor intensive such as educational institutions,
Consulting firms and service firms.
 Competitive Challenges of Human Resource Management
In a global, complex, dynamic, highly competitive and extremely
volatile environment most organizations are facing several global
challenges related to:
Government rules and regulations (Compliance with Laws and Regulation)
Workforce diversity
Technology
Training
Worker productivity
Quality improvement
Retention :
Outsourcing
Talent management:
Balancing work life
Globalization
Organizational restructuring
 Strategic HRM
• Strategic HR management refers to the use of employees
to gain or keep a competitive advantage
• Today, HRM plays a major role in:
– Clarifying the firm’s human resource problems
– Developing solutions for them

• It is oriented toward:

• Action - The individual

• Worldwide interdependence

• The future
Difference b/n HRM and personnel Management

Personnel Management Human Resource

Management
Time & planning Short term, reactive, ad hoc, Long term, proactive,
perspective marginal strategic integrated

Psychological Compliance Commitment

contract
Control system External controls Self-control

Employees relation Pluralist, collective, low trust Unitary, individual, high trust
perspective

Preferred structures Bureaucratic/centralized , Organic, devolved, flexible

/systems formal defined role role

Roles Specialist/professional Largely integrated into line

management
Evaluation criteria Cost minimization Maximum utilization
Changing Roles of HR Management
The Ulrich Model