How personnel management has developed into Human Resource Management

This is an era of changes and advancements. We have seen enormous changes in every aspect of life.
We can say that our ways of doing things have been changed. Life has become so fast that if we don’t
comply with the changes in the world we will be no more in the race of life.

Traditional approaches are becoming useless and therefore modern approaches are taking
their places such as Absorption costing to Activity Based Costing and there are many examples to
elaborate it as our topic indicates the development of Personnel management into Human Resource
Management.

Personnel management is a traditional approach. Its scope is narrower than of HRM. There are many
reasons due to which personnel management has been developed in to HRM.

1. Difference in Nature:

Personnel management is a traditional approach with a narrow scope which may be suitable for small
businesses but it is not suitable for large business such as Unilever etc. whereas HRM is a new and
modern approach which is suitable for every kind of businesses especially it is very useful for large
businesses. Its scope is very wide which helps a company to manage its staff in a way which leads to
Goal congruence.

2. Reactive or Proactive:

Personnel management is reactive it deals with the problems or loop holes in its managing strategies
after it has happened whereas HRM is proactive and it identifies the problems before these happens
which is very necessary to move in a fast changing environment.

3. Power structure

Power structure of personnel management is centralized where decision making powers are retained to
senior managers. They make decision for all of their departments or decisions and these decisions
comes with the possibility that they might be wrong because the knowledge of that department or
division which manager of that department or division may have senior manager might not have that
much knowledge as well as it is a demotivating factor for the junior managers whereas it is the need of
this fast moving environment that for a success of a business every individual who is related to it must
play his part and this can be possible if power structure is made decentralized which does not only
contributes to good decisions as well as it motivates the employees and increase their skills and
knowledge of doing work .

4. Leadership Style:

Leadership style in personnel management is very much resembles to the Ashridge Management college
model’s “Tells” (autocratic) as personnel management is task oriented, strictly follow rules and
regulations and procedures and they don’t really care for staff development, communication and
tolerance, care etc. whereas HRM leadership style resembles to somehow consult and democratic as it is
people oriented than being task oriented. HRM concern does not revolve around rules, regulations,
procedures but these elements are replaced with

 Goal Congruence.
 Corporate Mission.
 Flexible working environment which contributes to the trust of employee.
 Job enrichment, Job enlargement and job rotation also contributes in increasing the interest of
employee in its job.

5. Employment Contract:

In personnel management employees are expected to follow strictly the employment contract. This
contract is so rigid that employees are not allowed to make any changes. It creates stress and job
related pressure on the employee whereas, HRM is totally opposite to it, it is a new modern approach
can be named as employee related or flexible working approach where opportunity is provided to
employees to choose their type of work and they are at liberty to make their decisions.

6. Motivating Factors:

Motivating factors in personnel management include compensation, rewards etc. whereas HRM does
not only contain rewards and bonus schemes but it also considers to create more challenging work for
its employees through job rotation, job enrichment and job enlargement.

So there are many reasons due to which personnel management has developed into HRM. This is an era
of advancement so therefore change is very necessary nowadays traditional approaches are of little use
new and flexible approaches must be followed in order to walk with the speed of this fast moving
environment and HRM is a good example of such environment. It comes with lots of advantages than
personnel management and for multinational and large companies it is very necessary.

Human Resource Management Professionals:

The Role and Activities of Human Resource Manager in the Organization

Roles and Activities Task

Staffing: It is a role of a HR department manager
to make plans for Human resource and
recruitment, it also make job analysis. Other
activities of HR department manger may include
conducting written and performance test,
investigating the reference and background of
candidate who has applied for the job. Physical
examinations are also being conducting by HR
manger.
Civil Rights and Regulations: It is a responsibility
of HR managers to make all the recruitments and
employee retention plans in compliance with the
civil rights and regulations.
Retention: This includes HR Managers to perform
activities for employee benefits, such as health
and safety of an employee, compensation and
reward scheme an improving employee relations.
Development: making developments plans for
the employees of the companies such as
providing technical training, career planning and
conducting morale surveys.
Adjustment: it is a responsibility of HR mangers
to investigate the Complaints of employees and
resolve their issues and counseling about their
retirements,
Managing Change: As HRM is proactive and
therefore it is the role of a manager to deal with
the changes in the environment and facilitate the
working with its expertise to manage the change
in the company.
Human Resource Models:

INTRODUCTION;

Planning simply means setting objectives and targets for the future. It includes:

 What to do in the future?

 How to do?
 When to do?
 Why doing it? What is the reason or vision behind it?

So therefore, HR planning is also made by taking the same questions listed above in
consideration that
 What work the company is doing or what project is next and according to it what type of
employees/ staff would be needed?
 What should be there level of skills?
 Number of staff needed?
 How to manage the employees in a way which leads to the accomplishment of the aim or vision
of the company behind the project?

These all questions can be explained in a proper format as,

Elements of HR Planning:

 Recruitment plan.
 Training and development plan.
 Succession plan.
 Productivity plan.
 Retention plan.
 Redundancies plan.
 Reward plan.

IMPORTANCE OF HR PLANNING:

Human resource management has a key importance for a company nowadays to move with the speed
of this changing environment. To implement any program there must be a plan which should be made in
order to accomplish the implementation and therefore to implement a HRM program a Human resource
planning is very necessary as it provides the base for all the steps which must be taken in order to get
the work done. Planning plays a key role for a manager to make sound decisions. Things become much
easier due to planning as lot of information is gathered before planning and in the light of those all
collected scripts a plan is made and this brings easiness in deciding what to do next and by whom these
duties will be performed. It encourages the main aim behind the project and the work is completed in a
formal way and it also saves time. It eradicates complications.
So there are many advantages of HRP but only when sound decisions are made. Inadequate planning
leads to nothing but waste of time and creates complications.

STAGES OF HR PLANNING:

1. Auditing.
2. Forecasting.
3. Planning.
4. Control.

1. AUDIT:

This is not a static world here changes seems to happen dramatically and very fast and you stand
nowhere if you don’t have the ability to change yourself according to the environment. Auditing
provides a complete knowledge of past and present and the events which has been occurred or
occurring presently. This gives an insight of the performance of the company whether it has been
improved or it is going downwards which is certainly necessary for devising a HR plan and predicting
what will be going to be faced by company in the future.

2. FORECASTING:

After the audit the next step is forecasting where on the basis of information gathered through audit is
being used for forecasting and predicting future possibilities. Here all complications and problems are
analyzed which a company may face in future such as labor turnover, training and development cost etc.

3. PLANNING:

Planning is certainly very necessary step in HRP as there will be no use of information and facts gathered
through the above two steps Audit and Forecasting if this valuable information is not being adequately
utilized through sound planning. It devises targets and goals.

4. CONTROL:

This step is very necessary as to make a check upon those objectives or targets which have been devised
from planning whether they have been achieved or not. It also makes a clear check upon efficiency of
working and it helps in achieving the targets and accomplishing goals.