Throughout the years various experts in the field have provided different views of HRM, such as ‘Beer et al(1984) ’The Harvard Framework’’ which focused on the topic that HRM belongs to line managers and pertains managerial decisions so as actions that affect employee-management relationships. Torrington (1995) stated the concept of mutual policies that promote the mutuality of goals, influence, respect, rewards, responsibility which in turn provide greater economic performance and human development.
Moreover Legge K.(1989) in her studies considers HRM policies interrelated with strategic business planning as the means of reinforcing organizational culture, creating a source of competitive advantage and upgrading human resources to promote commitment and organizational efficiency.
Finally, Guest D.(1991) apart from describing four propositions of HRM functions, notably: (a) a strategic integration function that is the integration of HRM issues into the organization’s strategic plans, (b) high commitment to achieve goals both as behavior and attitude, ( c) high quality of managerial practices, extending to quality of goods and services provided, (d) flexibility which is functional so as to adapt easily as an organization to environmental changes. Guest (1991) considered also a unitarist and individualistic approach as firstly the extend employees assume there are no differences and accordance exists between the interests of management and employees. And secondly the individualistic approach where we emphasize on the individual representation and operation through groups and formal representative systems.
PART B: THE EVOLUTION OF PERSONELL MANAGEMENT TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
The evolution of Personnel Management has occurred in an unplanned, uneven and random way. It was mostly forced by environmental changes in society, businesses, industry rather than a rational, incremental process.(Hendry 1991). Starting from the point of the mature phase of Personnel Management in the 1960s and 1970s where we have the introduction of various services into organizations and management development, training and manpower planning. We observe the existence of selection , training, salary administration and appraisal (MBO). Then in the 1980s the concept of HRM emerged from US, and personnel was seen more like business oriented. With the declining of trade unions also Industrial relations became less significant and HRM starts to be considered as a more specialized tool for the needs of an organization and its employees. Finally in the 1990s as the interest is more onto teamworking, empowerment, quality, development, flexibility, efficiency and effectiveness, the role of HRM became more important. Now terms as culture management, performance and reward systems or management development have been given great importance along with the notion of being strategic in all aspects.
The major sources of changes is the Environmental firstly, taking the shape of economic and political change where we had the rise of enterprise economy and market led economies. Moreover, concern for environment, and society widely have appeared. Then, the social trend towards individualism substituting collectivism and the arising customer expectations so as requirements being higher than ever before. The recession of the 1990s have made investment and expansion much more difficult and risky than before in the business environment, and changing demographics since the 80s impacted as problems into the offer of various skilled employees. New work patterns have emerged where more pat-time workers and permanent employees are used nowadays, and with the rise of competition from Europe, Japan or multinational corporations has made it difficult to cope correctly with employees. Finally we must note the various and fast technological advancements which take place and the shortening of product life cycles that lead to short range strategies and increased flexibility.
The impact of all those factors was and still is great onto people, the manpower employed by a firm, which have to learn to cope with change as it takes the form of role ambiguity and role conflict and leads to stress.(Peters 1988). Managers have now to learn to reshape their exercising of power in every form so as to co-operate with and assist their colleagues to better themselves and act properly for the good of the enterprise.
That was the time where HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT was needed to take place as a more specialized function in the organization to handle employee matters and generally manpower planning. The purpose of each job and role had to be specified narrowly and accurately. Performance and results are clearly identified with employee actions and extend to motivation and rewards. Inner-Qualities from managers are needed such as leader, analyst, motivator, colleague, planner, reinforcer, so as to cope cross-departmentally with every employee, and weaken in turn ambiguity and confusion. Straight forward lines of action are needed from the start of a business and HRM is the answer to all of these issues.
PART C: DIFFERENCES OF PERSONELL MANAGEMENT AND HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
‘’Human Resource Management is regarded as just a set of initials or old wine in new bottles.’’ (Armstrong 1987). Many experts in the field have argued that it would be just another name for personnel management. We can identify through my research that ‘’two sides of the coin are possible’’.
Firstly, we may look onto HRM as the natural development of personnel management in a more sophisticated way, and taking the words of Pat Lowry former president of the Institute of Personnel Management ‘’ Personnel work has always included strategic matters and the present emphasis on business issues merely represents another change in the environment to which the personnel manager adapts by strengthening the competencies needed for the new situation. Human Resource Management is just the continuing process of personnel management- it is no different’’. I can observe the similarities between the two functions like: (a)both of their strategies and action plans stem from the general outlined organizational strategy.(b) They are a tool aiding in the achievement of the organization’s goals and objectives and act as a counter help to it. PM and HRM recognise the fact that they provide help to line managers into their attempt to manage and support effectively people.(c)The pertaining values of both issues are almost the same and have as a base the respect to the individual and its interrelationship with the organization functions in order to develop people and facilitate the business’ objectives. (d)One of the main concerns of both HRM and Personnel is their attempt to match people to the fast changing environment and organizational requirements and for that reason the tools which are used are summarized as selection, performance management, training, management development, reward systems, competence analysis etc..Finally I must state that both functions look onto communications, team working, manager-employee interactions, and mostly individuals well-being and development.
Secondly, there is the focus onto differences between Personnel and HRM where it is observed that PM is an activity mainly aiming at non-managers (with only exception the management development which is otherwise a separate function), and managers are not an ends to it. While HRM is a tool for general employee development focusing particularly onto the development of the management team which will eventually guide and help the rest of the employees towards the achievement of organizational objectives. Another difference is that HRM managers are perceived as business managers which are totally responsible for the coordination and direction of all possible resources of the business, where here is the people, and personnel policies are just an integral part of the business managers’ strategies. In turn PM considers that every manager performs personnel management functions throughout departments where employees are located, and in that way manage people correctly. So we have the contradiction between specialization and generalization of employees’ policies between HRM and PM.
Moreover HRM belief is that the organizational culture and the its management is a very important issue for constructing a strong organizational base. Then HRM set of policies for recruitment, selection, training,, developing, rewarding and communications is the most valuable tools for developing, securing and lasting the organizations core values. In contrast Personnel models do not embrace those policies as a management tool aiming at the organizations core values reinforcement or change and in accordance to the existing business strategy.
It is worth mentioning that in 1990 Hendry & Pettigrew said that HRM can be viewed and perceived as ‘’ a perspective on personnel management and not personnel management itself’’. Furthermore Karen Legge(1989) distinguishes HRM from personnel management in the following ways.: Personnel tries to influence line management while HRM tries to involve and integrate line management activities towards employees in the business operations. HRM believes in the trust and involvement of top level management for the best success of its plans whereas personnel has been rather suspicious into undertaking such actions.
Very important also is the fact and realization of the notion of the Strategic nature of HRM whose character is very distinctive from traditional personnel management. The encapsulation of a business-oriented philosophy and a central, top management driven strategic activity which was <>, owned and delivered by managers of the organization in order to promote the organization’s welfare. This is a holistic approach undertaken to pertain the interests of both people and the organization itself. Personnel management itself does not provide a base for such actions which will be Senior management built and followed, and also cannot ensure the development of the idea of commitment to general guides and policies as having been stated to include organizational culture aspects.
PART D: CONCLUSIONS
Concluding to this assessment, I would like to point out that by definition Human Resource Management and Personnel Management appear to be two different functions although the nature and degree of difference is no more but mainly opinion rather than fact oriented. In the same way many similarities between those two in fact exist. Personnel Management is considered mainly as workforce-oriented, directed mainly to the organization’s employees which appear to be the starting point for all action so as to improve them, take the best out of them, and organize them individually or as groups to achieve an employee competitive advantage and satisfy organizational objectives. On the other hand Human Resource Management is considered resource-oriented, directed mainly at the management functions so as to plan, integrate, monitor and control employees towards the ends mean of organizational success and achievement of top-management’s outlined goals. The past decades history onto the matter of manpower in the organization has showed us the evolvement of Personnel Management into a Human Resource Management perspective which is more like an extension, upgrading and fitting of Personnel management to the current environmental changes which affect the business world and in turn its practices. It is no doubt that differences exist but as the research by Armstrong & Long (1994), has implied that HRM can be seen as an approach to personnel management which is shared between line managers and personnel specialists which core value is that Human Resources are really important of a business and must be seen as an asset rather than a cost and the undertaking of a strategic perspective onto them is essential to achieve organizational objectives and satisfy stakeholders.
Armstrong & Long (1994), has implied that HRM can be seen as an approach to personnel management which is shared between line managers and personnel specialists which core value is that Human Resources are really important of a business and must be seen as an asset rather than a cost and the undertaking of a strategic perspective onto them is essential to achieve organizational objectives and satisfy stakeholders.
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