The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices conform to various regulations. Activities also include managing your approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies. Usually small businesses (for-profit or nonprofit) have to carry out these activities themselves because they can’t yet afford part- or full-time help. However, they should always ensure that employees have — and are aware of — personnel policies which conform to current regulations.
These policies are often in the form of employee manuals, which all employees have . The goal of human resource management is to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining employees and also to manage them effectively. The key word here perhaps is “ fit”, i. e. a HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an organization’s employees, and the overall strategic direction of the company (Miller, 1989). The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines, therefore we need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace.
Fields such as psychology, industrial engineering, industrial and organizational psychology, industrial relations, sociology, and critical theories: postmodernism, post-structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities offer bachelor and master degrees in Human Resources Management. One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields for the HRM function • Strategic business partner • Change agent • Employee champion • Administration HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments.
As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in risk reduction within organizations . It is interesting to know some of the differences in managerial practice in selected countries. In France, government planning on a national scale helps coordinate plans of individual industries and companies. The government’s aim is to utilize most effectively the country’s resources and to avoid expansion in uneconomic areas. Although governmental planning is carried out by the concerned department, cooperation and assistance are provided by other governmental departments, employer’s organizations, unions and consumers.
The plan which is generally revised every five years attempts to obtain economic growth, price stability, a satisfactory balance in foreign payments, and a favorable employment situation. Managers, then, are not only constrained by ‘ Le Plan’ but also aided by it, since it produces a great deal of information upon which they can draw for preparing plans for their own enterprises. Clearly, there is a close relationship between government planning and firms, especially those that are owned and directly aided by the government. Germany: The German managerial style favored reliance on authority in directing the work force, although it was often benevolent authoritarianism. While managers may show concerns for their subordinates, they also expect obedience.
Germany has a law which requires mandatory membership of labour in the supervisory boards and executive committees of certain large corporations. Furthermore, a labour director is elected as a member of the executive committee. This position is a difficult one. Labour directors must necessarily represent the interests of the employees and , at the same time, must make managerial decisions that are in the best interest of the enterprise. Managing in Australia is influenced by that country’s moralistic stance and its emphasis on political and social values, achievement and risk taking.
Italian managers are operating in an environment of low tolerance for risks. Italian are very competitive, but at the same time they like group decision making. Management in Austria is characterized by self- realization and leadership. Independence and competitiveness are valued.
Tolerance for risk taking is rather low. In Britain, security is important and so are resourcefulness, adaptability, and logic. Similarly, individualism is also highly valued. Japan, one of the leading industrial nations in the world, has adopted managerial practices that are quiet different from those of other economically advanced countries in the western world.
Furthermore, in decision making there is open communication among people at different levels of the organizational hierarchy, a great deal of collaboration, and a recognition of mutual dependence. While the fundamental principles of management may be broadly the same in all countries, the practice of carrying out the managerial functions like planning, organizing, leading, controlling etc differs between the domestic and international enterprises. For example, an MNC has to plan with the international market in mind, which is not easy. In leading managers will have to take into account the many cultural differences.
In controlling the many different requirements of the various countries(such as tax laws) should be kept in view. The ultimate purpose of all management activity is to serve the consumers. All the other benefits such as creation of jobs, income and economic wealth and development of natural and human resources must be understood in their proper context, namely, incidental to the main activity of serving the consumer. Industry, business and management have come to realize that more than capital, resources and technology, it is customer satisfaction which will determine the success of organizations.
The author of ‘ In search of Excellence’ listed some common features of highly successful organizations and one of them was ‘ concern for the customer’Today, the framework of planning, organizing, staffing, leading and controlling has become the , ost popular way of structuring managerial knowledge into a unified theory. We have seen that there are many schools of, or approaches to, management. There is evidence that the management theory jungle not only continues to grow but gets more dense, with nearly twice as many schools or approaches as were found more than20 years ago. At the same time, there are signs that the various schools of thought are converging. A keen observer will note that the role of managers is expanding. New approaches are required to avoid managerial obsolescence and improve managerial productivity.
There is a need for more effective planning, flexible approaches to organizing, better management of human resources an environment favorable for motivation, and method for effective and efficient control that use the new information technology. Above all, the field of management urgently requires intellectual and inspirational leadership in the United States and around the world to make productive for the benefit of humanity. There are indications that business is moving towards a unified, global theory of management. List of references: Brinda Dasgupta, Net Gains and Losses C. Martis and M.
G. Diwan Human Resources Management by Koontz, O’Donnell, 1955, p. 89-95 Koontz, O’Donnell, 1955, p. 38 Lamond, 2004, p.
330–356 Towers, David. Human Resource Management essays. Usha Albuquerque, Careers from the Home Ulrich, Dave (1996). Human Resource Champions.
The next agenda for adding value and delivering results. Boston, Mass Venkatesh R. Iyer, Is Apocalypse Near, Far or Never? , Manorma 2003, p581 And internet websites http://www. managementhelp. org/hr_mgmnt/hr_mgmnt. htm
