The Romance of Human Resource Management and Business Performance - Essay Example

?Running Head: HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT Inserts His/Her Inserts Grade Inserts HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT The present day business organizations are heading towards developments, innovations, and resilience. Though, they all function with the same nature of conventional business activities and departments, however, they have to tackle with modern challenges and consequences in order to sustain themselves in the corporate world. All this is done with the help various essential departments in the organization, one of which is Human Resource Management. HRM Defined The concept of Human resource management, generally shortened to HRM or HR, pertains to managing the workforce in an organization. The HRM approach is accountable for attracting, selecting, training, assessing, and rewarding of employees, and supervising the culture and leadership of the business organization as well as guaranteeing adherence to the labor and employee laws at the same time. The practical definition of the term HRM has been provided by various business experts, practitioners and researchers, and one of it examines that human resource management “represents that part of an organisation’s activities which is concerned with the recruitment, development and management of its employees” (Wall and Wood, 2005, p. 430). Thus, we can assume from these descriptions that, the term is in wide use in the business organizations for the representation of the selection, recruitment, training and appraising practices. The practices of HRM, in theory, might feel like an abstraction. However, in practice, the department is considered as one of the most significant and vital parts of the business organization. According to the researchers and management experts, HRM is a department which assists the business in the process of value creation with the help of a workforce which is managed in strategically. The function of HRM was initially made practical through the performance of transactional work which included the administration of benefits and payroll. However later, with the advent of technological advancement, globalization, further research, and company consolidation, the human resources now centre their focus on taking up the strategic initiatives such as industrial and labor relations, diversity and inclusion, acquisitions, mergers, succession planning, and talent management. History and Development The concept of HRM initially begun with the human relations movement that occurred in the earlier part of 20th century. The major reason for the happening of this movement was the introductions of lean manufacturing in the industry by Frederick Taylor. The widely known Taylorism, at that time, had coined the term "scientific management" which was founded upon struggling to enhance the economic efficiency in manufacturing sector of occupations. Taylor, ultimately initiated one of the various primary inputs, labor, which was utilized by all the business in running their manufacturing processes. This element sparked the researches and investigations into the concept of workforce productivity (Merkle, Judith, 1990). By the next few years, there existed sufficient theoretical evidences in order to enable the organizations undertake to change the landscape of businesses, and adopt HRM functions in the public policy in order to change the employer-employee relationship within the organizational framework. This subject was, then, made official with the term "industrial and labor relations". With the passage of time, the evolution of the discipline of Human Resource Management continued and kept growing. In the second half of the 20th century, the memberships of unions in the organizations declined sharply, and in the meantime, the workforce management kept expanding on a continuous basis in order to influence its role in the business organizations and their activities. This was the time period when the term "Industrial and labor relations" started being utilized with specific reference to the matters regarding employees’ collective representation only, and the discipline of managing people overall was started being called as "personnel administration” by many companies of that time. Later, during the year 1948, the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), the largest HR association of the professional matters in future, was inaugurated as American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA) (SHRM, 2011). With the arrival of the 21st century, the progress and growth in the field of communication and transportation had great influences on the collaboration and mobility of the workforce. The large-scale companies and huge corporations in the world of globalized businesses began seeing their employees as valuable assets. Consequently, the term "Human resources management", was adopted for the function of managing the labor force. Finally, in the year 1998, the term also underwent another transformation, naming itself as SHRM, or Strategic Human Resource Management (SHRM, 2011). Importance In the businesses of the advanced organizations of present days, the overall performance of the company is greatly affected and influenced by the management of the employees and adoption of the right approach within the business organization. The advancements of the era have compelled the organizations to become more competitive and therefore, a strategic approach in the management of human resources is particularly growing in the companies. Beginning from the recruitment and selection procedures and going up to the employees’ performance maintenance, the human resource management is primary department in not only the employee development but also plays vital role in the development of the entire organization. The significant contributions of the Human Resource Management to any business organizations include the following: The policy issues of managing the human resources are formulated and implemented by the HRM in order to ensure the organization’s effectiveness. HRM department enables the companies and corporations to attract and recruit the right people for the right job. This suggests that there is a correspondence between the job description and job specification in the organization. The function of HRM calls for the inference regarding the interrelation of the personnel function in context, and the recognizing of its significance and commitment of the supervisors, managers and leaders to function in the network. The HRM department performs the need assessment function for training and developing the employees. The employees are kept motivated and satisfied through rewards and incentives set by the HR managers and executives. The department of HRM in any organization is the most important due to the fact that it satisfies the employees by listening to their grievances, complaints and other problems, thus, helping them reach the self-actualization level. Not only this, but the varying interest of the company’s stakeholders are conciliated with the strategy framework of the organization with the help of HR. Besides the growth of employees and management of stakeholders, the human resources discipline guarantees and assures the accomplishment of the organization’s objectives and goals. The organization’s profitability and employees’ performance and productivity are maintained through the proper and systematic functioning of the HRM. The compensation management of the labor force is assisted by the organization’s HR. The HRM also aides the employees with regard to their career counseling, internal career ladder, employment participation, employment security, and provides the business a competitive advantage in the industry (Wright, Patrick, 2011). Conclusion Human Resource Management is one of the significant disciplines adopted and integrated by all the businesses in their functions these days. The early 20th century had marked the initiation of the field which has finally transformed into HRM or SHRM in the wide scoped corporate world. HRM helps the organizations in becoming competitive in order to cope up with the existing and potential challenges. It also assists its employees and stakeholders in managing their minor and major interests in the business organizations. Work Cited Merkle, Judith A., 1990, Management and Ideology, University of California Press, Print. SHRM, 2011, About SHRM, Society for Human Resource Management, Web, Retrieved online on April 26, 2012 Wall, T., Wood, S., 2005, The romance of human resource management and business performance and the case for big science”, Human Relations, Vol. 58 No. 4, pp. 429-62 Wright, Patrick, 2011, The 2011 CHRO Challenge: Building Organizational, Functional, and Personal Talent, Cornell Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS), Web, Retrieved online on April 26, 2012 Read More