Personnel Management to Human Resource Management - Essay Example

Personnel Management to Human Resource Management Since the evolution of business many centuries ago, the world has always had the idea of coming up with industries and organizations that were capable of providing products and services that are required in the market or the rest of the world. It is believed that the ancient people who begun different businesses discovered that they required laborers to assist then in the factory. With time, some firms and organizations discovered that, as they continued to expand due to increase in demand of products and services that they produced, there was need for more labor power. Consequently, the concept of labor power that was sold by human beings had to be effectively organized. Hence, owner of firms and organizations began adapting to the world of management through the use of personnel management that had the sole responsibility of hiring and firing employees. Actually, employees welfare demand grew by the day, the world of management grew simultaneously to the extent that the personnel management could not accommodate the increasing demand for employees’ welfare and as such, most organizations and firms began replacing personnel management (PM) with human resource management (HRM). Apparently, the term human resource management has been used across the world for approximately a century. According to Soni (2013) the emergence of Human resource management (HRM) is believed to have started in England in the early 18th century when the west was experiencing the apprenticeship and craftsmen era. Moreover, the emergence of HRM was also significantly associated with the arrival of the industrial revolution. As the 19th century begun, a philosopher by the name Taylor argued that it was necessary to combine scientific management and industrial workers psychology, and further introduce the two concepts in the business world. In light of this, the philosopher further articulated that it was imperative for workers to be managed not only for the purpose of making work to be efficient, but also ensuring that the workers were psychologically fit to hold the title of being employees. Similarly, the drastic changes that were being witnessed especially in technology, growth of various organizations and the rise of different unions greatly facilitated the development of personnel departments that were run by welfare secretaries soon after the beginning of the 19th Century. Importantly, the effective management of human resource in any organization is to ensure that competitive advantage is gained in the marketplace. In reference to this, it was imperative to have timely and accurate information pertaining to current workers and potential ones in the labor market. Technology had also been mentioned as having a huge contribution in the growth and development of Human Resource Management. Notably, there are different perspectives of how the evolution of Human Resource Management came about with some scholars arguing that the evolution must be associated with the evolution of technology and IT in particular. For instance, it is believed that during the early 20th Century the HRM aspect of management was seen to concentrate more on playing the role of a ‘caretaker’ and focusing more on employees and the keeping of records. In this century, HRM is more focused on being a strategic partner, the cost effectiveness in organizations and employee development. According to Amos (2008), HRM was commonly known to operate as a personnel function that was ideally meant to keep records of important information about the employees, a process that was commonly known as the caretaker function .In fact, most scholars articulated that this management aspect had scientific concept that was aimed at ensuring that employee productivity was maximized. Conversely, the most common way of working that was used during this period comprised of work division into pieces, which were later allocated to different employees. Afterwards, the number of pieces done would be recorded through computers, and the workers would be compensated through the piece-rate pay systems. It is worth noting that piece-rate pay system was preferred as an efficient way to motivate employees at the time.1 Interestingly, this historic period was marked by minimal government interference in employment relations and the employment and employee issues were done by organization owners. Due to this minimal interference, the organizations took advantage of the presumed freedom and engaged in illegal businesses such as child labor and unsafe working environment. Nevertheless, some employers were keen on how they were treating their empaloyees by keeping health and work records, either through computer or paper work. Schuler and Jackson (2008) articulates that the importance of labor was discovered during the war period and it was clear that those providing labor during that time required more than just the motivation through compensation or money. Labor providers also required social and psychological support while working in order to increase production and further maximize on profit. These social and psychological factors included work norms, good working environment and recognition of achievement at work places. In light of this, organizations began to pay more attention to the welfare of the employees through appropriate compensation programs, individual evaluation of work performance, introduced basis to which the organization would terminate employees among other issues that related to employees. Moreover, the issue of job description was reviewed and employees were allocated specific tasks in the organization as opposed to the previous arrangement where employees were allocated piece work.Similarly, employees began mobilizing their colleagues to react to the prior issue on abuse that was witnessed during war. As such, they came up in groups and formed trade unions that were mandated to fight for their rights. Most of these rights included better employment terms and conditions which were demanded by the workers. Apparently, HRM which was still being referred to as Personnel Management in some countries became more advanced as organization became more conscious on how they treated their employees. Furthermore, there was increased labor legislation, which gave the Personnel Department the obligation to comply with the legislative response that was expected of them. For instance, the organizations were expected to demonstrate that they were never involved in discriminative activities while practicing employment and also collecting and filing information. Importantly, there was huge revolution during this period of time and organizations began adopting the aspect of Human Resource Management since it was wider in that it was capable of accommodating more information and requirements on the employees. In general sense, employers had begun appreciating the importance of employees as the team behind the success of organizations across the world. During this era, the HRM aspect was more than requirements as most companies struggled to ensure that it was part of their organization. Moreover, some companies had begun embracing technology and they were using computers to facilitate the Human Resource practice, which were believed to be more cost effective as compared to the previous method of paperwork. In fact, some companies were for the idea that the personnel costs were very expensive and as such they required a HRM function that could justify employees programs and services. In fact, this era witnessed the presence of computer based HR systems that were easily operated by micro computers that were extremely cheap. From there onwards, HRM was fixed in almost all companies across the world with most organization preferring to assign all the issues pertaining to the employees to the department right from “hiring to firing” them. According to Zajkowska (2012), employees are the most important people and thus they ought to be respected and treated in the best way possible way so as in turn they can contribute positively toward the success of the company. Human Resource Management could be described in various ways depending on the concept at hand. However, the common definition is that it is capable of managing, leading and facilitating tools that are related to human capital a given organization. Moreover, it ensures that strategic processes and procedures pertaining to attracting the most talented individuals for job placement and further retaining them by compensating them with attractive salaries is also considered especially in modern organization. Similarly, the staffing, training, development, compensation and benefits revolve around human resource management in accordance to the organizational structure Personnel management is one of the renowned and frequently utilized aspects in the management world. As such, there are numerous definitions that have been put forward by different philosophers in a bid to define and analysis this concept. Hence, one of the most common definitions of personnel management is that it is a practice that entails acquiring, utilizing and maintaining a team of employees that are satisfied. Moreover, this aspect of management pays more attention to employees at work and their relationship within the organization. Although there are other definitions that could be used to explain this aspect, it is worth noting that PM is mostly used by organizations as an extension to general management where there is promotion and stimulation of workforce to make their contribution to the concern. Personnel management is responsible for giving advice and assisting the line managers in matters pertaining to personnel thus further acts as a staffing department to any organization. Scholars have described this aspect of management as one that lean on the welfare of employees, their orientation, motivation by use of incentives so as to make employees capable of providing full co-operation. Of most important is that, PM ensures that organizations have an extensive department that has proper recruitment facilities, training and development, and manpower planning. Additionally, the personnel managers have the responsibility of counseling, mediating, advising the line managers and providing assistance to the top management where possible. Apparently, HRM strategies and Personnel management are similar in that they both flow from the business strategy. Importantly, both HRM and Personnel management are aware that they have the responsibility of ensuring that they are in a position to match people to the continuous changing of organizational requirement such as placing and molding the right individuals for the right job. Just like HRM, Personnel management upholds the fact that line manager have the sole responsibility of managing people while the personnel function is to provide the appropriate advice and support services to facilitate for proper attendance of responsibilities by the managers. The values associated with the soft aspect of HRM and Personnel management as well, revolves around respect for individual through ensuring that organizational and individual needs are met so as to achieve the expected competence levels in both personal and organization objectives. Both HRM and personnel management specializes in the same selection range such as performance management, reward methods, training management among other concepts, which are present in the management world. Personnel management and the soft HRM are concerned about the two imperative processes namely; communication and participation that revolve around the employee relation systems. As opposed to Personnel management, HRM is more concerned with the importance of culture management and its associated achievement toward mutual commitment. Unlike the concept of Personnel management that is more concerned with individual management, the HRM concept is more concerned with the responsibilities of line managers as the individuals who implement policies in HR department. Human Resource Management places more importance on the aspect of strategic fitness and integration as opposed to Personnel management. While most individuals in Personnel management are personnel administrators, most HR specialists are expected to hold the position of business partners. The main approach in HRM is to ensure that the total interests of any organization or business especially those of members within the organization are fully identified although they should be subordinate to that govern the organization or business in this case. Human Resource Management is keen on upholding the philosophy of business orientation and management as opposed to Personnel Management According to Edwards (2003), Human Resource Management, is thought to have emerged from the term Personnel Management (PM.) Basically, PM emerged after the World War in 1945 in a bid to assist the personnel practitioners from clearly distinguishing them from other managerial functions and further defining it as a professional managerial function. Edwards (2003) articulates that the conventional function that was known to the ancient business world was that PM department was to solely ‘hire and fire’ employees in organizations as opposed to compensating their efforts and / or training them. Nevertheless, critics have argued that there is concern of uncertainty that lie in the responsibilities of PM in the Human Resource Management. Furthermore, the critics argued that since HRM was a professional concept, it was not in its range to reactively respond to different circumstances without prior planning. Importantly, the history of Personnel Management goes in line with requirements that were necessarily at the time. In fact, the ancient businesses were more concerned with the labor power to facilitate the growth of their firms and organization. Besides, the only managerial aspect that was present at the time was personnel management. The ancient firms and organizations were not closely monitored by the government at the time and as such, they had the tendency to treat employees in inhuman manner. Nevertheless, the employees at the time made drastic changes in the business world after they began forming trade unions to fight for better employment terms and conditions. In response to this, organizations began paying attention to more issues of employees such as social and psychological welfare in addition to payments and compensation issues. With such deliberations, scholars managed to gradually replace Personnel Management with Human Resource Management. However, on one hand some scholars refuted the claim and argued that there existed no significant difference between both concepts because they were mandated to organize, obtain and motivate human resources that were required by various organizations. On the other hand, scholars affiliated to the rebranding of PM concept to HRM articulated that due to the continuous changes that were been witnessed in the management world, it would be appropriate if a new concept was used in order to take in new ideas, concept and philosophies pertaining to human resource, as opposed to those who still insisted that the two concepts that ought to be handled separately in the management world. In a general sense, it is right to argue that Human Resource Management is nothing more than personnel management in a new label because the concept of managing employees began with ‘hiring and firing’ under the Personnel management to what is currently being referred to as ‘looking into the welfare of the employee for the sake of the company’ under the Human Resource Management label. Basically, the label change has been as a result of advancement and adaptation of different managerial aspects in the ever changing business world. The modern business world must content with the fact that change is inevitable especially if it has any connection with technological advancement and modernization as well. In this regard, the change from the Personnel Management aspect to Human Resource Management through a gradual historic process from the 18th Century to the present era denote that the business world keeps discovering concepts that are important in managing the organization and firms. 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