The terms Human Resource Management, Employee Relations, and Personnel Management are used often in the general press as well as by specialists in the industry. When we hear these phrases, the first thing that comes to our minds are pictures of hardworking managers hustling through their job in posh offices. This article addresses the question “what is HRM?” by providing the reader with a comprehensive overview of the subject matter and by exposing the reader to the practice of HRM as it is used in modern businesses.
There is a lot more to the field of human resource management, despite popular depictions of the same, and despite popular depictions of the same, the “art and science” of human resource management is indeed complex. Although, as with all popular perceptions, the above imagery has some validity, the fact remains that there is much more to the field of human resource management.
Art and Science
We have decided to refer to HRM as an “art and science” because it is both an art and a science. HRM is an art because it involves the management of people via the use of novel and original methods, and it is also a science because it requires the accurate and methodical application of theory. The process of defining HRM brings us to two alternative definitions, as was explained in the previous section.
One definition of human resource management describes it as “the process of managing people in companies in a systematic and complete way.” This is the primary definition of HRM. This covers the areas of staffing (hiring people), retaining people, setting and managing pay and perks, performance management, change management, and taking care of exits from the company to round out the activities.
Hiring People
Staffing refers to the process of hiring people. Keeping people involves setting and managing pay and perks, performance management, and change management. This is the classic definition of HRM, which is why some industry professionals consider it an updated version of the Personnel Management function used in the past. The second definition of human resource management involves the management of people in companies from a macro viewpoint.
This definition of HRM refers to the process of managing people in the form of a collective interaction between management and workers. This strategy places an emphasis on the goals and results to be achieved by the HRM function. This indicates that the job of human resources, or HR, in modern firms is concerned with the concepts of enabling people and developing people, as well as an emphasis on making the “work relationship” enjoyable for both management and employees.
The distinction between personnel management, as explained in the second paragraph, and human resource management, as described in the third paragraph, is emphasised by these definitions. To sum it up in a single phrase, personnel management is focused on the “workforce,” while human resource management is more concerned with the “resources” available to the organisation. The most important distinction is that modern HRM places a larger emphasis on planning, monitoring, and control in order to achieve management goals such as supplying and deploying people.
In the past, HRM primarily focused on these goals. No matter the definition of “human resource management” we adopt, the answer to the question “what is HRM?” is that it focuses on the employees working inside a business. It is hardly surprising that some multinational corporations (MNCs) refer to their HR managers as People Managers or People Enablers, and that they term the process people management.
In the companies of the 21st century, the human resources manager, also known as the people manager, is no longer considered someone who is responsible for the activities that are outlined in a conventional manner. In point of fact, the majority of businesses are organised into separate departments that are responsible for things like payroll, employee retention, and recruitment. Instead, it is the responsibility of the HR manager to manage the expectations of employees in relation to the goals of management and to reconcile these two sets of expectations in order to assure both the satisfaction of employees and the achievement of management goals.
