HRM history: The history of personnel management begins around the end of the 19th century, when welfare

officers (sometimes called welfare secretaries) came into being. They were women and concerned only with the protection of women and girls. Their creation was a reaction to the harshness of industrial conditions, coupled with pressures arising from the extension of the franchise, the influence of trade unions and the labour mo ement, and the campaigning of enlightened employers, often !ua"ers, for what was called industrial betterment. #s the role grew there was some tension between the aim of moral protection of women and children and the needs for higher output. The $irst %orld %ar accelerated change in the de elopment of personnel management, with women being recruited in large numbers to fill the gaps left by men going to fight, which in turn meant reaching agreement with trade unions (often after bitter disputes) about dilution& accepting uns"illed women into craftsmens 'obs and changing manning le els. (uring the 19)*s, 'obs with the titles of labour manager or employment manager came into being in the engineering industry and other industries where there were large factories, to handle absence, recruitment, dismissal and +ueries o er bonuses and so on. ,mployers federations, particularly in engineering and shipbuilding, negotiated national pay rates with the unions, but there were local and district ariations and there was plenty of scope for disputes. (uring the 19-*s, with the economy beginning to pic" up, big corporations in these newer sectors saw alue in impro ing employee benefits as a way of recruiting, retaining and moti ating employees. .ut older industries such as textiles, mining and shipbuilding which were hit by the worldwide recession did not adopt new techni+ues, seeing no need to do so because they had no difficulty in recruiting labour. The /econd %orld %ar brought about welfare and personnel wor" on a full0time basis at all establishments producing war materials because an expanded 1inistry of 2abour and 3ational /er ice insisted on it, 'ust as the 4o ernment had insisted on welfare wor"ers in munitions factories in the pre ious conflict. The go ernment saw specialist personnel management as part of the dri e for greater efficiency and the number of people in the personnel function grew substantially5 there were around 6,-** in 197-. .y 1976, employment management and welfare wor" had become integrated under the broad term personnel management. ,xperience of the war had shown that output and producti ity could be influenced by employment policies. The role of the personnel function in wartime had been largely that of implementing the rules demanded by large0scale, state0go erned production, and thus the image of an emerging profession was ery much a bureaucratic one. $ollowing the de elopment of poor industrial relations during the 198*s a 9oyal :ommission under 2ord (ono an was set up. 9eporting in 198; 1, it was critical of both employers and unions5 personnel managers were criticised for lac"ing negotiation s"ills and failing to plan industrial relations strategies. #t least in part, (ono an suggested, these deficiencies were a conse+uence of managements failure to gi e personnel management sufficiently high priority. <n the 198*s and =*s employment started to de elop significantly. #t the same time personnel techni+ues de eloped using theories from the social sciences about moti ation and organisational beha iour5 selection testing became more widely used, and management training expanded. (uring the 19=*s, specialisms started to de elop, with reward and resourcing, for example, being addressed as separate issues.

#round the mid0;*s, the term human resource management arri ed from the >/#. The term human resources is an interesting one? it seemed to suggest that employees were an asset or resource0li"e machines, but at the same time @9 also appeared to emphasise employee commitment and moti ation. Todays @9 profession encompasses a number of specialist disciplines, including di ersity, reward (including compensation, benefits, pensions), resourcing, employee relations, organisation de elopment and design, and learning and de elopment (the history of which is co ered in detail in the next section of this factsheet). 1ost recently, in de eloping the new :<A( @9 Arofession 1ap, the :<A( has defined ten professional areas co ered by the @9 profession.