A Brief History of HRM

1.2.
A Brief History of HRM

1. The history of HRM can be traced to England.
Employees(masons,
carpenters,
leather
workers, and other craftspeople) organized
themselves into guilds/association/unity.
- They used their unity to improve their working
conditions.
2. Industrial Revolution: The field further
developed with the arrival of industrial
revolution in the latter part of the 18th
century.
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HRM: overview

The industrial revolution was characterized by:
- a new and complex industrial society.
- The substitution of steam power and
machinery for time-consuming hand labor
- The significant change in the working
conditions, social patterns, and the division of
labor
- A new kind of employee-a boss, who wasnt
necessarily the owner, as had usually been the
case in the past- became a power
With these changes also came a widening gap
between workers and owners
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HRM: overview

3.
Scientific Management, Welfare work and

Industrial Psychology
In the 19th century, Scientific management ,
welfare work and industrial psychology emerged
concurrently and merged during the world wars.
3.1. Scientific Management dealt with inefficiencies
in labor and management through work methods,
time and motion study, and specialization
The renowned father of scientific management
was Fredric W. Taylor
He studied worker efficiency and attempted to
discover the one best way and the one faster
way to do a job.
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HRM: overview

He summarized scientific management as
1.science, not rules of thumb;
2.Harmony, not discord;
3.Cooperation, individualism; and
4.Maximum output, not restricted output.
Whereas scientific management focused
on the job and efficiencies, industrial
psychology focused on the worker and
individual differences.
The maximum well-being of the worker
was the focus of industrial psychology.
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HRM: overview

3.2. Industrial psychology
Focused on the application of psychological
principles towards increasing the ability of
workers to perform efficiently and effectively.
Development of Personnel departments caused
by:
The drastic changes in technology,
The growth of organizations,
The rise of unions, and
Government concern and intervention

concerning working people
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HRM: overview

Development of personnel departments
- No specific date assigned to the appearance of
the first personnel department
- Established around 1920s to fill the gap
resulting from the conflict between employees
and management
- Early personnel administrators were called
welfare secretaries.
- The job of welfare secretaries was to bridge the
gap
between
management
and
operator(worker)
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HRM: overview

4. Human Relations Movement
-
Founders: Elton Mayo and Fritz Roethlisberger

incorporated human factors into work.
Conducted Hawthorne studies (1924-1933)
The purpose of the Hawthorne study was to determine
the effects
of illumination on workers and their
output.
- The study pointed out the importance of social
interaction and work group on output and satisfaction.
- contributed to the field of organizational

behavior.
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HRM: overview
The changing role of the HR

Practitioner
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HRM: overview
The changing role of HR

Practitioner
In 1997 Dave Ulrich produced his model
in which he suggested that as
champions of competitiveness in
creating and delivering value, HR
professionals carry out the roles of:
strategic partners,
administrative experts,
employee champions and
change agents.
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HRM: overview

Practitioner
Ulrich, in conjunction with Brockbank,
reformulated the 1997 model in 2005, listing
the following roles:
Employee advocate focuses on the needs of
todays employees through listening,
understanding and empathizing.
Human capital developer in the role of
managing and developing human capital
(individuals and teams), focuses on preparing
employees to be successful in the future.
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HRM: overview
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practitioner
Functional expert concerned with the HR practices
that are central to HR value, acting with insight on the
basis of the body of knowledge they possess.
Strategic partner consists of multiple dimensions:
business expert, change agent, strategic HR planner,
knowledge manager and consultant, combining them
to align HR systems to help accomplish the
organizations vision and mission, helping managers
to get things done, and disseminating learning cross
the organization.
Leader leading the HR function, collaborating with
other functions and providing leadership to them,
setting and enhancing the standards for strategic
thinking and ensuring corporate governance.
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The changing role of HRM

Early
practices
Management
of
Personnel
Obscures the importance of the HRM function to

Management.
Concerned only with blue-collar or operating
employees until 1960s
A record keeping unit
Drucker stated that the job of personnel was partly a file
clerks job, partly a house keeping job, partly a
social workers job, and partly firefighting ,
heading off union trouble.
Company moral officer
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HR as employee advocate
- traditionally, HR has been viewed as the
employee advocate in organizations.
- Seen as company morale officers and
hence they do not understand the
business realities of the organizations and
- do not contribute measurably to the
strategic success of the business.
- Crisis Management
- Fair and Equitable Treatment
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HR as employee advocate
Balancing the advocacy with the business
contributor.
Being an effective employee advocate is
not sufficient.
Instead, HR professionals must be
strategic contributors , partners with
operating
managers,
administratively
efficient , and cost effective.
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Administrative role of HRM
- Heavily oriented to processing and record keeping.
- It involves maintaining HR files and HR-related
databases,
- Processing employee benefits claims,
- Answering questions about tuition and/sick leave
policies, and compiling and submitting required state
and federal government reports.
- Considered as paper shufflers
- HR staff are seen primarily as clerical and lower-level
administrative contributors to the organization.
most often outsourced to external providers or
automated
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Operational Role of HR Management
- Operational activities are tactical in nature.
- Operational
roles
involves
coordinating
the
management of HR activities with the actions of
managers
and
supervisors
throughout
the
organization.
- Requires HR professionals to identify and implement
operational
programs
and
policies
in
the
organization.
- major implementers of the HR portion of
organizational strategic plans developed by top
management , rather than being deeply involved in
developing those strategic
plans.
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Strategic
Role
Management
of
HR
- Emphasizes that people in an organization

are
valuable
resources
representing
significant organizational investments.
- For HR to play a strategic role it must
focus on the long-term implications of HR
issues.
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HRM as strategic Business

Contributor
The HRM function today is concerned with much more
than simple filing, house keeping, and record keeping.
For the years the HRM function had not been linked to
the corporate performance i.e. the bottom line.
HRM was merely a tagalong unit with people-oriented
plans, not a major part of the planning or strategic
thinking.
Today, HRM has become one of the major player in the
design of the organizations strategic plan.
Organizational and human resource plans and strategies
are inextricably linked.
The HRM strategies must reflect clearly the
organization's strategy regarding people, profit, and
overall effectiveness.
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HRM as strategic Business

Contributor
One of the most important shifts in the emphasis
of HRM in the past few years has been the
recognition of HR as a strategic business
contributor.
All organizations, including not-for-profits such as
governmental or social service entities must
manage their human resources as being valuable
and in a business oriented manner.
Based up on the research and writings of a
number of scholars, including David Ulrich of the
university of Michigan, the importance of HR
being a strategic business partner has been
addressed.
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1.3. strategic importance of

HRM
Analyzing and solving problems from a profit-oriented, not

just a service-oriented, point of view.
Assessing and interpreting costs or benefits of such HRM
issues as Productivity, salaries and benefits, recruitment,
training, absenteeism, overseas relocation, layoffs,
meetings, and attitude surveys.
Using planning models that include realistic, challenging,
specific, and meaningful goals.
Preparing reports on HRM solutions to problems
encountered by the firm.
Training the human resources staff and emphasizing the
strategic importance of HRM and the importance of
contributing to the firms profits.
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1.4. Major trends affecting

HRM
The increased globalization of the
Economy.
Technological changes, challenges,
and opportunities.
The need to be flexible in Response to
changing business environments.
Increase in litigation in related to HRM.
Changing
characteristics
of
the
workforce.
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1.5. Objectives of the HRM

function
The contributions HRM makes to organizational
effectiveness include the following:
- Helping the organization reach its goals.
- Efficiently employing the skills and abilities of the
workforce.
- Providing well-trained and well-motivated employees.
- Increasing employees job satisfaction self- actualization.
- Achieving quality of work life.
- Communicating HRM policies to All employees.
- Maintaining ethical policies and socially responsible
behavior.
- Managing change.
- Managing increased urgency and faster cycle time.
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Who performs HRM

activities?
Delegation of HRM duties has changed over
time.
In most organizations two groups perform HRM
activities:
HR-manager
specialists
and
Operating Managers.
Operating managers(supervisors, department
heads, vice presidents) are involved in HRM
activities because they are responsible for
effective utilization of all the resources at their
disposal.
Operating managers spend considerable time
managing people! HRM: overview
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
As he/she is responsible if a machines breaks
down and production drops, he/she must see to
the training, performance and satisfaction of
employees.
Research indicates that a large part of an
operating managers day is spent in unscheduled
and
scheduled
meetings,
telephone
conversations, and solving problems that have a
direct impact on people.
The manager, through constant contact with
many different people, attempts to solve
problems, reach decisions, and prevent future
difficulties.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
Smaller organizations usually have no HR
unit, so the operating managers have many
HRM responsibilities, such as scheduling
work,
recruitment
and
selection,
and
compensating people.
As the organizations increase in size, the
operating managers work is divided up, and
some of it becomes specialized. HRM is one
such specialized function.
The structure and degree of specialization in
HRM function is positively correlated with size
and nature of the organization.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
(1) Outsourcing, or Contracting with a vender to
perform on a recurring basis an HRM activity
previously performed by a firm, is growing in
popularity.
The drivers of increased outsourcing include
downsizing, rapid growth or decline of
business
and
hence
uncertainty,
globalization, increased competition, and
restructuring.
Some executives assume that outsourcing
some HRM activities is a competitive
advantage.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
It is assumed that outsourcing can reduce
costs , improve flexibility, and permit the
hiring of specialized expertise.
The choice to outsources some, all, or
none of the HRM activities is being made
with little empirical support.
However, outsourcing is likely to continue
a decision makers search for ways to
improve the financial and operating
performance of firms.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
(2) The interaction of operating and HR
managers.
- With two groups of people(operating managers
and HR specialists) making HRM decisions,
there can be conflict.
- Conflict occurs b/se operating and HR
managers sometimes differ on who has
authority for what decisions, or there may be
other differences between operating and HR
managers.
- They have different orientations, called line
and staf, which have
different objectives.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
managers...
- A staf person typically supports the primary
functions such as marketing, and production by
providing advice, counsel, and information.
- The staf does not wield direct authority over
the line manager.
- Line managers have the authority to make final
decisions concerning their operations.
- However, the specific distinction between line
and staff is not a clear-cut in actual
organizations.
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HRM: overview
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
managers...
- For example, on recruitment and selection,
line managers are generally not familiar with
the legal requirements and hence invite HRM
experts to make the final decisions.
- The conflict is most pressing when there
must be joint decisions on such issues as
discipline,
physical
working
conditions,
termination,
transfer,
promotion,
and
employment planning.
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HRM: overview
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
managers...
- Research indicates that operating managers
and HR specialists differ on how much authority
employees should have over job design, labor
relations, organizational planning, and certain
rewards, such as bonuses and promotions.
- Changes in business, globalization, technology
and demography have changed both the roles
of HRM and operating mangers.
- Line mangers have the responsibilities of
managing people and/or projects.
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HRM: overview
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
managers...
- HRM is viewed by line managers as
company policeman who many managers
get tired of being told no
- HRM inflexibility/rigidity and over attention
to detail.
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Who performs HRM

activities?...
(2) The interaction of operating and HR managers...
- What should be done to improve the
relationship?
1. HRM units must analyze their job and focus on value
adding jobs.
2. HRM units are encouraged to understand the business so
that they can become strategic partners with line
managers.
3. HRM specialists are requested to seek out operating
managers.
4. They are also asked to help managers avoid problems.
5. Being more flexible and open to the ideas of others is a
recommendation that applies to both HRM and Operating
managers.
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1.2.