THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Introduction

Human Resource has evolved from many terms and functions such as human

capital, laborers, personnel and currently human resources. The few changes in

these terms also mean changes in the way human resource managers plan their

strategies in managing employees. The evolution of Human Resource Management

has progressed through the ages from times when people were abused in slavery

working conditions to the modern environment where people are valued and

respected and viewed as strategic partners to business.

To understand the evolution of human resource management, it is important to first

fully understand the definition of human resources and human resource

management. Human resources is a term with which many organizations describe

as the combination of traditionally administrative personnel functions with

performance, employee relations and resource planning. Human Resource

Management (HRM) are the policies and practices involved in carrying out the

“people” of human resource aspects of managing position, including recruiting,

screening, training, rewarding and appraising.

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The shorter meaning of HRM is the act of managing the process of recruitment and

selection, compensation and benefits as well as employee’s safety and health in an

organization.

Therefore, from the stated meanings above, it is clear that changes in management

practices come about as organizations seek new ways to increase efficiency and

effectiveness.

History of the Origins of Human Resource Management (HRM)

The origins of HRM can be dated back to the 18th century in Western Europe and

United States of America when the Industrial Revolution laid the basis for a new

and complex industrial society. This period saw the USA shifting from

Agricultural economy to an industrial economy. In the historical context of HRM,

the first two to be noted for classical management perspective, began by Robert

Owen, a British Industrial reformer and Charles Babbage an English

Mathematician; they noted that workers were important resources in an

organization and expressed concern for their personal welfare. Being a

mathematician, Babbage emphasized the division of labour because this would

bring about specialization of employees which would result in perfect work. The

division of labour aspect had a drawback that if an employee is down, then the

station of work would also be down.

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In the early 19th century, productivity grew in businesses and as businesses were

expanding, there was a short fall of sufficient labor. Factory owners forced

employees to work long hours under difficult conditions with little pay.

Employees were treated as production machines whose main priority was to meet

profit targets. The industrial revolution began with the substation of stem power

and machinery for time consuming manual labour. In response to this need, experts

began to focus on ways to improve the performance of individual workers. This

work led to the development of Scientific Management advocated by Frederick

Taylor and others.

Scientific management looked at how the performance of individual workers can

be measured scientifically and not by the judgment of a supervisor. Taylor stated

that scientific observation of employees would reveal one best way to do any task.

In this study, skills needed for a particular job were identified and workers were

hired and trained to perform that particular job and were rewarded with a piece rate

system. Taylor supervised by a method he called soldiering employees’

deliberately working at a pace slower than they were capable of because they were

paid for what the piece of job that was measured for them. Scientific management

dealt with jobs of individual employees and as a result this caused the working

conditions, social patterns and the division of labour to diminish because these

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changes of work patterns led to widening the gap between workers and factory

owners and there was no work relationship.

Around the late 18th century a branch of classical management perspective that

focused on managing the total organization, called administrative management was

contributed by Henri Fayol and others. Using his own management experience he

tried to systematize the practice of management to provide guidance and directions

to other mangers. Fayol was the first to identify the common managerial functions

of planning, organizing, leading and controlling. Faylor’s contribution created

bureaucracy in organizations and a barrier to open communication between

employees and management and as a result barred efficiency in the work system.

The Hawthorne studies of around the late 19th century merged the Hawthorne

researchers near Chicago, USA led by Elton Mayo who demonstrated that

employee productivity was affected not only by the way the job was designed and

the manner in which employees were rewarded economically but also by certain

social and psychological factors. Therefore the Hawthorne study concluded that

payments for work was not the best incentive to motivate employees to work but

that social acceptance played a major role in employee performance. From the

Hawthorne studies, grew the Human relations movement proposed that workers

performed better if their social conditions are satisfied. The study was later

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improved by other popular theories that went along with Mayo’s theory,

McGregor’s theory X and Theory Y, Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and

Victor Vroom’s Expectation theory. The approach of human relations was the

opposite of Taylors and seemed to work best for employees. Maslow proposed that

people are motivated by a hierarchy of needs, including monetary incentives and

social acceptance and McGregor’s theory X and Theory Y model best represents

the essence of human relations movement. Mayo, Maslow and McGregor’s

research have shown that employees’ feelings, emotions and sentiments were

strongly affected by such work conditions as group relationships, leadership styles

and support from management.

Personnel Management

Along with government interventions these theories led to the enactment of new

legislations that guaranteed workers’ more rights. It was at this point that the

personnel management department was created to deal with employee caretaker

functions. Personnel management was not very involved with the company’s

strategy and operations, instead it tried to convince workers of the business

interest. At this point, personnel management was limited in its functions as it was

still not encompassing all the diversified needs of employees. There was still need

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for a department in organizations that would carry out a holistic, strategy-centre

approach to employment management

Many different writers, such as Cornelius N (2001), Haslinda A (2009), Reed S

and Gusdof M (2010) and others, have written that Human resource management is

not a completely new phenomena but a renaming of personnel management which

changed because of change in social and economic activities. The term or label

‘personnel management’ as stated above indicate that it performed narrow and

limited duties that primarily took the task of looking after employee welfare and

not that of the firm. Hence, since the 1980s the nature of Personnel management is

undergoing change and personnel functions shifting the focus in the term to that of

Human Resource management (HRM).

Human Resource Management

The term Human resource management has to a larger extent replaced the term

personnel management from around the late 20th century emerging from the

development and introduction of new theories such as Maslow’s hierarchy of

needs. As earlier defined by different writers, HRM is the set of organizational

activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective

workforce.

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Human Resource Management (HRM) is a modern term for what has traditionally

been referred to as personnel administration or personnel management. HRM

transformed from personnel management with the goals of carrying out the overall

strategy of seeking to provide Human resource management policies and practices

that reinforced the organizations’ policies and culture.

This meaning is based on the understanding that human resources are uniquely

important in sustained business success. An organization gains competitive

advantage by using its people effectively, drawing on their expertise and ingenuity

to meet clearly defined objectives. Therefore, HRM is aimed at recruiting capable,

flexible and committed people, managing and rewarding their performance and

developing key competencies. The current role of human resource management

encompasses more than just taking care of employees. It is also a strategic partner

with the organization carrying out the functions of management with greater

emphasis on planning, monitoring and control rather than on problem solving and

mediation. Organizations now realize that the effectiveness of their HR functions

has an important impact not only on top managers, but on all other employees as

well.

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The changing Roles of Human Resource Management

Today’s dynamic work environment has also enacted dynamic responsibilities for

Human Resource managers. The human resource manager’s job is not longer that

of hiring, paying and firing, it includes broader and more strategic responsibilities.

As the world becomes a global village, it means the human resource manager also

has become a global manager and more globalizations means more competition

and more completion means more pressure to be ‘world class’. Therefore to

achieve this, the HR manager is now expected to be a productive and an alert

person in the affairs of employees and that of the organization. The HR manager

also has to be conversant with the country’s labour laws in which she or he

operates from and this means to be able to formulate regulations and guidelines for

the organization that are competitive. The HR manager has to be sensitive to the

needs of the diversified group of employees and understand their social culture

backgrounds while at the same time uphold the standards of the organization.

The human resource manager is expected to embrace technological advances as

most organizations are involved in technology in the way they transact business

such as the training processes. The HR manager must embark on improving in

technology everyday in the daily tasks of the organization such as preparing

manuals and specifications for work schedules and expectations. These can range
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from the hiring process, the interview process and the training process. The nature

of work for the HR manager is changing everyday because jobs are more

technologically demanding from production to the sale point. Therefore,

employees need professional computer training skills to achieve these demanding

and changing jobs.

Strategic Human Resource Management

The 21st Century approach is that of Strategic Human Resource which aligns

employee individual goals and objectives with corporate goals and objectives

rather than enforce rules or dictates terms, acts as a facilitator and promotes a

participative approach. Strategic management is the process of identifying and

executing the organization’s mission by matching its capabilities with the demands

of its environment. Therefore main differences between strategic human resource

management (SHRM) approach and HRM approach is increased reliance of

performance based on short term contracts instead of long term employment; as

well as new dimensions of training and development function by encouraging and

facilitating innovation and creativity.

The origins of strategic human resource management are evidenced from the late

20th century. As a result the 21st century era demands that the human resource

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manager should think strategically in the way functions are executed in the

organization’s business. Strategic Human Resource management requires that the

manager uses strategic plans of an organization’s resources to achieve the

organizational goals. Previously employees just needed to know that there was a

personnel/human resources manager in the department and they would focus their

attention to that department for problem solving. This is not longer the case

because employees now have diversified needs that require the HR manager to

manage more strategically. As a result this has given rise to the parallel

development of HRM theories and practices which require planning and making

decision that pertain to the mission of the organization’s purpose of existence.

Advocates of HRM saw it a natural development of more traditional approaches to

personnel management that teamed with strategic imperatives facing organizations

in the late 20th and early 21st century.

Distinguishing features have been pointed that differentiate HRM from personnel

management such as devolvement of HR activities to line managers so that they

can become more accountable for the performance of those that they manage.

Corporations have partnered with HR specialists so that they can aim at achieving

greater understanding of business needs. This will create employee relations

between owners, managers and employees and discourage collective thinking like

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those of Trade Unions. Establishing these relationships will also establish a route

to securing greater organizational commitment and unity.

Fred David has established an overview of a Strategic Management Process for the

HR manager to understand the evolving roles of HRM. The overview begins with

the process of translating the business, developing the vision and mission statement

and ends with measuring and evaluating employee performance that match with

strategic goals of the organization. Understanding this process will help the HR

Manager to implement strategies that will in turn solve human resource issues and

increase the competitive advantage of the organization.

Conclusion

As noted, the term Human Resource management has progressively evolved

through the centuries mainly replacing personnel management. The few changes

in these terms have brought about changes in the way human resource managers

function. Personnel management was viewed as a department that carried out rules

and regulations of the employee welfare. Today Human resource management is

viewed more than that, it looks at working conditions to the modern environment

where people are viewed as strategic partners to business and are valued and

respected because they bring profit to the organization.

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The human resource management approach remains integrated to the

organization’s core strategy and vision, and seek to optimize the use of human

resource for the fulfillment of organizational goals. This strategic and

philosophical context of human resource management makes it more purposeful,

relevant, and more effective compared to the personnel management approach.

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