CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

(STRATEGIC ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT)

a) Management
• The process of working with people and resources to accomplish organizational
goals.
• A good manager does those things both effectively and efficiently.
• To be effective is to achieve organizational goals.
• To be efficient is to achieve goals with minimal waste of resources that is to make
the best possible use of money, time, materials the people.
• The four basic functions of planning, organizing, leading and controlling.
(Management process)

b) Human Resource Management

• The utilization of individuals to achieve organizational objectives.
• There are five main functions in human resource management system:
o Human Resource Development (HRD) – to provide training and
development; individual career planning and development activities and
performance appraisal
o Compensation and Benefits – provides employees with adequate and
equitable rewards for their contributions
o Staffing – proper number of employees with appropriate skills at the right
time
o Employee and Labor Relations – maintaining good relationships with
employees to create union-free environment
o Safety and Health – to ensure that the employees work in a safe working
environment and enjoy good health

• Concepts and techniques you need to carry out the “people” or personnel aspects
of your management job include:
o Conducting job analyses (determine the nature of each employee’s job)
o Planning labor needs and recruiting job candidates
o Selecting job candidates
o Orienting and training new employees
o Managing wages and salaries (compensating employees)
o Providing incentives and benefits
o Appraising performance
o Communicating (interviewing, counseling, disciplining)
o Training and developing managers
o Building employee commitment

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 • And what a manager should know about:
o Equal opportunity and affirmative action
o Employee health and safety
o Handling grievances and labor relations

c) Why is HR management important to all managers? You don’t want to:

• Hire the wrong person
• Experience high turnover
• Find your people not doing their best
• Waste time with useless interviews
• Have your company taken to court because of discriminatory actions
• Have your company cited under federal occupational safety laws relative to others
in organization
• Allow a lack of training to undermine your department’s effectiveness
• Commit any unfair labor practices

d) Line versus Staff Authority

Authority is the right to make decisions, to direct the work of others and to give orders.
• Line managers
o Authorized to direct the work of subordinates
o In charge to accomplishing the organization’s basic goals
• Staff managers
o Authorized to assist and advise line managers in accomplishing basic
goals
o HR managers are generally staff managers
o Responsible for assisting and advising line managers in areas like
recruiting, hiring and compensation

e) Line Managers’ HRM Responsibilities

• HR manager carries out three distinct functions:
1 Line Function • Exerts line authority within the HR department -
directs the activities of the people in his or her own
department and in related service areas
• Exert implied authority elsewhere in the
organization – virtue by others’ knowledge that he or she
has access to top management (in areas like testing and
affirmative action)
2 Coordinative • Functional control – act as “the right arm of the top
Function executive” – ensure that line managers are implementing
the firm’s HR objectives, policies and procedures
(example: adhering to sexual harassment code of
practice)
3 Staff (Service) Staff • Play as an employee advocacy to assist and advise

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 line manager (example hiring, training, evaluating,
rewarding, promoting and disciplining of employees at all
levels)
f) Strategic Planning and Strategic Trends
Strategic human resource management is defined as “the linking of HRM with strategic
goals and objectives in order to improve business performance and develop
organizational cultures that foster innovation and flexibility”. HR is a strategic partner in
the HRM works with other top managers to formulate the company’s strategy as well as
to execute it.

Human Resource’s role today is its increased involvement in developing and

implementing the company’s strategy. Strategy refers to the company’s long-term plan
for how it will balance its internal strengths and weaknesses with its external
opportunities and threats to maintain a competitive advantage. The CEO might decide to
enter new market, drop product line, and embark on 5 year cost cutting plan. Hence, HR
manager to carry out hiring or firing new workers, hiring outplacement firms for those
fired.

g) Levels of Strategic Planning

1 Corporate Level • Identify the portfolio of business that comprises
Strategy the organization
• Ways to which this business relate tone another
2 Business Level • Identify how its managers will build and
Competitive Strategy strengthen that business’s long term competitive
position in the marketplace
• Example: how Warner Music will compete with
Sony, Volvo on safety, Rolex on quality, Wal-Mart on
price
3 Functional Strategy • Identify the basic courses of action that each of the
department will pursue to get help the business attain its
competitive goals

h) Trends
1 Globalization Globalization means more competition – more pressure to
improve – to lower costs, to make employee more
productive and to find new ways to do things better and
less expensively

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2 Technological Internet and Information Technology have forced and
advances enabled firms to become more competitive
3 Deregulation Company must be better, faster and more competitive to
survive and thrive today
4 Growing workforce Diversity is defined as “any attribute that human are likely
diversity and changing to use to tell them, that person is different from me” and
in the nature of work includes factions – race, sex, age, values and cultural
norms

Workforce demographics are changing

More women, minority-group members and older worker
enter the workforce
Moving towards a service society and a growing emphasis
on human capital
Reduce cost, open new way to complete, changing nature
of work.

i) Globalization & Technological Innovation are changing the way firms are
managed
• Traditional pyramid-shaped organization is flattening
• Employees are being empowered to make more decisions
• Work is increasingly organized around teams and processes
• The bases of power are changing
• Managers today must build commitment

j) Human Resource’s Strategic Role

Firms today are instituting HR practices aimed at gaining competitive advantage from
their employees. Example: General Electric formal chairman said, “the only way I see to
get more productivity is by getting people involved and excited about their jobs.