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Human Resource management is evolving rapidly. Human resource management is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a Workforce . SYNONYMS Its Synonyms include:
Columbia Encyclopedia : "personnel management" - see "industrial management". Encyclopædia Britannica: "Personnel administration is also frequently called personnel management, industrial relations, employee relations." But these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the theoretical discipline. Sometimes even Industrial Relations and employee relations are confusingly listed as synonyms,Encyclopædia Britannica although these normally refer to the relationship between management and workers and the behavior of workers in companies. The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process. HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in risk reduction within organistions. http://www.towers.fr/essays/hrm.html Synonyms such as ''personnel management'' are often used in a more restricted sense to describe activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. ACADEMIC THEORY The goal of human resource management is to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining employees and also to manage them effectively. The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines, therefore we need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace. Fields such as , Post-structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities offer bachelor and master degrees in Human Resources Management. One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields for the HRM functionUlrich, Dave (1996) "Human Resource Champions". Harvard Business School Press:
However, many HR functions these days struggle to get beyond the roles of administration and employee champion, and are seen rather as reactive than strategically proactive partners for the top management. In addition, HR organizations also have the difficulty in proving how their activities and processes add value to the company. Only in the recent years HR scholars and HR professionals are focusing to develop models that can measure if HR adds value.Smit, Martin E.J.H. (2006), "HR, Show me the money; Presenting an exploratory model that can measure if HR adds value", available online Critical Academic Theory / Taylorism , McDonaldisation (Modernism). Critical Theory also questions whether HRM is the pursuit of "attitudinal shaping" (Wilkinson 1998), particularly when considering empowerment, or perhaps more precisely pseudo-empowerment - as the critical perspective notes. BUSINESS PRACTICE Human resources management comprises several processes. Together they are supposed to achieve the above mentioned goal. These processes can be performed in an HR department, but some tasks can also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other departments.
CAREERS The sort of careers available in HRM are varied. There are generalist HRM jobs such as human resource assistant. There are careers involved with employment, recruitment and placement and these are usually conducted by interviewers, EEO ( Equal_Opportunity_Employment ) specialists or college recruiters. Training and development specialism is often conducted by trainers and orientation specialists. Compensation and benefits tasks are handled by compensation analysts, salary administrators, and benefits administrators. PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS Professional organizations in HRM include the Society For Human Resource Management and the Chartered Institute Of Personnel And Development (CIPD). SEE ALSO REFERENCES - Wilkinson, A. 1998. Empowerment: theory and practice. Personnel Review. {Link without Title} . Vol. 27(1): 40-56. Available from: Emerald on the World Wide Web: http://hermia.emeraldinsight.com/vl=2601464/cl=84/nw=1/fm=docpdf/rpsv/cw/mcb/00483486/v27n1/s3/p40 16.02.2004 . - Legge, K. 2004. Human Resource Management: Rhetorics and Realities. Anniversary Ed. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan |
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