Concepts and Perspectives in HRM


In my previous post I gave an overview of NET. Now as mention by UGC the NET will be held on 8 july 2018, we will start covering the syllabus topics.  For the complete syllabus click here

I am starting with HRM (Human Resource Management)


Concepts and Perspectives in HRM

HRM is concerned with the human beings in an organization. “The management of man” is a very important and challenging job because of the dynamic nature of the people. No two people are similar in mental abilities, tacticians, sentiments, and behaviors; they differ widely also as a group and are subject to many varied influences. People are responsive, they feel, think and act therefore they can not be operated like a machine or shifted and altered like template in a room layout. They therefore need a tactful handing by management personnel. HRM is the process of managing people of an organization with a human approach. Human resources approach to manpower enables the manager to view the people as an important resource. It is the approach through which organization can utilize the manpower not only for the benefits of the organization but for the growth, development and self satisfaction of the concerned people. Thus, HRM is a system that focuses on human resources development on one hand and effective management of people on the other hand so that people will enjoy human dignity in their employment.

Definitions of HRM

Many great scholars had defined human resource management in different ways and with different words, but the core meaning of the human resource management deals with how to manage people or employees in the organisation.

Edwin Flippo defines- HRM as “planning, organizing, directing, controlling of procurement, development, compensation, integration , maintenance and separation of human resources to the end that individual, organizational and social objectives are achieved.”

The National Institute of Personal Management (NIPM) of India has defined human resources – personal management as “that part of management which is concerned with people at work and with their relationship within an enterprise. Its aim is to bring together and develop into an effective organization of the men and women who make up enterprise and having regard for the well – being of the individuals and of working groups, to enable them to make their best contribution to its success”.

According to Decenzo and Robbins, “HRM is concerned with the people dimension” in management. Since every organization is made up of people, acquiring their services, developing their skills, motivating them to higher levels of performance and ensuring that they continue to maintain their commitment to the organization is essential to achieve organsational objectives. This is true, regardless of the type of organization – government, business, education, health or social action”.

Prospectives in HRM

There are Five different perspectives of HRM.
1 - Normative perspective
2 - Critical perspective
3 - Behavioral perspective
4 - Systems perspective
5 - Agency or transaction cost perspective.

1 - Normative perspective


The normative perspective of HRM bases itself on the concepts of “hard HRM" and “soft HRM,  Hard HRM stresses the linkage of functional areas such as manpower planning, job analysis, recruitment, compensation and benefits, performance evaluations, contract negotiations, and labor legislations to corporate strategy. This enforces organization interests over the employees' conflicting ambitions and interests. 
Soft HRMThis model considers human capital as “assets" rather than “resources" and lays stress on organizational development, conflict management, leadership development, organizational culture, and relationship building as a means of increasing trust and ensuring performance through collaboration. This approach works under the assumption that what is good for the organization is also good for the employee.

2 - Critical perspective

The critical perspective of HRM is an outcome of normative perception. It proposes that organisations maintain their "soft HRM" approach only to show in their policies but in reality they practice "hard HRM" to extend management control.

They pretend to be concerned for workers and exploit them through work intensification and downsizing. Thus Critical Perspective proposes that HRM has only changed organizational rhetoric and reality has not changed since the introduction of Personnel. However it also argues that HRM uses a unitary, soft HRM rhetoric to obscure hard reality characterized by increased management control and diminished job security for employees. The first proposition describes HRM as powerless and the second as powerful.

3 - Behavioral perspective

Behavioral perspective of HRM believes that it is vital for an organisation to control or mold the behavior of its employees to bring the desired results from them. Focus is on the identification of desired behavior, ensuring availability of opportunities and environment for desired behavior, developing employees' skills to bring desired behavior, and motivating employees to behave as desired.

Different employee behaviours needed for different organisations. Organisations' policies and practices help in bringing desired employee behaviour and that increases its effectiveness.

4 - Systems perspective


The systems perspective describes an organization in terms of input, throughput, and output, with all these systems involved in transactions with a surrounding environment. The organized activities of employees constitute the input, the transformation of energies within the system at throughput, and the resulting product or service the output. A negative feedback loop provides communications on discrepancies.

5 - Agency or transaction cost perspective

Agency or transaction cost perspective holds the view that the strong natural inclination of people working in groups is to reduce their performance and rely on the efforts of others in the group. When one person delegates responsibility to another person, conflicts of interests invariably arise.The major role of human resource management in such a context is to promote alternative ways of controlling behavior to reduce the effects of such conflicts and minimize the cost to the organization. 

Next Topic will be "Human Resource Planning - Objectives, Process and techniques"

Comments

goldensun said…
Effective Resource Management
Cloud Management Software where you can view data in different formats, create alerts, export and create automatic reports. Effective resource management involves planning

Popular posts from this blog

Hand Written notes on Communication

Will Digital Marketing Kill Traditional Marketing ??