Human Resource Management , A Contemporary Perspective

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MWOC

HRM , A Contemporary Perspective By Ian Beardwell &

Len Holden

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Human resource management• Walton (1985), in an attempt to define

HRM, stresses mutuality between employers and employees:

• Mutual goals, mutual influence, mutual respect, mutual rewards, mutual responsibility

• The theory is that policies of mutuality will elicit commitment which in turn will yield both better economic performance and greater human development

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Human resource management

• Beer & Spector (1985) emphasised a new set of assumptions in shaping their meaning of HRM:

• Proactive system wide intervention, with emphasis on ‘fit’ linking HRM with strategic planning and cultural change

• People and social capital capable of development

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• Coincidence of interest between stakeholders can be developed

• Open channels of communication to build trust and commitment

• Goal orientation

• Participation and informed choice

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• The boundaries of HRM overlap the traditional areas of personnel management, industrial relations, organisational behaviour and strategic and operational management

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Human resource management• Emergence of HRM can be attributed to

the major pressures experienced in product markets during the recession of 1980-1982

• US economy was being challenged by Japan, which led to discussions on ‘the productivity of the American worker’ compared to the Japanese worker

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• ‘The declining rate of innovation in American industries’

• From the above came the desire to create a workforce situation free from conflict in which both employers and employees worked in unity towards the same goal

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• In the UK HRM became popular because of:

• Increased competition

• The recession in the early part of the decade

• Introduction of new technology

• Restructuring of the economy

• Poor training

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• An early model of HRM introduced the concept of strategic human resource management by which HRM policies are inextricably linked to the ‘formulation and implementation of strategic corporate and/or business objectives’ (Devanna et al;1984) – matching model

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• The matching model emphasises the necessity of ‘tight fit’ between HR strategy and business strategy

• This is a ‘unitarist’ view as it assumes that different views/conflict cannot exist within an organisation because management and employees are working to the same goal of the organisation’s success

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• In order for HRM to be strategic it had to encompass all the human resource areas of the organisation

• Decentralisation and devolvement of responsibility are also seen as very much a part of HRM strategy's it facilitates communication, involvement and commitment of middle management and other employees within the organisation

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• The effectiveness of organisations rested on how strategy and structure of the organisation interrelated

• A more flexible model was developed by Beer and his associates (1984) at Harvard University

• Their model is known as ‘the map of HRM territory’

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• ‘The map of HRM territory’ recognises the legitimate interest of stakeholders and that the creation of HRM strategies would have to recognise these interests and fuse them as much as possible into human resource strategy and ultimately the business strategy

• Referred to as a ‘neopluralist’ model

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• Guest (1987) exerts that a combination of a set of propositions, which include ‘strategic integration’, ‘high commitment’, ‘high quality’, and ‘flexibility’, creates more effective organisations

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• Strategic integration is defined as:

• ‘the ability to integrate HRM issues into their strategic plans, to ensure that various aspects of HRM cohere and for line managers to incorporate an HRM perspective into their decision making’

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• High commitment is defined as being:

• ‘concerned with both behavioural commitment to pursue agreed goals and attitudinal commitment reflected in a strong identification with the enterprise’

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• High quality ‘refers to all aspects of managerial behaviour, including management of employees and investment in high quality employees, which in turn will bear directly on the quality of the goods and services provided’

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• Flexibility is seen as being ‘primarily concerned with what is sometimes called functional flexibility but also with an adaptable organisational structure with the capacity to manage innovation’

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• Two important points cannot be overlooked :

• It has raised questions about the nature of employment relationships

• Management of employee relations and the question of employee commitment to the employment relationship remains at the centre of the debate

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• As organisations vary in size, aims, functions, complexity, the physical nature of their product and appeal as employers, so do the contributions of HRM- discuss

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Human resource management• Human resource management however

defined, concerns the management of employment relationship: practiced in organisations by managers

• The nature of the organisation and the way it is managed, constitute the context within which HRM is embedded, and generate the tensions that HRM policies and practices tend to solve

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• Nature of Context:

• Our understanding depends upon our perception

• It also depends on our ideology

• There are therefore competing or contested interpretation of events

• Different groups in society have their own interpretations of events

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• The very nature of the people and the way they constitute an organisation makes management complex

• Unlike other resources people have needs for autonomy, they think they are creative, they have feelings

• These characteristics in human beings complicate the tasks for managers

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• Inherent tensions in organisations:

• The existence of several stakeholders in the employment relationship

• Their differing perspective upon events, experiences and relationships

• Their differing aims, interests and needs

• These tensions have to be continuously resolved

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• As a result a continuing issue is that of managerial control:

• How to orchestrate organisational activities in a way that meets the needs of various stakeholders

• The strategies adopted are embodied in the employment policies, and the organisational systems they choose to put in place

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Human resource management• Four strategies can be identified that

managers have adopted to deal with tensions in organisations:

• Scientific management or classical school of management theory

• Human relations approach

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• Contingency or human resource management approach

• The fourth approach is more an ideal than a common reality

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Scientific management theory

• This approach addressed the tensions in the organisation by striving to control people and keep down their costs

• It emphasised the need for rationality, clear objectives, the managerial prerogative, the rights of managers to manage

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Scientific management theory

• This led to a reduction of tasks to their basic elements and grouping of similar elements together to produce low skilled, low paid jobs, epitomised by assembly-line working

• Workers tended to be treated relatively impersonally and collectively i.e. management and labour

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Human relations approach

• Emerged during the middle years of the last century and developed in parallel with an increasingly prosperous society in which strong trade unions and a growing acceptance of the right of the individual to achieve self-fulfilment

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• It modifies scientific management by its recognition that people differed from other resources

• That if they were not treated as human beings they would not be fully effective at work

• It recognised the significance of social relationships at work

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• Managers had to pay hard attention to the nature of supervision and the working of groups and teams and to find ways of involving employees through job design, motivation, and a democratic, consultative or participative style of management

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Human resource management approach

• Developed as major changes and threats have been experienced in the context of organisations:

• Recession, international competition, Japan's business success

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• In response to the need to achieve flexibility in the organisation and workforce and improved performance through developing decision making and empowerment

• Requiring that employees become multi-skilled and work across traditional boundaries

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• This approach attempts to integrate the needs of employees with those of the organisation in a clear & definite manner

• It recognises that people should be invested in as assets so that they achieve their potential for the benefit of the organisation

• As such employees are approached individually rather than collectively

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• This strategy approaches the organisation holistically and often with greater attention to its culture, leadership and vision

• It pays greater attention to the individual rather than the collective

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• The notions of developing individual’s potential have been accompanied by individual contracts of employment, performance appraisal and performance related pay

• HRM construes individuals as resource for the organisation to use

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Idealistic, humanistic approach

• Aims to construct the organisation as an appropriate environment for autonomous individuals to work together collaboratively for their common good

• Approach adopted by many cooperatives

• It forms the basis of the notion of learning organisation (Senge, 1990)

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• Underlying the management of people in organisations are some fundamental assumptions about the nature of people and reality itself and hence about organising and managing

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• Managers make assumptions bout the nature of the organisation:

• Many interpreting it as an objective reality ( not influenced by feelings) that exists separately from themselves and other organisational members

• They make assumptions about the nature of their goals, which they identify as the goals for the organisation

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• These assumptions inform the practices of management, and hence define the organisational and conceptual space that HRM fills and generate the multiple meanings of which HRM is constructed

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• The definition of the wider context of HRM could embrace innumerable topics (Industrial Revolution to globalisation) and a long time perspective

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• What in detail constitutes the elements of the socio-economic, technical, political-legal and competitive context?

• What, in your view have been their influences upon HRM?

Human Resource Management , A Contemporary Perspective

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