Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management

Human resources, easily recognized as the most important of the resources required for the production of goods and services, are the key to rapid socio-economic development and efficient service delivery. According to Barney (1995: 50), human resources include all the experience, skills, judgement, abilities, knowledge, contacts, risk-taking and wisdom of individuals and associates with an organization. Without an adequate, skilled and well-motivated workforce operating within a sound human resource management programme, development is not possible. A manager or an employee, whether in the private or public sector, who underrates the critical role and underplays the importance of people in goal achievement, can neither be effective nor efficient.

According to Frank (1974), human resource management is a series of activities in which the job, the individual and the organisation all interact as each develops and changes. He further identifies two major activities within the human resource area. The first is concerned with the recruitment, selection, placement, compensation, and appraisal of the human resource. This group of functions is usually referred to as personnel or human resource utilisation. The other group of functions comprises those directed at working with the existing human resources in order to improve their efficiency and effectiveness. The activities are designed to enable the existing members of the organization to assume new roles and functions. These activities are concerned with human resources development.

Human resource management is concerned with obtaining the best possible staff for an organization and, having got them, looking after them so that they will want to stay and give of the best to their jobs (Cuming, 1968: 21). In other words, getting the right calibre of people by the process of recruitment to meet the organization’s need is not just enough. Conditions have to be created which would make them stay on the job, happy on the job, and cope with the demands of the job.                                                   

Mathis and Jackson (1997) see human resource (HR) management as the design of formal systems in an organization to ensure the effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals. Similarly, Griffin (1997) sees HR management as the set of organizational activities directed at attracting, developing, and maintaining an effective workforce.

Goals and Role of Human Resource Management

The goals of HR management are to develop the workers in the organization to contribute to goal achievement in the organization by management improved productivity, quality and service. In addition, HR management has some specific roles to play, in an organization. These are strategic and operational roles.

           

Strategic Role 

Human resources are critical for effective organizational functioning (Terpstra & Rozell, 1992). Human resources were once relegated to second-class status in many organizations. But its importance has grown dramatically in the last two decades. Its new importance stems from increased legal complexities, the recognition that human resources are a valuable means for improving productivity, and the awareness today of the cost associated with poor human resource management (Wright and McMahan, 1992). HR also represents a significant investment of organizational efforts. If managed well, HR can be a source of competitive strength for the organization. Indeed, managers now realize that the effectiveness of their HR function has a substantial impact on the bottom-line performance of the firm.

Strategically, then, human resources must be viewed in the same context as the financial, technological and other resources that are managed in organizations. As a matter of fact, we rate human resources higher than other resources since the management of other resources (eg information resources) entirely depends on the former.