Abstract
The concept of human resource management as a novel approach to management of workforce took a new turn in the early 80s. This was influenced by a number of factors including rise in global competition resulting from deregulation and globalization and the influence of distinguished scholars from the US and the UK. In 1980s , the notion that human capital was the most important asset in the organization started to give way to the proposition that it was the source of competitive advantage.
The emergence of Human Resources Management as a distinguished philosophy of management was facilitated by the rise in strategic management thinking. Organizations were forced to reassess their structure and operations and how they respond to the changing global business environment. This paper seeks to explore human resource management from the historical point of view and the changes in the management of human resource in the contemporary business environment.
Introduction
There is no single universal definition to Human Resource Management. Many literatures use loose definitions that encompass anything and everything related to the management of employees in organizations and is not tied to a specific orientation of management of people, philosophy or style of management.
Therefore, the term Human Resource Management refers to the employees, an elementary resource in an organization, besides other assets that enables an organization to achieve its goals (Baum, 2006, p.2).
Not all organizations use this term to describe people management function. A number of have stuck with the old term ‘Personnel Management’. This has posed a lot of questions to whether these terminologies matters and if they signify different approaches to the management of employees (Köster, 2002, P.3).
Human Resource is also a term used to describe all the people working in an organization (Gronn 2002, p. 425; Baum, 2006, p.22). Human resource management is the function within an organization that emphasizes on hiring and recruitment of employees, managing employees and giving them direction (Cappelli 2000, p.104; Bratton and Gold, 2007, p. 33).
Human resource management can also be preformed by various sectional/departmental heads also known as line managers. Therefore, the human resources manager oversees numerous issues touching on the employees and their welfare.
Other issues handled by human resource department include compensation; performance management and appraisal; organizational development; motivation of employees; staff development; grievance and disciplinary; and communication among others (Banfield and Kay, 2008, p. 3).
Personnel Management in pre 1980
Prior to industrial revolution, most manufacturing was done at home by individual craftsmen. Industrial revolution brought in specialization, division of labor and concentration of work in the manufacturing plants. As a result, this predicted the technical management movement which dominated the early 20th century (Armstrong, 2009, p. 6).
An American scientist by the name Fredrick Winslow believed that scientific techniques could improve productivity and efficiency of these manufacturing firms and enhanced greater cooperation among its workers (Burnes, 2004, p. 309).
Therefore, Personnel management emerged towards the end of 19th century as a response to the unfavorable conditions in the industries and involving the campaigns of informed workers for what was known as “industrial improvement” (Cunning, 1975, p. 16). Even during this time, there were some uncertainty on the role of the welfare/ social workers and persisted for a long period of time.
The main momentum to the development of personnel management took place with the first and second world wars (Greer, 1995, p. 105). As the number of people joining the workforce swelled, the role of the social workers not only became dominant, but also widened the scope their duties, including implementation of the rules required by large organizations owned by the state.
Taking into consideration changes in the work being performed by function, management of employment and welfare was combined under the wide term ‘personnel management’ (Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 3).
The 2nd world war saw the increase of negotiations between workers unions and industrial owners, with the acceleration of this trend being witnessed during 1950s and 1960s. The 1960s saw the massive number of official and non-official industrial actions, especially in the manufacturing sector (Köster, 2002, P.4).
Concerns regarding the number of working hours lost during the industrial actions, led to the formation of commission of inquiries. One of the most dominant commissions in Europe was the Royal commission under Lord Donovan in the UK. The results of these commissions were very important to the industrial owners, workers unions and the personnel managers who were accused of lacking negotiation skills and failing to come up with excellent strategies on industrial relations.
The commission reports established that these deficiencies were as a result of failure by most employers to give personnel management adequately high priority (Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 3).
The 1960s and 1970s witnessed rise in the formalization of features of HR functions across Europe and Northern America. This saw the rise in employment legislations, for instance, employment contracts, training and development, redundancy payment, equity in payment and opportunities, job protection among others, with personnel managers being responsible for their implementation.
Towards the end of 1970s, the main aspects of personnel management were in place and encompassed five roles. These were collective bargaining role, implementation of legislation role, bureaucratic role, social conscience of business role and performance enhancement role (Burnes, 2004, p. 310).
Even though these developments took place in the 60s and 70s, the status of personnel managers was not greatly improved. 1980s saw the increased pressure on organizations to enhance their personnel management practices. Given such pressure, the function questionably had to take action in order to uphold its legitimacy and improve its status. It was under this atmosphere of change and ambiguity that saw the arrival of Human Resource Management (HRM) (Banfield and Kay, 2008, p. 6).
Federal workers are not subjected to similar regulations as there counterparts in the private sector; majority of the general public often associate them with bureaucrats (Levine, 1986, p. 8). This is because federal government is usually viewed as cumbersome, unproductive and a stronghold of workers who can not effectively perform in the private sector (National Commission on the Public Service, 1989, P. 2).
In 1978, U.S. congress attempted to deal with these challenges by passing the Civil Service Reform Act. The Civil Service Act of 1978 was aimed at overhauling the merit system of 1883 which was under a lot criticism during that time.
The merit system was instituted to protect the bureaucracy from political influence and was regarded as inefficient, insensitive, and exceedingly complex and bound by rules (Kettl et al., 1996, p. 3). Civil service Act was a product of Jimmy Carter’s regime and was part of their civil service reform agenda (Sawyer, 1978, p. A2).
The Act was meant to restore the principle of merit to a system that had already flourished into a bureaucratic mess. The act was also meant to offer greater flexibility in management and enhanced remunerations for excellent performance without affecting employment security, The Act also protected the workers against all forms of discriminations and malpractices from the employers.
The Act gave federal employees the right to join workers Unions or other agencies and use them as bargaining mechanism. Lastly, the act stipulated disciplinary procedures for employees and was seen as an effort by the government to lay-off incompetent workers (Sawyer, 1978, p. A2).
International Labor Organization (ILO) was founded out of the social and political movements of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. Since its establishment in 1919 the pursuit of social justice has been the organization’s main goal (ILO, 2011, P. 1). The ILO’S charter asserts that long term peace in the world can only be achieved through social justice.
The main event in the ILO’s record was the declaration of Philadelphia which took place in 1944. This transformed the organization from the world war era to the current structure. The declaration highlighted the significance of freedom of expression and association and equity to the prosperity of any organization or nations.
This is the fundamental principal of social justice that has been pursued by other organizations and nations all over the world. The 1999 ILO’s declaration for fair globalization ratified in the laws of many countries recognizes the need for gender equality, job security and human dignity in the work place (ILO, 2011, P. 2).
The U.S Civil Right Act of 1964 prohibited all forms of discrimination and promoted equal employment opportunities. Pregnancy discrimination Act of 1978 protects pregnant women against discrimination or dismissal during pregnancy. Civil Rights Act of 1991 reaffirmed and tightened the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
This law allows workers to sue employers for punitive damages. Other Laws on social justice include the American with disability Act of 1990, Vocational Rehabilitation Act of 1991, Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, Worker Adjustment and retaining Notification Act of 1988 among others (Krishnan, 2012, p.1).
Human Resource Management in 1980s
The early models of Human Resource Management came from U.S. and provided the promise that the existing personnel function could not meet emerging challenges resulting from increased competition and industrial reforms in the Western nations. Proponents of HRM argue that, if the personnel function exhibited the ability to design, implement, and manage more complex scenarios, it would lead to increased performance in the organization.
As a consequence of this, the personnel function would create a highly demanded clarity and legitimacy of its activities and therefore maintain considerable improvement in status for the role of personnel management and personnel management as a profession (Purcell, 1989, p. 4).
Human Resource Management emphasized on the relationship between employment policies, practices and organizational objectives (Price, 2007, p. 2). The Michigan Model of Human Resource Management asserted that lasting competitive advantage depends on safeguarding the alignment between organizational goals, Human Resource strategies and its personnel management activities.
A lot of significance was attached to effective management of employees at the centre of organization’s business policies under HRM, making it more striking to the HR managers/officers who were tasked with the responsibility of implementing HR policies (Banfield and Kay, 2008, p. 8).
The additional attractive feature of HRM is the assumption of a fundamentally harmonious relationship between the workers and the management where both are perceived to be working towards achieving the same goal of success in the organization. This marked the contrast between the old method of personnel management where the grievances between the employers and employees were seen to be inevitable and normal part of employment relationship (Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 4).
On the contrary to this, the Harvard Model takes into consideration a broad range of stakeholder interest than the Michigan Model, while stressing the significance of management of employees and its role. This model posits that stakeholders’ interests are more achievable if the Human Resource policy choices and workers well-being is taken care of.
This model became very popular in the Western world despite of the criticism from some quarters for its inclination towards unitarist view (harmonious relationship between workers and the management) over plurarist view (inevitable conflict) of the workplace (Banfield and Kay, 2008, p. 9).
However, these models do not pay attention to the workplace realities or to the challenging and disjointed nature of relationship between workers and the management (Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 5).
The emergence of Human Resources Management as a distinguished philosophy of management was facilitated by the increase in strategic management thinking. Managers and the stakeholders were forced to reassess the structure and operations of the organizations and how to respond to the changing global business environment (Price, 2007, p. 3).
The new approach to human resource management was attractive to organizational leaders who were experiencing numerous challenges and were faced by the need to adjust hastily and fundamentally. Marchington and Wilkinson (2008) describe Human Resource Management as a striking option to management influenced by market forces necessitating enhanced quality, increases flexibility and unvarying innovations.
Simultaneously, the move towards Human Resource Management reflected the dominance of neo-classical philosophies and novel approaches to management (Dessler, 2008, p. 12).
According to Purcell (1989) Human Resource Management philosophy in 1980s was closely aligned with the existing entrepreneurial ideas and the freezing of management plans. The alignment proceeded up to 90s. Consequently, Human Resource Management as a strategy and practice, as well as a task of experts, became closely associated with the interests of most companies (Purcell, 1989, p. 7).
The contemporary HRM is dominated with ‘soft models. This approach view employees as a valuable asset to the organization and are the main source of competitive advantage. According to the ‘soft models’, human resource managers are required to promote employee commitment and loyalty to guarantee high degree of performance.
The present approaches strive to achieve competitive advantage through strategic deployment of very much committed and able personnel using a range of culture, structure and human resource techniques (Dessler, 2008, p. 12).
Strategic Human Resource Management
Change is a widespread feature in life of organizations and the capability to handle such changes is the core competence of success in an organization (Senge et al., 2004, p.5). The main drivers of organizational changes over the last two decades have been globalization, advancement in technology and fluctuation in global economy (Burnes, 2004, p. 309).
This has led to distressed exploration of mechanisms for achieving competitive advantage through increased radical forms of change (Stacey, 2003, p. 2). Senge et al. (2004, p.6) explains how individuals and organizations work jointly to create a sustainable planet. They have developed new ideologies related to leadership using an organized approach.
The systematic approach views the entire organization as a complex system with interconnected parts. The constituents of an organization include the management, general employees and the stakeholders.
Senge et al (2004, p.8) describes sustainable thinkers as innovators who work relentlessly to create regenerative economy in the future and are capable of viewing and understanding the system in which they live and work. Their vision is beyond the events and organizational boundaries thus make critical choices which take into consideration the natural and societal edge so as to create sustainable cycles of innovation (Senge et al., 2008, p. 9).
The resource based theory, also known as the resource based view of the firm, is one of the latest strategic management concepts to be enthusiastically embraced by HR scholars (Stacey, 2003, p. 2). This theory focuses mainly on the resource base a firm has other than the finished products of the firm.
A firm gains competitive advantage by suitably employing its resources in production. Competitive advantage here refers to the state where the firm adopts strategies of production which add value to the resources and these strategies are not common in the competing firms.
Senge et al. (2004, p.10) confirm that resource diversity and resource immobility are the two main hypotheses that the resource based theory of the firm are based on. When a firm becomes strategic, the human resource managers take responsibility of all the operations and activities within his/her jurisdiction (Price, 2007, p. 12).
There are various models that determine whether strategic human resource management exists in a given organization. These models include: open system theory and universalistic perspective (Burnes, 2004, p. 309). Open system theory asserts that the source of a company’s inputs is the environment i.e. from its customers or from the other companies (Cappelli, 2000, p.106).
Universalistic perspective argues that excellent performance by the firm is attributed to good strategic human resource management practices for example: on job trainings, job definition, among others. Many firms would adopt any strategy possible for them to maximize their returns on the resources.
Thus, from the resource based theory’s point of view, continued diversification will tend to accelerate the performance of the firm. Therefore a high performance is exhibited by the firms with a continued diversification and vice versa (Salaman et al., 2005, p. 15).
Currently, organizations are trying to integrate strategic HRM practices with information communication technology (ICT). The main area of focus is on training and development and performance appraisal (Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 20).
Use of technology creates a virtual learning and human resource development. It is also giving employees chance to take individual responsibility for there own development and ambitions. Online programs recognize the fact that employees level of training and development varies considerably in accordance with each and every individual.
Therefore, it ensures equity in access to formal and informal training among the employees. Online solution to professional training and human resource development improves communication and collaboration among the employees (Bratton and Gold, 2007, p. 35; Gilmore and Williams, 2009, P. 20).
Conclusion
Personnel management can be traced back to the 19th century. However, it significantly took a new turn in 1980s.The 1980s was dominated by ‘hard models’ of human resource management. From this perspective, workers were considered to be the same as other resources and their deployment depended on the management.
The resource aspect of HRM was overemphasized with labor being accorded a commodity status. The contemporary HRM is dominated with ‘soft models. This approach view employees as a valuable asset to the organization and are the main source of competitive advantage.
According to the ‘soft models’, human resource managers are required to promote employee commitment and loyalty to guarantee high degree of performance. The present approaches strive to achieve competitive advantage through strategic deployment of very much committed and able personnel using a range of culture, structure and human resource techniques.
The future of Human Resource Management will be based on integral infrastructure to support self driven, employee’s development initiative. Most organizations will embrace new technology (such as online training and induction techniques) to deliver virtual learning and human resource development.
They will create a legacy where employees take individual responsibility for there own development and ambitions. Online programs would recognize the fact that employees level of training and development varies considerably in accordance with each and every individual.
Therefore, they will ensure equity in access to formal and informal training among the employees. Besides better terms of employment, the integrated approach to human resource management will act as a source of motivation to employees. Delegation of duties and decision making process will embrace universality approach.
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