Personnel Management vs Human Resource Management

Traditional Personnel Management vs. Human Resource Management

• Personnel management focused on administrative tasks such as staffing, payroll, and contractual obligations.
• Human Resource Management (HRM) goes beyond administrative tasks and encompasses a broad vision of how management would like the workforce to contribute to the organization's success.

Key Responsibilities of HRM

• Effective management and utilization of people
• Appraising performance and compensation based on competencies
• Developing competencies that enhance individual and organizational performance
• Increasing innovation and creativity
• Applying new approaches to work process design, succession planning, career development, and inter-organizational mobility

HRM Functions

• Conducting job analysis to determine the nature of each employee's job
• Planning labor needs and recruiting job candidates
• Selecting job candidates
• Orienting and training new employees
• Managing wages and salaries
• Providing incentives and benefits
• Appraising performance
• Communicating with employees (interviewing, counseling, discipline)
• Training and development
• Building employee commitment and loyalty
• Ensuring equal opportunity and affirmative action
• Maintaining employee health and safety
• Handling grievances and labor relations

HR Planning

• Ensuring the right number and kinds of people in the right places at the right time
• Succession planning
• Staffing: filling open positions through job analysis, personnel planning, recruiting, interviewing, testing, and selection, and training and development

Job Analysis

• Gathering information to determine the elements of each job
• Identifying tasks, duties, and responsibilities of a particular job
• Producing a job specification

Job Specification

• Human qualifications required to accomplish a job
• Traits, skills, and experiences needed for a job

Training and Development

• Educational process that delivers knowledge and skills for job performance
• Producing knowledgeable, motivated, and efficient employees
• Development: broader scope of improvement and growth abilities of the employee

Orienting Employees

• Formally introducing new employees to their jobs, the organization, and socializing them with performance expectations
• Objectives: reducing anxiety, familiarizing with the job and organization, and facilitating the outsider-insider transition
• Orientation program: providing information to help new employees fit smoothly into the organization

Compensation and Benefits

• Compensation administration: determining a cost-effective pay structure
• Factors influencing pay levels: job kind, business environment, geographic location, employee performance, and seniority
• Compensation forms: wages (hourly rate, salary, bonus, tips, commission) and benefits (social security, paid time off, life and disability insurance, retirement programs, health insurance)
• Non-financial rewards designed to enrich employees' lives

Discipline and Grievances

• Discipline: a multistage disciplinary action according to labor law and/or internal policy
• Grievance: a complaint lodged by an employee against an employer, usually regarding wages, hours, or working conditions

Ethics in Human Resource Management

• Ethics refers to fundamental principles of right and wrong
• Ethical behavior is consistent with those principles
• Employees' rights: right of privacy, right of freedom of conscience, and right of freedom of speech