Employee Relations

Question : Trace the development of Personnel/Human Resource Management in Ireland.

The Development of Personnel/Human Resource Management in Ireland

Introduction

Human resource management or HRM is essentially the management function of the people that work in organisations. HRM is perhaps the hardest of management functions within an organisation because of the human factor, the reason for this is that people are all different; some of these differences are physical, cultural, psychological, abilities, aptitudes, and temperaments. Effectively we all are different and this means we need to be managed differently, therefore making HRM a tough task. This essay will look at the historical background of this complex management function in Irish society. It will examine how personnel management or HRM has developed and evolved to what we now term HRM or Personnel Management.

The Birth of Personnel Management/HRM

18th century Brittan saw the start of the industrial revolution, Ireland was governed by the UK and most of the people were poor tenant farmers.   The industrial revolution that took place in Brittan and later spread to Ireland causing the beginning of what we call HRM. At this time the factory system needed a new way of organising people. These factories used new machinery to produce goods and materials. These machines needed had to be installed, maintained and operated. This meant that people needed to be organised and managed in order for the owners of these factories to generate as much profit as possible. With many factories opening up this caused competition between the factory owners and to be competitive they subjected the workers or labour force to long working hours, low pay and dangerous working conditions.

We can point to two important developments in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century which critically impacted upon the development and evolution of HRM, particularly in regard to the emergence of the specific HR... [continues]

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