Hr Today

DEFINITION
Human resource management is defined as a strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets – the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of its objectives. Storey (1989) believes that HRM can be regarded as a ‘set of interrelated policies with an ideological and philosophical underpinning’. He suggests four aspects that constitute the meaningful version of HRM:

1. a particular constellation of beliefs and assumptions;
2. a strategic thrust informing decisions about people management;
3. the central involvement of line managers; and
  a) 4. reliance upon a set of ‘levers’ to shape the employment relationship
HR policies, which are the guidelines defining how these values, principles and the strategies should be applied and implemented in specific areas of HRM.

MODELS OF HRM
The matching model of HRM
One of the first explicit statements of the HRM concept was made by the Michigan School (Fombrun et al, 1984). They held that HR systems and the organization structure should be managed in a way that is congruent with organizational strategy (hence the name ‘matching model’). They further explained that there is a human resource cycle (an adaptation of which is illustrated in Figure 1.2), which consists of four generic processes or functions that are performed in all organizations. These are:
  1. selection – matching available human resources to jobs;
  2. appraisal – performance management
  3. rewards – ‘the reward system is one of the most under-utilized and mishandled managerial tools for driving organizational performance’; it must reward short as well as long-term achievements, bearing in mind that ‘business must perform in the present to succeed in the future’;
  1. 4. development – developing high quality employees
AIMS OF HRM
The overall purpose of human resource management is to ensure that the organization is able to achieve success... [continues]

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