"Human Resource Management Advocates the Devolution of People Management from the Human Resource Function to Line Management. However, Research Shows That This Is Difficult to Achieve in Practice (Gratton Et Al, 1999.) Discuss Why This Is the Case...

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CITY UNIVERSITY

Human Resource Management

"Human Resource Management advocates the devolution of people management from the Human Resource function to line management. However, research shows that this is difficult to achieve in practice (Gratton et al, 1999.) Discuss why this is the case. Indicate what can be done to ensure that line managers take responsibility for the implementation of HR policies and practices."



Human Resource Management advocates the devolution of people management from the Human Resource function to line management. However, research shows that this is difficult to achieve in practice (Gratton et al, 1999.) Discuss why this is the case. Indicate what can be done to ensure that line managers take responsibility for the implementation of HR policies and practices.

Introduction

The devolution of people management from the Human Resource function to the line management is a fact that fits in with the general change of the anatomy of the Human Resource Management at organizational level (Morley J. M, Gunnigle P. and O'Sullivan M. (2006)). Nowadays employers follow a more employee-centric strategy in order to meet with the increasing demand on good quality products or services in an environment characterized by Government deregulation in most of the industries and strong competition.
According to Morley J. M, Gunnigle P. and O'Sullivan M. (2006) as organizations move to "leaner" and "flatter" organization structures, it is clear that the founding of a fixed personnel/HR function is no longer a seemingly inevitable consequence of increases in organization scale. Furthermore, while examining the option to manage an organization without using formal HR function there can be found two ways to carry on the principals of human resource, firstly with internal devolution (line managers, middle managers) and secondly with external devolution by assigning Human resource role to external contractors. This report... [continues]

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