The Nature of Human Resource Management
Chapter Outline
• Contemporary Human Resource Management Perspectives
• Evolution of the Human Resource Function
• Human Resource Management Today
• Goals of Human Resource Management
• The Setting for Human Resource Management
• Human Resource Mangers
Chapter Objectives
• Characterize contemporary human resource management perspectives.
• Summarize the evolution of the human resource function in organizations.
• Describe human resource management today in terms of the impact of the electronic age and its basic tasks, functions, and systems.
Chapter Objectives (cont’d)
• Identify and discuss the fundamental goals of human resource management in organizations.
• Discuss the responsibilities for human resource management in terms of staff and management functions and describe the human resource management department.
• Discuss human resource managers in terms of their professionalism and careers.
Human Resources Defined
• The people an organization employs
– To carry out various
• jobs, tasks, and functions
– In exchange for
• wages, salaries, and other rewards
What Is Human Resource Management?
• The comprehensive set of managerial activities and tasks concerned with developing and maintaining a qualified workforce—human resources—in ways that contribute to organizational effectiveness.
Contemporary Human Resource Management Perspectives
• Top management has come to understand that, if properly managed, human resources can be an important source of competitive advantage in an increasingly competitive world.
• Hiring the right people and then equipping them with the right skills and abilities can substantially affect the quality and quantity of whatever goods or services the organization produces.
Organizations Looked for
New Ways to Be Competitive
• It became somewhat common for companies to reduce the size of their human resource staffs and turn to outside help for specific projects
– Outsourcing is the process of hiring outside firms to handle basic human resource management functions, presumably more efficiently than the organization.
Organizations Began to Create Specialized Units
• Personnel Departments
– Specialized organizational units for hiring and administering human resources, became popular during the 1930s and 1940s.
• Personnel Management
– A new type of management function, grew from the recognition that human resources needed to be managed.
• Personnel Manager
– The manager who ran the personnel department
The Human Resource
Management Process
A Human Resource Management System
• An integrated and interrelated approach to managing human resources that fully recognizes the interdependence among the various tasks and functions that must be performed.
A Systems View of
Human Resource Management
Goals of Human Resource Management
• All organizations have a general set of goals and objectives that they try to accomplish.
• Regardless of the time horizon or the level of specificity involved in these goals, they are generally intended to promote the organization’s ability to be competitive in its efforts to fulfill its purpose or mission.
Goals of Human Resource Management
Enhancing Productivity and Quality
• Productivity—an economic measure of efficiency that summarizes and reflects the value of the outputs created by an individual, organization, industry, or economic system relative to the value of the inputs used to create them.
• Quality—the total set of features and characteristics of a product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy stated or implied needs.
Human Resource Management
as a Staff Versus Line Function
• Line (or Operating) Managers
– Those directly responsible for creating goods and services.
• Staff Managers
– Those responsible for an indirect or support function that would have costs but whose bottom-line contributions are less direct.
Utility Analysis
• The attempt to measure, in more objective terms, the impact and effectiveness of human resource management practices in terms of metrics such as a firm’s financial performance.
Human Resource Management
in Smaller Organizations
• Small organizations still use operating managers to handle their basic human resource functions.
• Small independent businesses are generally operated in the same way as small organizations. Some administrative activities may be subcontracted.
• Very small organizations are exempt from many legal regulations.
Human Resource Management
in Larger Organizations
• As the organization grows a separate human resource unit becomes a necessity.
• When an organization reaches 200 to 250 employees, it generally establishes a self-contained human resource department.
• As the organization continues to grow the human resource department grows as well into specialized departments.
The Human Resource Management
Function at Texas Instruments
Human Resource Management
as a Center of Expertise