Different interpretations of HRM. - The Harvard interpretation sees employees as resources. However, they are viewed as being fundamentally different from other resources - they cannot be managed in the same way. The stress is on people as human resources.
Further notes: The Harvard Map or model outlines four HR policy areas:
Human resource flows - recruitment, selection, placement, promotion, appraisal and assessment, promtion, termination, etc.
Reward systems - pay systems, motivation, etc.
Employee influence - delegated levels of authority, responsibility, power
Work systems - definition/design of work and alignment of people.
Which in turn lead to the 'four C's' or HR policies that have to be achieved:
Commitment
Congruence
Competence
Cost effectiveness
A harder approach - people as human resources. - A different view is associated with the MichiganBusinessSchool. The Michigan model has a harder, less humanistic edge, holding that employees are resources in the same way as any other business resource. They must be:
- obtained as cheaply as possible
- used sparingly
- developed and exploited as much as possible
Further notes: Sparrow and Hiltrop (1994), pointing out that this is a 'matching' model of strategic HRM originally outlined by Tichy, Fombrun and Devanna (1982), state that:
"The philosophy does not limit itself to direct employees of an organization. Therefore humans or people - as opposed to just employees - need to be managed in a way that is consistent with broad organizational requirements such as quality or efficiency. Personnel policies and organization structures have to be managed in a way that is congruent with organizational strategy and organizational effectiveness depends on there being a tight 'fit' between human resource and business strategies. HRM strategies are all about making business strategies work and so emphasis is placed on how to best match and develop 'appropriate' HRM systems."
The Michigan theorists highlighted the following as being the most important HR issues to achieve such a match:
Selection of the most suitable people to meet business needs
Performance in the pursuit of business objectives
Appraisal, monitoring performance and providing feedback to the organization and its employees
Rewards for appropriate performance
Development of the skills and knowledge required to meet business objectives
Further notes: The New York variation on the matching model, outlined by Schuler and Jackson (1987), looked at Michael Porter's generic competitive strategies (quality enhancement, innovation and cost leadership or reduction) and developed a set of 'needed role behaviours' for each strategy which, according to Sparrow and Hiltrop (1994):
"varied across a number of dimensions and then (they) stipulated a set of hypotheses about the personnel and industrial relations practices that were needed. They identified the most important HRM practices about which strategic decisions had to be made and for each practice noted the dichotomous but logical alternatives that could be applied. HRM could be seen as a menu of strategic choices to be made by HR executives intended to promote the most effective role behaviours that are consistent with the organization strategy and are aligned with each other."
Schuler and Jackson (1987) listed these choices under a number of categories, e.g.
Planning choices: Informal ... Formal; Short-term ... Long-term; Explicit ... Implicit job analysis; Job simplification ... Job enrichment; Low employee involvement ... High employee involvement
Other choices were given for staffing, appraising, compensating, and training/development.
References
Beer, M., Lawrence, P.R., Mills, D.Q., and Walton, R.E. (1984) Managing human assets, Free Press.
Schuler, R.S. and Jackson, S.E. (1987) "Linking competitive strategies with human resource management practices", Academy of Management Executive, 1(3), 207-19.
Sparrow, P. and Hiltrop J.-M. (1994) European Human Resource Management in Transition, Prentice Hall.
Tichy, N.M., Fombrun, C.J. and Devanna, M.A. (1
Defining Human Resource Management
This guide is based on Human Resource Management in a Business Context, and includes links to extra articles, notes, tips and exercises.
Many people find HRM to be a vague and elusive concept - not least because it seems to have a variety of meanings. Pinning down an acceptable definition can seem like trying to hit a moving target in a fog. This confusion reflects the different interpretations found in articles and books about human resource management. HRM is an elastic term (...). It covers a range of applications that vary from book to book and organization to organization. (...)
In Managing Human Resources: Personnel Management in Transition, Stephen Bach (2005:3) argues that, compared to a decade ago, much of the controversy about the definition of HRM has dissipated. He considers that, in part, this may be due to the use of a broader and more encompassing definition of HRM. However, Bach (p.4) shows that the debate has not vanished by disagreeing with Boxall and Purcell's (2003:1) statement that HRM refers to:
"... all those activities associated with the management of the employment relationship in the firm. The term 'employee relations' will be used as an equivalent term as will the term 'labour management'."
Bach argues that this definition is 'a little too broad', stating that such a broad definition makes it difficult to:
- Highlight any distinctive features or values that underpin HRM
- Chart changes in the practice of HRM
- Understand the controversy surrounding HRM
In Bach's opinion, HRM differs from employee relations in its focus on management practices and tendency to ignore the interests of employees. In fact, he holds quite 'hard' views on the nature of HRM:
- HRM is unitarist (employer and employee interests should coincide) with an emphasis on organizational effectiveness
- The interests of other stakeholders such as employees are marginalized
- There is a predominant interest on the individual firm - specifically, within the firm - focused on individual employee motivation and aspiration
- There is a consequent playing down of external and collective (unionization) issues.
Alternative HRM models
The terminology used in academic human resource literature is problematic because some authors distinguish between 'the HRM model' as distinct from 'the Personnel model' (e.g. Bratton and Gould, 1999: 17) while others identify a number of different HRM models (including Bratton and Gould, a paragraph later).
Where do HRM models come from?
For the purposes of this discussion, we accept that there are numerous models and at least as many ways of classifying them - for example, 'hard and soft', 'normative and prescriptive'. Legge has produced a four-way classification, dividing models into the following types:
- Normative
- Descriptive-functional
- Descriptive-behavioural
- Critical evaluative
Tyson, on the other hand, has a three-way breakdown: normative, descriptive and analytical. Unfortunately, even these terms have contested meanings so that the Harvard model, for example, can be viewed as analyitcal or prescriptive - or a mixture of both.
Taking our analysis to its most basic level, we can consider HRM models from two fundamental perspectives:
- What are the similarities between them?
- Conversely, how do they differ?
Bratton and Gould (1999: 17) argue that: "Many of the key elements of the HRM model are drawn from organizational behaviour theories, such as motivation, team building and leadership." They go on to cite Legge (1989) as a reference for the assertion that 'most normative HRM models, whether US or British, assert that the organization's 'human resources' are valued assets, not a variable cost, and emphasise the commitment of employees as a source of competitive advantage.' They identify the classic theories of Maslow (1954) and Herzberg (1966) as being at the root of assumptions about the nature and exploitation of human potential while McGregor's Theory Y underpins notions of commitment and trust.
The Harvard map of HRM
This guide is based on Human Resource Management in a Business Context, and includes links to extra articles, notes, tips and exercises.
The Harvard map of HRM
A large part of this section is devoted to the Harvard 'map' of HRM. This is probably the most seminal model of HRM and has had a major influence on academic debate on the subject.
'We noted that the HarvardBusinessSchool generated one of the most influential models of HRM. The Harvard interpretation sees employees as resources. However, they are viewed as being fundamentally different from other resources - they cannot be managed in the same way. The stress is on people as human resources. The Harvard approach recognizes an element of mutuality in all businesses, a concept with parallels in Japanese people management, as we observed earlier. Employees are significant stakeholders in an organization. They have their own needs and concerns along with other groups such as shareholders and customers.'
The Harvard Map or model outlines four HR policy areas:
1 Human resource flows - recruitment, selection, placement, promotion, appraisal and assessment, promtion, termination, etc.
2 Reward systems - pay systems, motivation, etc.
3 Employee influence - delegated levels of authority, responsibility, power
4 Work systems - definition/design of work and alignment of people.
Which in turn lead to the 'four C's' or HR policies that have to be achieved:
- Commitment
- Congruence
- Competence
- Cost effectiveness
What is HRM?
Human Resource Management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization’s most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contributes to the achievement of the objectives of the business.[1]
The terms 'human resource management' (HRM) and 'human resources' (HR) have largely replaced the term 'Personnel Management' as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations.[2]
Human resource management (HRM) is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce. Synonyms include personnel administration, personnel management, manpower management,[3] and industrial management[4], but these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the theoretical discipline. Sometimes even industrial relations and employee relations are confusingly listed as synonyms (e.g. Encyclopædia Britannica) although these normally refer to the relationship between management and workers and the behavior of workers in companies.
The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as basic business resources, such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.
HRM is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken by the workforce, and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the enterprise overall. [5]
Nowadays, the more traditional synonyms such as personnel management are often used in a more restricted sense to describe those activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. These activities can require regulatory knowledge and effort, and enterprises can benefit from the recruitment and development of personnel with these specific skills.