Introduction

Human Resource Management has evolved considerably over the past century, and
experienced a major transformation in form and function primarily within the past two
decades. Driven by a number of significant internal and external environmental forces,
HRM has progressed from a largely maintenance function, with little if any bottom line
impact, to what many scholars and practitioners today regard as the source of sustained
competitive advantage for organizations operating in a global economy.

The management has to recognize the important role of Human Resource Department in order to
successfully steer organizations towards profitability. It is necessary for the management to invest
considerable time and amount, to learn the changing scenario of the HR department in the 21st
century. In order to survive the competition and be in the race, HR department should consciously
update itself with the transformation in HR and be aware of the HR issues cropping up. With high
attrition rates, poaching strategies of competitors, there is a huge shortage of skilled employees and
hence, a company’s HR activities play a vital role in combating this crisis. Suitable HR policies that
would lead to the achievement of the Organization as well as the individual’s goals should be
formulated. HR managers have to manage all the challenges that they would face from recruiting
employees, to training them, and then developing strategies for retaining them and building up an
effective career management system for them. Just taking care of employees would not be enough;
new HR initiatives should also focus on the quality needs, customer-orientation, productivity and
stress, team work and leadership building. Management, to realize the growing importance of
human resources and understand the need to build up effective HR strategies to combat HR issues
arising in the 21st century.

Human resource management is a process of bringing people and organizations together so that the
goals of each other are met. The role of HR manager is shifting from that of a protector and screener
to the role of a planner and change agent. Personnel directors are the new corporate heroes. The
name of the game today in business is personnel . Nowadays it is not possible to show a good
financial or operating report unless your personnel relations are in order.
Over the years, highly skilled and knowledge based jobs are increasing while low skilled jobs are
decreasing. This calls for future skill mapping through proper HRM initiatives.
Indian organizations are also witnessing a change in systems, management cultures and philosophy
due to the global alignment of Indian organizations. There is a need for multi skill development.
Role of HRM is becoming all the more important.

Focus of HR Managers:

HR Managers today are focusing attention on the following-

a) Policies- HR policies based on trust, openness, equity and consensus.

b) Motivation- Create conditions in which people are willing to work with zeal, initiative and
enthusiasm; make people feel like winners.

c) Relations- Fair treatment of people and prompt redress of grievances would pave the way for
healthy work-place relations.

d) Change agent- Prepare workers to accept technological changes by clarifying doubts.

e) Quality Consciousness- Commitment to quality in all aspects of personnel administration will

ensure success.
CHANGES IN HRM : 

  Some of the significant changes that are likely to take place in the human resource
management are as follows:

1. Increase in education levels: Due to technological progress and the spread of

educational institutions workers will increasingly become aware of their higher level
needs, managers will have to evolve appropriate policies and techniques to motivate
the knowledge of workers. Better educated and organized workforce will demand
greater discretion and autonomy at the work place.
2. Technological developments: This will require retraining and mid-career training
of both workers and managers. Rise of the international corporation is proving
new challenges for personnel function.
3. Changing composition of work force: In future, women and minority groups,
SCs and STs would become an important source of man power in future on
account of easy access to better educational and employment opportunities.
Therefore manpower planning of every organization will have to take into
consideration the potential availability of talent in these groups. Changing mix of
the workforce will lead to new values in organizations.
4. Increasing government role: In India, personnel management has become very
legalized. In future private organizations will have to co-ordinate their labour
welfare programmes with those of the government private sector will be required
increasingly to support government efforts for improving public health, education
training and development and infrastructure.
5. occupational health and safety: Due to legislative presence and trade union
movement, personnel management will have to be more healthy and safety
conscious in future.
6. Organizational development: in future, change will have to be initiated and
managed to improve organizational effectiveness. Top management will become
more actively involved in the development of human resources.
 7. New work ethic: greater forces will be on project and team forms of organization.
As changing work ethic requires increasing emphasis on individual. Jobs will have
to redesigned to provide challenge.
8. Development planning: personnel management will be involved increasingly in
organizational planning, structure, composition etc. Greater cost-consciousness
and profit-orientations will be required on the part of the personnel department.
9. Better appraisal and reward systems: organizations will be required to share
gains of higher periodicity with workers more objective and result oriented
systems of performance, appraisal and performance linked compensation will have
to be developed.
10. New personnel policies: new and better polices will be required for the work
force of the future. Traditional family management will give way to professional
management with greater forces on human dignity.
11.

Core HR systems and strategies . The notion of a single source of truth

for who works for the company today is still an elusive goal. Based on pioneering work done
with customer data hubs, strategies evolved for master data management are
related to the employee life cycle. This will enable the employee data to be kept in sync across
multiple HR, payroll, benefits, and talent management systems, as well as third-party business
partners and operational applications that use employee data.
· The definition of the workforce continue to evolve. Whereas the workforce has
traditionally meant employees who are actually on the payroll, business needs encompass
tracking and provisioning a variety of “nonemployees” as well. “Nonemployees include
contractors, consultants, temporary workers, volunteers, and others who represent part of the
productive workforce. Nonemployees will be managed within the human resource management
system (HRMS) to allow for headcount and productivity analysis, project staffing, security

provisioning, training programs, and other HR-related processes

· HR outsourcing initiatives will become more focused and selective. The notion of
outsourcing a broad set of HR processes and systems has less and less support. Many of these
attempted initiatives have failed to deliver the expected cost savings and service-level goals,
and vendors aren’t making any money. Outsourcing selective HR processes of a compliance
intensive
or repetitive nature, like payroll, will remain viable. Cost savings is becoming less of a

driver of HR outsourcing, with expertise and reliability being higher priorities

The Rise of Technology

No Human Resources trend list would be complete without an explicit mention of the impact of
technology on all aspects of the field. As mentioned the power of technology all through these
trends, but still cite technology as a major trend. Technology has transformed the way in which
Human Resources offices manage and communicate employee information and communicate with
employees, in general.

In a world in which identity theft is prevalent and can cost an employee countless working hours
over several years to correct, safeguarding employee records is critical. Identity theft is so serious
and rising that every employer needs a plan to prevent.

Did words like Intranets, wikis, webinars, and blogs exist in common language ten years ago?
Now, employees use them internally to stockpile information, work collaboratively, and share
opinions and project progress. They can even work virtually and with distant teams simultaneously.
They hold meetings and share visuals with teams from all over the world.

The Big Blur

Online, all the time, and availability via technology, has blurred the line between work and home.
Employees work at home in the evening on collaborative reports and email. They shop at work and
take brief breaks by playing online games. Employees do their banking at work and their work
accounting at home. Almost no one goes on vacation without their smart phone, laptop, and kindle-
like device. Employees taking PTO email colleagues with the number of their cell phone if they
won’t have access to email.

No generation has ever been this connected, and for good and bad, some employees never stop
working. This interferes with down time, relaxing time, and work-life balance, but most employees
just see it as a way of life. Employers need to make sure this degree of connectivity is not required.
They must also back away from old rules about what an employee was allowed to do at work.

Employers do need to heed wage and hour laws when dealing with hourly employees who must be
paid for every hour they work. Indeed, this work – home blurring is a nightmare for employers who
must pay for overtime. So, most employers forbid hourly employees, for the most part, to work at
home. This emphasizes the differences between exempt and nonexempt employees, already a
distance.

Employee Training and Development Transformed

This decade has seen the rise of technology-enabled opportunities for training, employee
development, and training meetings and seminars. Podcasts, teleseminars, online learning, screen
capture and recording software, and webinars provide employee development opportunities.

Additionally, during this decade, as the technology-enabled delivery options expanded, so did other
training and development opportunities and definitions, including increased expectation for learning
transfer to the job.

Online learning, earning an online degree or credits, and all forms of web-enabled education and
training provide options that employees never had when training occurred in a classroom.
Employers are saving millions of dollars in employee travel expenses, and the employee’s access to
the training does not walk out the door at the seminar’s end. This is the decade when employers
experiment with classroom training in a virtual world called Second Life. You can expect even
more progress and experimentation in the years to come.

The Rising Cost of Health Care

Much as I’d prefer to leave this Human Resources trend off the table, it’s not going away. The
continually rising cost of health care insurance and health care is affecting what employers can
provide in terms of additional benefits for their employees. The rise of employee payments for part
of insurance coverage, the practice of seeking insurance first from a spouse’s employer, increased
payments for covered family members, and higher health care provider co-pay office fees are all
highlights of the rising cost of care

Made to Order Employment Relationships

Perhaps it’s the push from the millennials, and definitely it’s the availability of technology that facilitates
the customization, but the made to order work relationship has become a dominant force in the past decade.
Teleworking or telecommuting, a rare privilege in the 1990s, has taken workplaces by storm. One giant
computer company reports that 55% of its employees not only telecommute, they work from home all of the
time. A New York City publishing company allows telecommuting two days a week and employees can
bargain for more.

Teleworking is not the only component of the new made to order work arrangements. Flexible anything has
become the new norm. Flexible work hours, flexible four day work weeks, flexible time off for
appointments, and the most important trend of all: Paid time off (PTO) allows employees to take time off
when they need the time as it consolidates sick leave, personal time, and vacation time into a bank of days
for employees to use.

Additionally, trends such as bringing baby or the family pet to the office also fall within this workplace
flexibility.

Superficially, all of these components of the made to order Human Resources employment trend offer
benefits for employees. But, they offer benefits for employers, too. Employers don’t need to police
employee time. They need to make work and communication more transparent and measurable so the
flexibility yields results. Their employees are more motivated and engaged, and less stressed out about
family and life issues, because they have the time necessary to address work-life balance issues.