HRM Strategy Execution
Prof. Aditya Christopher Moses
W1V1 – Evolution of HRM
Welcome to the first video. In this video, we will be discussing the evolution of human resource
management as a function. Before we jump into the video, I want you to answer this question. When
you hear the words Human Resource Management. What is the first few words or first few thoughts
or ideas that come to your mind? Pause the video right now and we will revisit them as we go along in
the weeks.
Now, why is it important to understand the evolution of human resource management? Well, first,
human resource management has undergone multiple changes over a long period of time. The way
we looked at human resources has changed our perception about what human resources are, what
they're capable of achieving, and how they help an organization grow in the future. So let's take a quick
look at the evolution of human resource management.
The function called Human Resource Management that you see in organizations today didn't exist in
the olden times. Initially, when humans started working as groups, we had a grid system where
apprentices worked with the master in Indian tradition. This is called the Shishya Guru tradition that
we can call it. That's how people learned. That's how people started booking in a job.
That's how they went on to become masters themselves or gurus themselves. And this was not only
pertaining to knowledge industries, this also pertained to things like Pottery making, farming, etc. The
field of human resource management got a lot of its initial boost to a guy named Fredrick Taylor.
Fredrick Traylor, who also worked with the idea of Lean manufacturing, was really focused on how to
improve efficiency and productivity in manufacturing.
We often call the kind of work that you did and the studies that you did called parallelism. Taylor tried
to capture what really improved economic efficiency in manufacturing, and he found that one of the
biggest factors in improving economic efficiency was human. This meant that humans were working
in a manufacturing process as the early need to be brought on board.
They need to work in a certain process. They need to be given rewards. And that is how work gets
more efficient. His initial work sparked interest into worker productivity. Now, most of this work would
revolved around how do I pay? What do I pay? When do I pay? And how it improves productive. It was
also a lot to do with processes.
This is how work floors can be arranged to improve productivity. This was later formalized by a guy
named Alden Male and a male who was most famous for something called the Horton Experiment. He
documented that stimuli unrelated to compensation help increase productivity. He found that working
conditions impacted not only the attention of employees, it also impacted their engagement with the
job.
And both of these together yielded more workers that are productive. This was followed by people like
Abraham Maslow, Karl Marx, Max Weber, Frederick Herzberg and David McClellan. Most of this work
is related to motivational theories and more specific agree on what motivates people. They identified
that there are there can be sets of practices that people or organizations can utilize, motivate people,
and to motivate people in such a way that they become more productive.
Now, the theoretical evidence already existed. The work of these scholars makes sure that that
business case started coming into play from the time of Gaylord email to the work of people like
© All Rights Reserved. This document has been authored by Professor Aditya Christopher Moses and is permitted for use only within the course
"HRM Strategy Execution” delivered in the online course format by IIM Ahmedabad. No part of this document, including any logo, data,
illustrations, pictures, scripts, may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the author.
HRM Strategy Execution
Prof. Aditya Christopher Moses
W1V1 – Evolution of HRM
Hertzberg and McClellan. There was a change in our way. Initially, it was just focused on processes and
how to get people to work in a particular process.
The later work ensured that organizations started adopting welfare practices and these welfare
practices ranged from providing a clean working environment, providing a safe working environment.
And we are talking about physical environment care to also adopting practices such as health insurance
or adopting practices such as pension schemes or medical leave, or providing people with leaves. So
we moved from a very process oriented H.R. to an H.R. which focused on welfare of employees, with
the belief in both cases being the same that it improves employee productivity.
This was also a period after this. There was a period where trade unions or labor unions came into
existence and many organizations started seeing mushrooming of trade unions. Now trade unions by
themselves and why they came into practice. Well, one reason could be the employer employee
relationship transformed. Governments around the world brought labor practices and labor laws in
existence.
Also, a lot of employees felt that they needed to have their voice heard by the management in a very
formalized two way. And that led to a whole era where we talk about industrial and labor relations.
And this was the next part or the next evolution of each other. In the latter half of the 20th century,
union membership decreased.
Industrial and labor relations began being used for things like collective bargaining, collective
representation of employees to help employees get better benefits, etc.. This led to the creation of an
industrial and Labor Department. In a lot of organizations. In fact, a lot of colleges around the world
started offering industrial relations as a specialization during this period. During this period and little
after that, organizations started adopting something called Personnel Administration.
Personnel Administration was mainly involved with creating and maintaining administrative policies
related to the workforce, such as time keeping payments, processing leads, etc.. Personnel
Administration was also involved in providing welfare benefits to employees in addition to financial
compensation. However, most of this was very process driven and it was very administrative in nature.
Organizations realized that this is not enough to increase employee productivity, and this led to a more
visible form of H.R., which we call the Human Resource Management function.
In this period, advances in transport and communication ensured that workforce mobility was much
higher. This made organizations have to focus on collaboration between people. Also, a lot of
corporations and organizations began viewing employees as assets rather than just cogs in a machine.
Human resource management became the dominant function. They started creating policies and
practices that were focused on collaborating between employees.
During this period and slightly after this period, trade union membership started declining and it has
declined significantly. While these workforce management practices in the form of H.R. have continued
to expand and that improve and increase their influence in organizations, the idea behind them was
that human capital management, which is also very synonymously used as human resource. However,
I would be give you a word of caution.
You heard that human capital usually refers to a more narrow definition of human resources, and that
is the only the knowledge that individuals have and this knowledge that can contribute to the
© All Rights Reserved. This document has been authored by Professor Aditya Christopher Moses and is permitted for use only within the course
"HRM Strategy Execution” delivered in the online course format by IIM Ahmedabad. No part of this document, including any logo, data,
illustrations, pictures, scripts, may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the author.
HRM Strategy Execution
Prof. Aditya Christopher Moses
W1V1 – Evolution of HRM
organization. How do I get these human resources who have human capital to collaborate with each
other? That was the focus of the human resources department. This is the department that we see
today.
However, at this stage, a lot of organizations feel that there is a need to formalize not only the practices
and policies related to managing their employees effectively, they also need to have some kind of
formal approach to managing their employees. This led to creation of human resource management
systems. These involve things like training, performance management, recruitment and selection, etc..
We will dwell much deeper into each of these systems in the coming weeks. More often than not,
these practices were required to systematically coordinate employees within an organization, and
human resource management was born. Let me see three or more. More specifically, the modern
Human Resource Management that we see today was born. However, researchers such as Dave
Wooldridge argued that aligning human resources and business strategy is essential for the growth of
the form.
This meant that you might have to re-engineer organizational processes. You will have to listen and
respond to employees and you will have to manage transformation and change. This led to the growth
of strategic human resource management that we will be discussing in this course. In practice, human
resource management departments are responsible for employee experience during their entire
employment lifecycle.
It is first charged with attracting the right employees or the right talent. Usually they do this through
employer branding. Then they must select the right employees. This is usually through the recruitment
process. Once the people are on have been selected, human resource managers need to bring on
board the new hires. Then they need to oversee their training and development during their tenure.
They also need to manage their performance, and human resource can assess if this talent is actually
poor, performing or not performing through performance operations. If they are rewarded, then we
will be discussing in a lot more detail about each of these functions. To sum up this video, I started by
telling you about the evolution of human resource management from the formal processes based
approach of Baylor to the welfare state.
Because of motivation theories that came into place, this then led to the industrial relations stage of
human resource management, after which organizations realized that humans are assets rather than
just cogs in a wheel. And they need to be systematically managed so that they can coordinate with
each other. This led to the creation of human resource management departments all over the world.
For other organizations to realize that it is not enough to just coordinate between them. They also
need to be aligned with the strategy of the organization. And this is the genesis of Strategic Human
Resource Management. Thank you. And I shall see you in the next video.
© All Rights Reserved. This document has been authored by Professor Aditya Christopher Moses and is permitted for use only within the course
"HRM Strategy Execution” delivered in the online course format by IIM Ahmedabad. No part of this document, including any logo, data,
illustrations, pictures, scripts, may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior permission of the author.
