Introduction to Human Resource

Management
Chapter1
 LEARNING OUTCOMES

1. Explain what human resource management is and how it

relates to the management process.
2. Show with examples why human resource management is
important to all managers.
3. Illustrate the human resources responsibilities of line and staff
(HR) managers.
4. Briefly discuss and illustrate each of the important trends
influencing human resource management.
5. List and briefly describe important trends in human resource
management.
6. Define and give an example of evidence-based human resource
management
Human Resource Management at Work
• What Is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
– The process of acquiring, training, appraising, and
compensating employees, and of attending to their labor
relations, health and safety, and fairness concerns.
• Organization
– People with formally assigned roles who work together to
achieve the organization’s goals.
• Manager
– The person responsible for accomplishing the organization’s
goals, and who does so by managing the efforts of the
organization’s people
 The Management Process
Planning

Controlling Organizing

Leading Staffing

1–4
Human Resource Management Processes
Acquisition

Fairness Training

Human Resource
Management
Health and (HRM)
Appraisal
Safety

Labor Relations Compensation

1–5
 Personnel Aspects of a Manager’s Job
• Managers are involved daily with many of the personnel aspects of HRM in
accomplishing the organization’s goals, and managing the efforts of the
organization’s people
 Conducting job analyses
 Planning labor needs and recruiting job candidates
 Selecting job candidates
 Orienting and training new employees
 Managing wages and salaries
 Providing incentives and benefits
 Appraising performance
 Communicating
 Training and developing managers
 Building employee commitment
 Basic HR Concepts
 The bottom line of managing:
Getting results
 HR creates value by engaging in activities that produce the
employee behaviors that the organization needs to achieve its
strategic goals
 Hiring the right people for the right jobs and motivating,
appraising, and developing them will likely get the results you
are seeking.
 Remember that success comes through people
 Looking ahead: Using evidence-based HRM to measure the
value of HR activities in achieving those goals
 Line and Staff Aspects of HRM
• Line Manager
– Is authorized (has line authority) to direct the work of subordinates and is
responsible for accomplishing the organization’s tasks.
– Line managers manage operational functions that are crucial for the company’s
survival.
• Staff Manager
– Assists and advises line managers.
– Has functional authority to coordinate personnel activities and enforce organization
policies
– Staff managers run departments that are advisory or supportive, like HRM
– Human resource managers are usually staff managers. They assist and advise line
managers with recruiting, hiring, and compensation. However, line managers still
have human resource duties

• Core Concept
It is not the type of department the person is in charge of or its name that determines
if the manager in charge is line or staff
It is the nature of relationship
Line Managers’ Human Resource Duties
• The direct handling of people has been an integral part of every line manager’s
job
1. Placing the right person on the right job
2. Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
3. Training employees for jobs that are new to them
4. Improving the job performance of each person
5. Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
6. Interpreting the firm’s policies and procedures
7. Controlling labor costs
8. Developing the abilities of each person
9. Creating and maintaining department morale
10. Protecting employees’ health and physical condition
Human Resource Manager’s Duties
1. A line function
 Directs the activities of people in his or her own department
 He or she exerts line authority within the HR department
 They are likely to exert implied authority
• Implied authority :
 The authority exerted by HR manager by virtue of others’ knowledge that
he or she has access to top management in the areas like testing and
alternate actions
2. A coordinative function
 Human Resource managers also coordinates personnel activities, a duty
often referred as functional control
 Functional Control is the authority exerted by an HR manager as
coordinator of personal activities
 Here he or she ensures that line managers are implementing the firms
human resource policies and practices
Human Resource Manager’s Duties
3. Staff (assist and advise) functions.
 Assisting and advising line managers is the heart of
the human resource manager s job.
 He or she advises the CEO so the CEO can better
understand the personnel aspects of the company s
strategic options.
 HR assists in hiring, training, evaluating, rewarding,
counseling, promoting,
and firing employees.
 It administers the various benefit programs (health
and accident insurance, retirement, vacation, and so
on).
Human Resource Manager’s Duties
• Staff (assist and advise) functions (contd.)
 It helps line managers comply with equal employment and
occupational safety laws, and plays an important role in handling
grievances and labor relations.
 It carries out an innovator role, by providing up-to-date information
on current trends and new methods for better utilizing the company
s employees (or human resources ).
 It plays an employee advocacy role, by representing the interests of
employees within the framework of its primary obligation to senior
management.
 Although human resource managers generally can t wield line
authority (outside their departments), they are likely to exert
implied authority.
 This is because line managers know the human resource manager
has top management s ear in areas like testing and affirmative action
Human Resource Managers’ Duties

Functions of
HR Managers

Line Function Coordinative Staff Functions

Line Authority Function Staff Authority
Implied Authority Functional Authority Innovator/Advocacy

1–13
 New Approaches to Organizing HR
• The transactional HR group :
 Uses centralized call centers and outsourcing
arrangements (such as with benefits advisors) to provide
support for day-to-day transactional activities (such as
changing benefits plans and employee assistance and
counseling).
• The corporate HR group:
 Focuses on assisting top management in top level big
picture issues such as developing and explaining the
personnel aspects of the company’s long-term strategic
plan.
New Approaches to Organizing HR
• The embedded HR unit:
 Assigns HR generalists (also known as relationship
managers or HR business partners ) directly to
departments like sales and production.
 They provide the localized human resource
management assistance the departments need.
• The centers of expertise:
 Are like specialized HR consulting firms within the
company for instance, they provide specialized
assistance in areas such as organizational change
New Approaches to Organizing HR

New HR Services Groups

Transactional Corporate Embedded Centers of

HR group HR group HR unit Expertise

1–16
Cooperative Line and Staff HR Management
 The most important generalization is that the line staff relationship
should be cooperative
In recruiting and hiring, the line manager describes the
qualifications employees need to fill specific positions. Then the
human resource team takes over.
 They develop sources of qualified applicants, and conduct initial
screening interviews. They administer the appropriate tests. Then
they refer the best applicants to the line manager, who interviews
and selects the ones he or she wants.
 In training, the line manager again describes what he or she
expects the employee to be able to do. Then the human resource
team devises a training program, which the line manager then
(usually) administers.
Cooperative Line and Staff HR Management

 Some activities are usually HR s alone.

 For example, 60% of firms assign to human
resources the exclusive responsibility for pre-
employment testing, 75%,assign it college
recruiting, and 80% assign it insurance benefits
administration.
 But employers split most activities, such as
employment interviews, performance appraisal,
skills training, job descriptions, and disciplinary
procedures, between HR and line managers.
Cooperative Line and Staff HR Management

 In summary, human resource management is

part of every manager s job.
 Whether you re a first-line supervisor, middle
manager, or president or whether you re a
production manager or county manager (or
HR manager) getting results through people is
the name of the game.
 Trends Shaping Human Resource
Management
Globalization
and Competition
Trends

Indebtedness
(“Leverage”) Technological
and Trends
Deregulation
Trends in HR
Management
Workforce and
Trends in the
Demographic
Nature of Work
Trends

Economic
Challenges and
Trends

1–20
FIGURE 1–4 Trends Shaping Human Resource Management

1–21
Trends in the Nature of Work

Changes in How We
Work

Knowledge Work
High-Tech Service
and Human
Jobs Jobs
Capital

1–22
Workforce and Demographic Trends

Demographic Trends

Trends Affecting Generation “Y”

Human
Resources Retirees

Nontraditional Workers

1–23
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS
• Human Resource Management Yesterday and Today
 For much of the twentieth century, personnel/HR managers focused on day-
to-day transactional types of activities.
 Hiring and firing
 Ran the payroll department
 Administered benefits plans
 Recruitment and Selection
 Helping the employer deal with unions
 Today, trends like globalization, indebtedness, and technology confront
employers with new challenges, such as squeezing more profits from
operations
 Employers expect their human resource managers to have what it takes to
address these challenges
 One can list 10 characteristics of today s human resource professionals.
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS
1. They Focus More on Strategic, Big Picture Issues
 Strategic human resource management means formulating and
executing human resource policies and practices that produce the
employee competencies and behaviors the company needs to achieve its
strategic aims
2. They Use New Ways to Provide Transactional Services
 Outsource more benefits administration and safety training to outside
vendors.
 They use technology, for instance, company portals that allow
employees to self-administer benefits plans
 Facebook recruiting to recruit job applicants,
 Online testing to prescreen job applicants,
 Centralized call centers to answer HR-related inquiries from supervisors
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS
3. They Take an Integrated, Talent Management Approach to Managing
Human Resources
 With employers competing for talent, no one wants to lose any high-
potential employees, or to fail to attract or fully utilize top-caliber ones
 Talent management is the goal-oriented and integrated process of
planning, recruiting, developing, managing, and compensating
employees.
 It involves instituting a coordinated process for identifying, recruiting,
hiring, and developing high-potential employees.
4. They Manage Ethics
 Ethics means the standards someone uses to decide what his or her
conduct should be
 Every human resource manager (and line manager) needs to understand
the ethical implications of his or her employee-related decisions.
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS

6. They Manage Employee Engagement

 The Institute for Corporate Productivity defines
engaged employees as those who are mentally and
emotionally invested in their work and in contributing
to an employer s success
7. They Measure HR Performance and Results
 In today s performance-based environment, employers
expect their human resource managers to take action
based on measurable performance-based criteria
 HR managers need to develop these measurs called
METRICS
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS

8. They Use Evidence-Based Human Resource Management

 Put simply, evidence-based human resource management is
the deliberate use of the best available evidence in making
decisions about the human resource management practices
 The evidence may come from:
 Actual measurements (such as, how did the trainees like
this program?).
 Existing data (such as, what happened to company profits
after we installed this training program?).
 Published critically evaluated research studies (such as,
what does the research literature conclude about the best
way to ensure that trainees remember what they learn?).
THE NEW HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGERS
9. They Add Value:
 From top management s point of view, it s not sufficient that HR
management just oversee activities such as recruiting and
benefits.
 It must add value, particularly by boosting profitability and
performance in measurable ways.
 Adding value means helping the firm and its employees gain in
a measurable way from the human resource manager’s actions
10. They Have New Competencies:
 They still need proficiencies in human resource management
functional areas such as selection, training, and compensation.
 But they also require broader business competencies.
 THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER S
COMPETENCIES
• Talent Managers/Organization Designers, with a
mastery of traditional human resource management
tasks such as acquiring, training, and compensating
employees
• Culture and Change Stewards, able to create human
resource practices that support the firms cultural values
• Strategy Architects, with the skills to help establish the
company s overall strategic plan, and to put in place the
human resource practices required to support
accomplishing that plan.
 THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER S
COMPETENCIES
• Operational Executors, able to anticipate, draft, and
implement the human resource practices (for instance in
testing and appraising) the company needs to implement its
strategy
• Business Allies, competent to apply business knowledge (for
instance in finance, sales, and production) that enable them
to help functional and general managers to achieve their
departmental goals
• Credible Activists, with the leadership and other
competencies that make them both credible (respected,
admired, listened to) and active (offers a point of view, takes a
position, challenges assumptions.)
THE HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGER S
COMPETENCIES