Implication of Shift from Personnel Management to Human Resource Management

IMPLICATION OF SHIFT FROM PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Personnel Management was mainly concerned with the administration of the labour force with respect to hiring, firing, training, paying salaries and wages and motivation. It was never concerned with the strategic business of an organization. The scope of the Personnel Management was mainly concerned with selecting the right people for the job and training them to do the job. It was also about remuneration, motivation and resolving the people problem and conflicts in an organization. The management at the time was rarely used to create a competitive advantage for the organization. Human Resource Management (HRM) is about obtaining a competitive advantage in an organization through the development of its work force. Human Resource Management seek to change the way people in an organization are managed by viewing them as valued human resource rather than mere resources. This change is made possible by including the employee's management in the organization strategic business plan.

The shift from Personnel Management to Human Resource Management has brought a number of changes in the way employees are managed today. One such change has been the value that is attached to a firm employee. Previously there was a tendency to view employees as mere assets that enable a firm to meet it ends. People were therefore important as far as they could were valuable to a firm in terms of productivity. Nowadays Human Resource (HR) is viewed as being valuable and is a source of competitive advantage. This is so because they possess skills, abilities, intelligence and experience that they are willing to apply for benefit the organization. For this reason, people employed are encouraged to release their potential by developing them through training and establishment of relations between then and other organization units.

The management of the employees was the mandate of a specialist manager during the era of Personnel Management. With HRM it has become important to involve all levels of management in employees' management. Therefore each line manager integrates the employee's issues in the department decision making. This enables the organization to harness the potential of the employees to create a competitive advantage.

Performance contracting has been introduced as a way of managing the employees' productivity. Promotion and pay is pegged on a worker output. This is meant to ensure that an employee does what he was employed to do with minimal supervision from the top management. The achievement of the employee-supervisor agreed performance targets forms the basis of the reward system.

Another implication of the shift has been the development of the employees as a partner in the business. This is being done by building more commitment at the place of work by involving

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