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HRM IN THE MELTING POT
The role of HRM in the modern organisation
Life used to be delightfully simple. If you wanted to pursue a career in
what used to be known as personnel management, you enteredemployment first as a personnel administrator, and then worked your way
up through personnel officer to be a personnel manager. Should you be
incredibly talented and/or fortunate, you might even aspire to become apersonnel director. It was a straightforward system, and it meant, for
most, that they didnt have to work in any part of the business other than the
personnel department a fact that brought problems of its own, as we
increasingly recognise today.
In the modern world, however, we have to live with increasing levels of
complexity and we also have to live with the fact that the language ofpersonnel management has almost completely been superseded by the
vocabulary of human resource management. For some this has been
nothing more than a change of label, seemingly bolstered by an improve-ment in status (human resource management sounds so much more
impressive than personnel management); for others it reflects somethingfar more meaningful. Where personnel management was concerned
principally with procedures, routines and administrative efficiency, human
resource management, properly understood, addresses itself to much wider,
much more open-ended and much more strategic issues. Clearly both areimportant organisations need a mixture of administrative efficiency andstrategic leadership but is is rare, indeed almost unheard of, to find any
business which has both a personnel department and a human resourcefunction.
Capon draws the following distinction between personnel management and
HRM: Personnel management is directed very much towards the
personnel or workforce and the personnel department managing their work-
related needs. In comparison the HR department considers the strategic
contribution that employees make to the organisation. Issues concerningthe number of employees, the skills required and the cost to the organisation
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of employees with the required skills are of prime importance to the HR
department. Gradually, since the 1980s, personnel departments have
become HR departments and personnel officers have become HRadvisers, and these changes have occurred almost regardless of whether or
not the organisation has formally adopted the principles and practices of
HRM itself.
What are these principles and practices? According to John Storey, what
is distinctive about HRM is that it is an approach to employment manage-ment which seeks to obtain competitive advantage through the strategic
deployment of a highly committed and skilled workforce, using an array of
cultural, structural and personnel techniques. Whereas personnel
management operated in a framework of command-and-control, HRM istypified by the following characteristics:
A concentration on horizontal authority and reduced hierarchy in
delayered structures, with a blurring of the formerly rigiddistinction between management and non-management.
Wherever possible, responsibility for people management is
devolved to line managers; the role of HR professionals is tosupport and facilitate line management in this task, not to control
it. HR planning is proactive and fused with corporate planning, so
that HR issues can be treated strategically in an integrated manner.
Employees are viewed as assets with the potential for growth and
development: one of the key purposes of HRM is to identify this
potential and nurture it in line with the needs of the organisation.
HRM suggests, furthermore, that both managerial and non-managerial employees have a common interest in the success of
the organisation, so the HR department seeks to ensure that all
employees are aware of this and are committed, or engaged, inthe pursuit of common goals.
It is vital for ABE students to understand the above principles, and
particularly to recognise that it is emphatically not the job of the HR
manager or the HR department to manage the organisations people.That job is best done by the organisations line managers but, as I have
indicated above, they can benefit from the contribution and expertise of the
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HR function. And crucial to a proper appreciation of the role of HR in
any business is acceptance of these HRM principles:
A recognition of the strength of the relationship between people
performance and organisational success implying in turn that ifpeople can be developed, then they can make an even bigger
contribution to the organisations achievements in both the shortand the longer term; and
A belief in the fundamental mutuality of interest between the
organisation, its managers and its workforce, so far as the survivaland growth of the business are concerned thus encouraging allmoves towards employee involvement, commitment and
engagement.
Central to the effectiveness of HRM is the need for HR strategies, policiesand practices to be fully integrated with the strategy and strategic needs of
the organisation. All HR policies should be coherent across policy areas HR planning, people resourcing, learning and development, reward and
recognition, employee relations and so forth - and throughout hierarchies,
and HR practices must be adjusted, accepted and used by line managers andemployees as part of their everyday work. It is clearly foolish for a
company to claim that it encourages teamwork and team-building, whilstsimultaneously rewarding people solely as individuals; it is equally foolish
for a business to suggest that any employee could move from the lowestrung of the corporate ladder to the top, if they show sufficient talent, whilst
also creating a glass ceiling through the creation of a fast-track
development programme for highly-qualified employees.
At the same time, we have to recognise that not all organisations are the
same. Some are large, some are small; some function in a highly-competitive, cut-throat environment, others can operate comfortably without
any real customer pressure; some use a lot of technology, whereas othersrely on people; some are local, others are national, multinational or even
global; some are public, like governmental agencies, and others are private,
activated by the desire for profit. All may differ in their beliefs about
people, the availability of resources for people development, and the HRstrategies they seek to pursue. In fact, it seems, according to Budhwarand Sparrow, that there are four broad types of HR strategy, each leading in
turn to four types of HR practice:
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(1) A talent acquisition HR strategy: this emphasises attracting the
best human talent from external sources, and therefore concentrates on
turning the organisation into an employer brand or an employer ofchoice. Such a strategy would be appropriate for, say, an advertising
agency, a management consultancy, a TV production company or a
scientific research agency.
(2) An effective resource allocation HR strategy: the goal with this
kind of organisation is to maximise the use of existing human resources byalways having the right person in the right place at the right time, so a great
deal of attention is paid to HR planning and the people resourcing function.
This kind of strategy could fit a large commercial airline (low-cost or
otherwise) or a global car manufacturer.
(3) A talent improvement HR strategy: here the business aims to
maximise the talents of existing employees by continuously training them
and guiding them in their jobs and careers, so the enterprise seeks to become
a learning organisation, with priorities for learning and development
underpinned by a philosophy that sees all employees as assets. A talentimprovement strategy might make sense for a bank or any other type of
organisation that typically continues to offer, albeit implicitly, a virtual
promise of lifetime employment.
(4) A cost reduction HR strategy: this is designed to reduce thepersonnel costs to the lowest possible level. Clearly cost reduction may
be the strategy for any business during a period of economic recession, but it
can be applied to some organisations virtually all the time, if they are
operating in a highly competitive environment characterised by littlecustomer loyalty and by price as a key differentiator.
Becoming an HR professional
Theres no doubt about it: HRM is an exciting, fast-moving, challenging
and even inspirational function. If youve decided to pursue HRM as acareer, and prepare for the ABE examinations in the HRM stream in order toacquire the necessary qualifications to make you attractive to an employer
(or to make you even more attractive to your existing employer), then
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youve made an excellent choice. However, there are some things you
should do, and some things you should avoid.
First, be clear about your motives for wanting to become an HR
professional. These days you shouldnt be choosing HR because you
want to work with people, because there are many other jobs that afford
better opportunities for working with people. You should be consideringHR as a career for one of the following reasons:
Because you want to make a difference to peoples work lives
through the operation of an efficient and effective HR service, and
thus make a difference to the performance of the organisation thatemploys you.
Because you want to be truly professional dedicated, thorough,
imaginative, ethical, knowledgeable, businesslike and above allcompetent.
Because you want to become a continuous learner, developing
your skills and capabilities (and thus your value) as the business ofHR develops and evolves.
Second, acknowledge the fact that becoming an HR professional requires
some serious study from you: its not something which can happen merelyby reproducing platitudes about people in your examinations. There is avast body of knowledge that surrounds HRM, and you must familiarise
yourself with it. You need to buy or acquire one of the recommendedtextbooks, you must set aside some active reading periods in order
assimilate what the book contains. In addition, and especially if you dont
have any direct experience of work and organisations yourself, you mustkeep yourself up-to-date, and broaden your coverage of the HRM field, by
reading articles and features in business magazines, quality newspapers andjournals. If you have Internet access, use it periodically to undertake
Google searches on such key topics as employee engagement and
employer branding.
Thirdly, and finally, in your personal life as well as in your emerging
professional career, you should set out to become the kind of person who
ticks most if not all the boxes in the list of differential behaviours which
has been developed by the Chartered Institute of Personnel & Development
as part of its own vision for the competent, authoritative and knowledgeableHR practitioner.
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I wish you every success, not just in your ABE examinations, but also for
your future. With the ABE behind you, you will become a positivecontributor to what the CIPD and I believe to be the three main pillars of
progress that matter in this modern world:
(1) Wealth creation adding to the success of your organisation;(2) Wellbeing adding to the sense of fulfilment of the people who
work in your organisation;(3) A more responsible World adding to the quality of the
environment.
Written by Ted Johns, ABE Chief, HRM Programmes20 June 2008
Vignette (insert to be incorporated alongside the article, if there is sufficient
space)
The Differential Behaviours of the World-class HR Practitioner
(with acknowledgments to the Chartered Institute of Personnel &Development)
Open to trying new approaches
Seeks and generates new ideas
Considers options and evidence before making decisions
Evaluates and learns from experience
Continually self-develops in preparation for the future
Pushes at and/or determines the boundaries and/or priorities of the role
Acts as an advocate for the organisation
Takes personal ownership of the outcomes and outputs from your work
Manages conflicting demands, stakeholder needs and views
Wherever possible, seeks to build commitment to a change
Works across organisational boundaries (does not look at the organisation
purely from an HR perspective)
Enables individuals and teams to maximise their performance and
potential
Achieves results: meets or exceeds expectations
Acts ethically, legally and with integrity
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Ted Johns
Biography
Ted Johns is the ABEs Examiner for Managing People and
Personnel Administration, two core papers for the ABEs
Certificate in Human Resource Management. He is also the
Chief Examiner for the whole HRM programme, at Certificate,
Diploma and Advanced Diploma levels.
Apart from his intensive involvement with ABE, Ted Johns is also a
Chief Examiner for the Chartered Institute of Personnel andDevelopment and officiates as Chairman of the Institute of
Customer Service. He is a prolific writer, having published books
on such topics as business ethics, organisational change, time
management and customer care; in addition he writes a regular
column for Customer Management magazine and has produced
articles for People Management, Employment Relations Review,
Marketing Insights (Singapore) and Management Today. His
consultancy experience includes assignments undertaken for
Credit Suisse First Boston, National Westminster Bank, Philips,
and Prudential Assurance. Ted is an engaging, entertaining and
stimulating speaker who makes frequent keynote presentations at
both in-company and other conferences.