recommend the strategic direction for employees and ensure its implementation.
HR manager should co-ordinate the design, implementation and administration
of human resource policies and activities to ensure the availability and effective
utilization of human resources for meeting the company's objective HR managers
are very important for any organization because they makes polices, develop
strategies directing and coordinating human resource management. The most
important responsibility of HR manager is interviewing and recruiting candidates.
HR manager have to make good relationship with different departments like
marketing, operation and finance and make himself aware of new updates to
prevent miscommunication.
Task3. Evaluate the role and responsibilities of line managers in human resource
practices. Line manager plays an important role in the success of HR manager.
Line manager should deliver the task and responsibilities on time to the senior
management. Keep informing the management about the progress in the
organization. Line manager should defend the company strategy or management
strategy when talking to the work group. Clear appropriate picture to the work
group to keep them informed of the rules and policies and have to look out the
ways to become more efficient. Line manager should set tasks and standards for
the employees. Line manager should also have to provide training and
development to the employees when needed. Line manager should involve
group people in decision making and to understand their needs and to motivate
them. Should also provide reasons for decisions and represent the view and
ideas of work force to higher authorities. Line manager should maintain the good
environment. Line manager have to take the following points in mind in order to
make their activities better. Line manager should be a positive role model. Line
manager should be honest to others and help the employees and give guidance
about their job. Line manager should have to speak against injustice. Line
manager should be self confident
Improving
quality
Improving organisational
climate
PART I: Introduction
The relationship between human resource management and personnel
management has been arguing for many years. The strongest argument among
all the advocates is whether human resource management is the same as
personnel management only with another name or it is different concept.
Some debates are as follow:
Approval perspectiveCritical perspective
Guest: its capacity to satisfy some key propositions such as 'strategy
integration', 'high commitment', 'high quality' and 'flexibility'.
Pettigrew and Hendry: HRM is characterized by its close alignment elements with
business strategy.
Storey: developed a model that set out four areas for analysis: belief and
assumptions; strategic aspects; line management; key levers as major
determinants of HRM practice. Legge: The underling value of personnel
management and HRM differ little, and that organizational constrains may well
make a truly integrated HRM approach highly impractical.
Armstrong: financial orientation may well clash with HRM prescription.
Keenoy: being constructed around the highly ambiguous nature of the term.
Source: Ian Beardwell and Len Holden (2001:27-28) from human resource
management
This paper will introduce some concepts of personnel management and HRM,
and then will analyze the difference between them. We define personnel
management in 4 models from different aspects. While defining HRM, we
consider much about strategic integration and strong cultures. And the nature of
HRM was described by 'soft' and 'hard' vision. I will also analyze the case of
'Traders Hotel" in China to show the importance of introducing HRM in practice.
In addition, a brief introduction of strategic HRM will be extended as well.
Part II: The differences between personnel management and HRM
1.The concepts of personnel management and HRM
2. The comments take-up by British writers in the late 1980s and earlier 1990s.
3. The debate about HRM and traditional personnel management.
Torrington and Hall (1987)--- Human resources management is directed mainly at
management needs for human resources to be provided and deployed. There is
greater emphasis on planning, monitoring, and control, rather than on problem
solving and mediation. It is totally identified with management interest, being a
general management activity and is relatively distant from the workforce as a
whole.
Armstrong (2001)--- HRM develop central, senior management-driven strategic
activities. And these activities are used as a whole to promote the interests of
the organization that it serves. The purpose of HRM is to be a holistic approach
concerned with the total goal of the organization. Hence the importance
attached to strategic integration and strong cultures, which flow from top
management's vision and leadership, and which require employee who will be
committed to the strategy, who will adaptable to change, and who will fit the
culture.
The 'hard' and 'soft' versions of HRM
Some aspects of the basic philosophy of 'soft HRM' can be traced back to the
writings of McGregor (1960) who, as mentioned by Truss (1999), even used the
terminology 'hard' and 'soft' to characterize forms of management control.
McGregor's theory emphasizes the importance of integrating the needs of the
organization and those of the individual -- the principle of mutual commitment.
The hard model stress HRM's focus on the crucial importance if the close
integration of human resource policies, system and activities with business
strategy, on such HR system being used 'to drive the strategic objectives of the
organization' as Fombrun et al. (1984,p37) put it. The 'hard' version of HRM
emphasizes the calculative, quantitative and strategic management aspects of
managing the workforce in a 'rational' way (Storey, 1989).
In contract, the 'soft' versions of HRM emphasize the importance of high
motivation, high commitment, communications and enlightened leadership. Most
HRM models, assert that the organization's 'human resources' are valued assets,
not a variable cost, and emphasize the commitment of employees as a source of
competitive advantage (legge, 1989)
2.The differences between HRM and personnel management
Through comparing the concept of Personnel management and Human Resource
Management, we can find that the most significant difference between them is
that management and business-orientated philosophy were used as the basis of
HRM's concept. Just as Guest says: 'HRM is too important to be left to personnel
manager'.
The first difference is that HRM is integrated into strategy. The HRM policies and
practices are the most variable, and the least easy to understand and control of
all management resources. In terms of the utilization, the organization can get a
significant competitive advantage. The corporate strategy is the core other
functional strategies need to be created and linked into the overall strategic
approach being adopted. Strategic HRM policies are inextricably linked to the
'formulation and implementation of strategic corporate and /or business
objectives' (Devanna et al 1984). The Figure 2 displays how human resource
management can be integrated into the core strategy.
Figure 2.
Secondly, the role of line management is given different emphases. Personnel
management models highlight the view that all managers manage people. HRM
place greater stress on the line managers' responsibility of coordinating and
directing all resources to generate commitment and enthuse subordinates to
innovate.
Thirdly, HRM emphasizes the importance of individual developing and team
management. Because team management focuses on the primacy of the
individual and creating synergy by incorporating individual strengths,
approaches, and opinions seems at odds with the culture of the primacy of the
group or communalism.
The forth is cultural leadership in the organization. In most HRM models top
management is given prime responsibility for cultural leadership. The purpose of
leadership is to create a 'vision' and a working environment that generates
worker commitment, innovation, change and 'self-renewal' at all levels of the
organization.
These points suggest that the human resource management is a proactive
central strategic management activity that is different from traditional personnel
management with its implied passive connotations. Personnel management
emphasizes on standardization, proceduralization, rules and regulations. HRM is
concerned about flexibility, responsibility, and mutual goals and objectives, and
aims to reward according to the individual's performance.
PART III: A case of HRM in practice
The HRM practice in the "Trader Hotel"
'Traders' is a four-star hotel in Shenyang operated by Shangri-La international
hotel groups. It was established in the early 1980s with more than 400 rooms
and refurbished in the mid-1990s. Competition in the market has been more and
more intensive since late 1980s with growing number of large hotels of same
level in Shenyang.
In order to keep its leading position in the market, in 1998 its manager decided
to upgrade both its hardware and software. So a quality-focused strategy was
adopted, which aims at delighting the customers by providing better services to
the customers beyond their expectations'. They adopted the following methods:
Improving training and career development programme:
Developing the employee's competencies is the core part of the programme.
The program develops from the basic skill training to the full-scale cultivation,
which puts more emphasis on the employee's career development.
Communication:
"Traders" operated a 'staff committee' with selected representatives from each
department. And all staffs are invited to quarterly general staff meetings, where
the General Manager of the hotel addresses them and presents awards.
Performance assessment: The individual performance assessment system bases
on critical job success factors, key performance indicators and reward employees
accordingly.
Job redesign and empowerment: work has been reorganized in all departments to
allow employees with greater discretion in solving guests' problems with more
flexibility.
Key performance indicators: The index of Employee Satisfaction and Guest
Satisfaction improved gradually. The number of staffs' resignation reduced from
3.7% in 1998 to 2.5% in 2000. In 2000, Trader's revenue reached the highest
among all the star hotels in Shenyang city.
Discussion
The HRM activities used by "traders" were mainly training, communication,
performance appraisal and job redesign. "Traders" improved the employee's
performance by integrating the HRM with the business strategy. However, this
function couldn't found in personnel management.
The analysis of the practices used by "Traders" is illustrated as follow:
Figure 3 Human resource management practice and policies for Trader's servicebased strategy
The new HRM policies, such as staff training programme, occupational health and
safety, inspired its employees and provided them with necessary abilities and
paper, the analyzing of the case depends on the 'best practice' model. Although
this approach may be mechanistic and over simplifies things. But it is effective in
improving the organization's performance. So HRM is different from personnel
management. And in practice, Strategic HRM as the advantaged HRM integrates
the HRM practices into organization's strategy effectively.