Human Resource

Management
ELEVENTH EDITION
1
GARY DESSLER

Part 1 | Introduction

Chapter 1

Introduction to Human Resource Management

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 Human Resource Management at Work
What Is Human Resource Management (HRM)?
The policies and practices involved in carrying out the “people” or human
resource aspects of a management position, including recruiting, training,
appraising, and compensating employees, and of attending to their labor
relations, health & safety, and fairness concern.
 One aspect of the Management Process (planning, Organizing,
Staffing, Leading, & Controlling)

Basic HR Concepts
• HR creates value by engaging in activities that produce the
employee behaviors that the company needs to achieve
its strategic goals.

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Personnel Aspects of a Manager’s Job
• Conducting job analyses (determining the nature of each employee’s job)
• Planning labor needs and recruiting job candidates
• Selecting job candidates
• Orienting and training new employees
• Managing wages and salaries (compensating employees)
• Providing incentives and benefits
• Appraising performance
• Communicating (interviewing, counseling, disciplining)
• Training and developing managers
• Building employee commitment
And a Manager should know about:
 Equal opportunity & affirmative action
 Employee health & safety
 Handling grievances and labor relations
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 What Motivates Employees?
• Feeling “in” on things
• Good wages 8

• Good working conditions 1

• Job security 4
2
• Full appreciation of work that is done
• Tactful disciplining 5
9
• Employer loyalty to employees
7
• Interesting work
3
• Promotion and growth in the organization
6
Karl and1–5
Sutton, 1996
 Why HRM Important to all Managers
• Hire the wrong person for the job
• Experience high turnover
• Have your people not doing their best
• Waste time with useless interviews
• Have your company in court because of discriminatory actions
• Have your company cited by labor court for unsafe practices
• Have some employees think their salaries are unfair and
inequitable relative to others in the organization
• Allow a lack of training to undermine your department’s
effectiveness
• Commit any unfair labor practices
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Why We Care About HRM?

• Impact on you as employees

• Impact on you as managers

• Potential future roles as HR professionals

• Impact of HRM on organizations

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 Principles of HRM
1. Strategic Integration An attempt to treat all labour
management processes – from recruitment and training to
remuneration and retrenchment – in a strategic fashion by
integrating them with the broader business concerns of the
enterprise.
2. Organisational flexibility
3. Commitment, from ‘control’ to ‘commitment’ through
changing the organisation’s culture. Mission statement should
state these core values. Also only recruiting those prepared to
subscribe to these core values.
4. Quality ensuring culture of quality: Quality work, quality
workers, quality products and services; Total Quality
Management, Quality assurance and zero defects, Internal
customers, Empowering workers via team working. 1–8
 Line and Staff Aspects of HRM
• Authority & Responsibility
 The right to make decisions, direct others’ work, and give orders; with
responsible actions utilizing such authorities in maximum resulting in
benefits for all the parties involved.

• Line Authority; the Line manager

 Line authority gives the managers the right to issue orders to other
managers or employees.
 It creates a ‘superior-subordinate’ relationship.
 Thus the line manager is a manager who is authorized to direct the work
of subordinates and is responsible for accomplishing the organization’s
tasks.

• Staff Authority; the Staff manager

 Staff authority gives the managers the right to advise other managers or
employees.
 It creates an ‘advisory’ relationship.
 Thus the staff manager is a manager who assists and advises line
managers.
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 Functions of the HR Manager
• A Line Function
 The HR manager directs the activities of the people in his or her own
department and in related service areas. While they generally can not
wield line authority outside, they hold Implied authority (the authority
exerted by an HR manager by virtue of others’ knowledge that he or she
has access to top management).

• A Coordinative Function
 HR managers also coordinate personnel activities, a duty often referred to
as functional control.

• Staff (assist and advise) Functions

 Assisting and advising line managers is the heart of the HR manager’s
job. It plays an employee advocacy role by:
 Clearly defining how management should be treating employees.
 Making sure employees have the mechanisms required to contest unfair
practices.
 Represent the interests of employees within the framework of its primary
obligation to senior management.
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 Line Managers’ HRM Responsibilities
Though HR managers assist & advise line managers in areas like recruiting,
hiring, & compensation, the line managers still have their HR duties:
 Placing the right person on the right job
 Starting new employees in the organization (orientation)
 Training employees for jobs that are new to them
 Improving the job performance of each person
 Gaining creative cooperation and developing smooth working relationships
 Interpreting the firm’s policies and procedures
 Controlling labor costs
 Developing the abilities of each person
 Creating and maintaining department morale
Protecting employees’ health and physical condition

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 Examples of HR Job Duties
• Recruiters
 Search for qualified job applicants.
• Equal employment opportunity (EEO) coordinators
 Investigate and resolve EEO grievances, examine organizational
practices for potential violations, and compile and submit EEO reports.
• Job analysts
 Collect and examine information about jobs to prepare job descriptions.
• Compensation managers
 Develop compensation plans and handle the employee benefits
program.
• Training specialists
 Plan, organize, and direct training activities.
• Labor relations specialists
 Advise management on all aspects of union–management relations.

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Cooperative Line & Staff HR Management

HRM is part of every manager’s job. Thus generally it’s a

cooperative relationship between the line & staff managers:

1. The line manager’s responsibility is to specify the

qualifications employees need to fill specific positions.
2. HR staff then develops sources of qualified applicants
and conduct initial screening interviews
3. HR administers the appropriate tests and refers the
best applicants to the supervisor (line manager), who
interviews and selects the ones he or she wants.

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 HR Organizational Chart (Small Company)
Size of the HR department reflects the size of the company, there is
generally about one HR employee per 100 company employees.

Figure 1–2

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HR Department Organizational Chart (Large Company)

Figure 1–1
Source: Adapted from BNA Bulletin to Management, June 29, 2000.

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Employment and Recruiting—Who Handles It?
(percentage of all employers)

Note: length of bars represents prevalence of activity among all surveyed employers.
Figure 1–3
Source: HR Department Benchmarks and Analysis,” BNA/Society for Human Resource Management, 2002.

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 A Changing HR Environment
• Globalization
 The tendency of firms to extend their sales, ownership, and/or
manufacturing to new markets abroad
 Both workers and companies have to work harder and smarter than
they did before globalization

• Government regulation

• Stronger knowledge/research base

• Changing role for labor unions

• Challenge of matching worker expectations with competitive

demands

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 A Changing HR Environment (contd.)
• Technological Advances
 Companies use virtual online communities to improve
efficiency
 Creating high-tech jobs, service jobs, knowledge work
(human capital)

Implications for HR
 The key to effectively utilizing all that new technology is
usually not the technology, but the people.
 Today’s employer’s need more sophisticated HRM
selection, training, pay, and employee fairness practices

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 Changing Role of HRM
• Strategy
 The company’s long-term plan for how it will balance its
internal strengths and weaknesses with its external
opportunities and threats to maintain a competitive
advantage.
 HR managers today are more involved in partnering with their top
managers in both designing and implementing their companies’
strategies.

• Strategic HRM
 Formulating and executing HR policies and practices that
produce the employee competencies and behaviors the
company needs to achieve its strategic aims.

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Creating High-Performance Work System Practices
• Employment security
• Selective hiring
• Extensive training
• Self-managed teams/decentralized
decision making
• Reduced status distinctions
• Information sharing
• Contingent (pay-for-performance)
rewards
• Transformational leadership
• Measurement of management
practices
• Emphasis on high-quality work
Benefits of a HPWS
• Generate more job applicants
• Screen candidates more effectively
• Provide more and better training
• Link pay more explicitly to
performance
• Provide a safer work environment
• Produce more qualified applicants
per position
• More employees are hired based on
validated selection tests
• Provide more hours of training for
new employees
• Higher percentages of employees
receiving regular performance
appraisals.
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Measuring HR’s Contribution: The HR Scorecard
HR Scorecard measures the HR function’s effectiveness &
efficiency in producing employee behaviors needed to achieve
the companies strategic goals.
It shows the measurable, cause-and-effect links between three
things:

1. HR activities, such as improving the firm’s incentive plan,

2. Intermediate employee results, such as improved morale,

3. End-result company metrics, such as improved customer

service and higher profits.

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 HR Manager’s Proficiencies
Being a HR manager today is challenging and requires several proficiencies:
• HR proficiencies
 Represent traditional knowledge & skills in areas like employee
selection, training, and compensation.
• Business proficiencies
 Reflect HR manager’s new strategic role, like assisting top management
in formulating strategies.
• Leadership proficiencies
 They need the ability to work with and lead management groups, and to
drive the changes required.
• Learning proficiencies
 The ability to stay side-by-side of and apply all the new technologies
and practices affecting the profession
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 A New Model of HRM is Needed

• More strategic (not strictly focused on day-

to-day operational needs)
• More proactive (less reactive)
• More of a consultant to line management
(less of a bureaucratic specialist)
• More of an “employee champion” (less of
an organizational “cop”)
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