Personnel management and HRM

“Personnel management is a type of Human Resource Management. This area of management is concerned about workers and staff of the organization. They are responsible for recruiting and staffing of employees in an organization”.

Its features include:

Organizational management

Personnel administration

Manpower management

Industrial management

The term personnel Management and Human Resource management can be called as the same process having two names. In today’s world Personnel management is known as human resource management which came into effect during the 1970s and got the acceptance in 1989.Both terms however, referred to the same thing; the personnel manager who work for a company represent that company’s human resources. Although Human Resource Management department did not exist in the 1940s, but many Human Resource practices and programs that we see today emerged in the earlier times.

Human Resource Management (HRM) previously known as personal management, deals with formal system for the management of the employees within the organization. HR mangers have many things to do and think regarding their workers. These concerns include how to manage layoffs, address reduced employee loyalty, and create a well trained highly motivated work force through training, capable of higher productivity with high quality. Manage and increase diverse workforce and contain health care cost.

In 1970s, the job of the HR manger was to keep their companies out of court because at that time the government set many regulations regarding the work. In the 1980s HR mangers had to address staffing costs related to mergers and acquisitions and downsizing. The economic issues related to an increasingly global and competitive workplace characterize the 1990s

Shifting from Personnel Management to HRM:

The most important role of HRM can be from the transformation of the personnel management function from concentrating on employee welfare to managing workforce in a way, that meet organizational and individual goals and providing employees with internal and external rewards. Therefore, today Human Resource Management (HRM), previously had known as personal management, deals with formal system for the management of the people within the organization. Many well-known companies report that they are trying to transform their workforce into a source of competitive advantage.

Stages of shifting of Personnel Management to HRM:

Firstly, Effective HRM focus on linking HRM problems to the overall strategy of the organization, the most effective HRM will design policies and practices for such corporate policies and strategies which can change an organization’s culture

Secondly, building strong cultures is a way of promoting particular organizational goals, strong culture’ is aimed at uniting employees through a shared set of managerially set of values (‘quality’, ‘service’, ‘innovation’ etc.)

Thirdly, the attitude that people are a variable cost is ineffective HRM, replaced by the view that people are resource and that as social capital can be developed and can contribute to competitive advantage. It is accepted that competitive advantage is gained through well-educated and trained, motivated and committed employees.

Fourthly, the view that the interests of employees and management or shareholders are divergent which was substantially true in the past – is giving way to the view that this need not necessarily be so.

Shift of personnel management to HRM took place in three stages:

1. Records and Administration

2. Accountability Regulations

3. Competitive Advantage

1. Records and Administration: –

In first stage the primary activities, which were carried out by personnel department, were, Planning Company picnics Scheduling vacations, Enrolling workers for health-care coverage, planning retirement parties, increase diverse workforce and contain health care cost.

2. Accountability Regulations: –

During this stage primary framework of rules and regulations started emerging in the organization. In 1970s, the job of the HR manger was to keep their companies out of court. In the 1980s HR mangers had to address staffing costs related to mergers and acquisitions and downsizing.

3. Competitive Advantage: –

The aim of this shift stage is from merely securing compliance to the more ambitious one of winning commitment. The employee resource, therefore, becomes worth investing in, and training and development thus assume a higher profile.

P 2: -Assess the role, tasks and activities of the human resource practitioner

HRM plays a very important role in the success of every organization especially big organization where it is difficult to manage all the activities. HRM is also developing and maintaining a quality of work life that’s make employment in the organization desirable. It provides well trained and multi-skill employees.

One of the most important functions of HRM is that it brings strategic integration. To integrate all the functions from top management to lower management. Integrate them at one specific point that all functions are interrelated. The policies of HRM are structured in such away which allows maximum flexibility and because of flexibility it can bring innovation because innovation is also very important for the success of an organization like that of specialized cycle. There motto is “innovation or die”. HRM also force on better quality because of the best quality it can survive in the market. Because with the industrial revolution there when new competitors enter in to the market the old competitors stress on quality in order to show that they have a competitive edge.

The HR Manager has an important role in developing and reviewing policies, practices and later referring them to senior management for decision making.

The HR Manager generally educates staff through applied theories and retraining them with skillful training for line managers.

The HR Manager provides support and guidance to those employees which are involved in unwelcome actions.

HR Manager is responsible to find such people whose abilities are competent with the nature of business in which the organization is involve.

HR Manager conducts job analysis, recruitment and selecting processes effectively and efficiently which helps an organization to hire capable people.

HR Manager is responsible to increase the skill and knowledge level of the employees in order to improve their performance level. It is not obvious that one strategy regarding improving performance level which works for one organization will also work for others

HR Manager has a key role in appraising an employee. Through appraising the HR department can judge employees performance. A performance appraisal compares every employee’s real performance with the benchmarks of standards i.e. appraising employees help the companies in evaluating its employees.

HR Manager is responsible to make sure that its policies are competent with the government rules and regulation so that the government shouldn’t take the company to court. Secondly it is the ethical responsibility of the organization that it should work under the premises of government laws.

The HR Manager builds a competitive edge because conceptually HRM is a strategy of using human resource. Now a day if a company wants to build a competitive edge over its competitors so it has to be very good in managing its human resource because it is the human who use all other sources of production.

HR Manager is responsible to make such an environment to make employees effective and efficient to adapt the changing of technologies to perform the operations.

Now a days planning is needed for all the functions and actions of the organizations. Building strategies is one of the core purposes of planning. As human assets are considered the keys to business success so while planning and building strategies it is very important to integrate the strategies regarding human resource with over all corporate strategic planning so that the success can be achieved.

An Ideal HR Manager: –

Generally HR Manager should perform such activities like planning, directing, and coordinating human resource management actions of an organization to develop the strategic usage of human resources and to continue functions such as recruitment, employees training, planning, employee compensation, and employees’ performance appraisal.

HR should be a “Profit Centre” which refers to a part of a corporation that directly adds to its profit. Organizations may be organized in terms of profit centers where the profit center’s revenues and expenses are held separate from the main company’s in order to determine their profitability. We can justify this that recruitments, staff settlement, training and other things that they do should be profitable for an organization.

They need to reduce administration cost through proper planning for example providing transport facilities, coffee, tea, lunch expenses, other bonuses lead to higher administrative cost. It will help them to avoid wastage of resources.

They need to conduct Performance Appraisal properly which refers to as ” a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated (generally in terms of quality, quantity, cost, and time) typically by the corresponding manager.

They should provide their employees compensation which refers to as a “systematic approach to providing monetary value to employees in exchange for work performed”. Compensation may achieve several purposes assisting in recruitment, job performance, and job satisfaction.

They need have good relationship with different departments and try to keep themselves up to date from their activities and performances in order to prevent miscommunication and other disputes.

P3: – Evaluate the role and responsibilities of line managers in human resource practices?

“Line manager is person who deals with the workforce directly”. Line manager plays important role in the success of HR manager. Line managers play vital role in terms of implementing HR policies and practices such as, “disciplinary handling, absence management, Training and appraising employees”. Line managers now have a greater involvement in the recruitment and selection process – from the outset. Alongside the HR manager, line managers are now typically involved in briefing the recruitment agency, writing the advertisement, short listing and interviewing they then make sure that recruitment is right. HR manager gets staff information from the line manager, for example if the employees are not working properly or they don’t come regularly, these line managers inform the HR manager to take proper actions. If some workers are not performing well then HR manager consults line manager for providing them training in order to develop the skills and techniques of their employees and then appraising those employees who are working well in order provide them with equal growth opportunities. Some researches have found that where employees feels positive about their relationship with their line managers they are more likely to have higher levels of job satisfaction, commitment and loyalty which are associated with higher levels of performance, for example taking care of employees health and hygiene factors will address employees absenteeism’s and hence increase their motivation. As well as line manager helps HR manager in providing employees other fringe benefits such as free medical, transport and free education for employees’ children and treating every in the same way will increase their loyalty towards their organization and hence, it will address the discipline problems. Therefore, the involvements of line manager in HR practices improve their activities further.

M1: -Discuss how the concepts of PM and HRM are practiced in an organization?

We have selected UFONE as an organization. As we all know that Pakistan Telecommunication Corporation Limited (PTCL) that started its operations in January 2001 under the brand name ‘UFONE’. As a result of PTCL’s privatization, UFONE became a part of the Emirates Telecommunication Corporation Group (Etisalat) in 2006.

(Referenced from: – http://ufone.com/about.aspx )

They have got large human resources in their Peshawar branch office. They have a human resource department in Islamabad to guide their employees and provide those facilities and comfort. In this company there are several departments such as sales department, customer care department, finance department, marketing department, corporate department etc. In UFONE Human Resource Department has individual relationship with each department. In UFONE the roles and responsibilities of Human Resource Management Department which was previously known as Personal management in recruitment process is given below:

Before hiring new employees the HR department ensures that whether there is a need to hire a new employee for the particular job. The recruitment in UFONE is of both internal and external nature.

Internal Recruitment: –

In this case the employees already in the organization are encouraged to fill the vacant position. The HR department and other senior department choose the best fit from the employees within the UFONE. After the promotion employees are sent for further training. Internal recruitment motivates the employees to perform well and produce good results. It also creates a healthy competition within the staff of UFONE.

External Recruitment: –

If the HR department of UFONE feels that there is no one in the company who can fill the vacancy then they recruit from external sources. First they select some supervisors with whom the new people will work in order to form a panel of people who will interview applicants.

UFONE has a data base system i.e. HRMS (Human Resource Management System) for its current applicants as well for the future employees. People just drop their CV’s there and in case some vacancy occurs HR department call them for an interview. UFONE also advertise internally for recruitment purpose, because their current employees pass this information to their friends and families. UFONE’s HR management has the service of internal flow, web designer, and Eveready media in order to post their advertisement. They also have eCV’s format in which people put their CV’s without moving and this system forward them to the HRM department.

Recruitment procedure in UFONE: –

For collecting application everything is computerized and it is very easy for them to reply too many applicants. They handle first those people who do not fit in their job and deal them carefully because they consider them their future applicants. Then they take on-line evaluation test (basically for testing personality and skills) and candidates that pass this test are called for an interview and the day for the interview is already set. Then the results are screened by an expert penal in order to reduce the chances of errors in selecting the candidates. After selecting the candidates then they are referred to accounts department for settling the pay and they give the new employees an orientation of what is his/her duties and responsibilities in UFONE. Then after some time they provide them training for enhancing their skill of communication with their client. The basic purpose behind all these recruitment steps is to hire a skillful workforce in UFONE who work toward department and the organization’s goals and objectives and to get competitive advantage.

M2: -Make an effective judgment about PM and line manager responsibilities in studied organization.

The line manager has key role in UFONE. They are responsible for dealing workforce directly and they are there to help the HRM department and others as well. The way line manager works with HR manager in selection processes, disciplinary handling, absence management, and training and appraising in UFONE which has been mentioned in P3. According to the Judgment given to us by the HR manager of UFONE, they are achieving their goals on time. He said our HRM department has good relationship with every department of UFONE such as marketing, corporate, finance, sales, customers care departments etc. The HR department plan rules and regulation and the way they want their employees to work then our line managers pass those information to the lower staff so that they perform accordingly within time in order to get organizational goals. Some time they work more than their required duty timing from 9am to 5pm and till 8pm so that they get their targets. But what we judged after studying UFONE is even though they provide their employees all the monetary and non-monetary benefits a lot of employees from both managerial and non-managerial levels left UFONE just after few months of their joining. The major reason behind this is that sometime in order to achieve their targets in the season many people keep working more then their required duty timing of 9am to 5pm and continue till 8pm and employees find themselves without their social life. Another problem that we noticed was that there was lack of communication between sales departments and the marketing department.

D1: -Evaluate the roles and responsibilities of HR manager and line manager in the organization as compared to their ideal role.

Here we would like to specify the problems or the area in which HR manager is lacking after studying UFONE. In this company communication between different departments is very bad for example an year ago their marketing department made an offer in their advertisement that customers can get UFONE Sims for free without informing their Sales department, that advertisement attracted the attention of every one, then every one rushed to get Sims for free, while they didn’t had enough Sims to supply as consequences their image was badly effected and their Customer Care Department received thousands of complaints. We have held HR department for the problem of miscommunication between different departments because HR focuses on openness in communication between senior management and employees in different departments, results in improving employee engagement and their productivity this shows their focus is not to provide open communication. Another problem that UFONE’s HR Manager is facing is that even though they provide their employees all the monetary and non-monetary benefits a lot of employees from both managerial and non-managerial levels left UFONE just after few months of their joining. The major reason behind this is that sometimes in order to achieve their targets in the season many people keep working more then their required duty timing of 9am to 5pm and continue till 8pm and employees find themselves without their social life. This problem shows that HR manager is not performing well because its not only money that is important to their employees they needed also to take care of employees by allowing them to go at 5pm so that they can spend time with their families. The ideal roles of their HR manager in UFONE should be the following:

HR manager should build such communication system in which each department can communicate with each other so that marketing department increase demands of their customer by consulting the sales departments in order to make an effective advertisement for their product in this way each department will perform better.

HR manager needs to have back up staff in season time where targets are high and with allotted time employees had to work over time for getting their targets. And provide them emergency leaves if the employees have emergency in their homes by doing this HR can stop their employees from leaving.

They need to reduce administration cost through proper planning for example providing transport facilities, coffee, tea, lunch expenses, other bonuses lead to higher administrative cost. It will help them to avoid wastage of resources.

They need to conduct Performance Appraisal properly which refers to as ” a method by which the job performance of an employee is evaluated (generally in terms of quality, quantity, cost, and time) typically by the corresponding manager.

They should provide their employees compensation which refers to as a “systematic approach to providing monetary value to employees in exchange for work performed”. Compensation may achieve several purposes assisting in recruitment, job performance, and job satisfaction.

They need have good relationship with different departments and try to keep themselves up to date from their activities and performances in order to prevent miscommunication and other disputes.

D2: -Suggest recommendations for realistic improvement against the defined

Following are the recommendations for UFONE to carry out their human resource planning in a better way:

The prediction of requirement and availability of the work force is considered an essential step in carrying out human resource planning for any organization. UFONE should do the forecasting keeping in mind the rapid changes in demands which has been taking place and should spend their time in finding best employees from service sector, which could be a source of competitive advantage for the organization. They should always look for hiring the quality workforce and this can be done effectively by keeping contacts with universities because fresh candidates no matters they are not experienced but they show enthusiasm and commitment in their early jobs to built a platform for their career. So they can hire the fresh candidates and should train them to assist the HR professionals. Moreover the initial step should be the establishment of the HR departments on regional levels because without proper HR professionals, qualitative human resource planning is not possible; this is discussed in detail in the upcoming topics.

Recruitment and selection process has a pivotal role in making successful HRM policies. In case of UFONE before advertising any vacancy they should do proper job analysis which will lead to the development of an effective job description and job specification and will result in attracting potential talented candidates for the job.

They should practice performance management policies, different incentives scheme should be introduced e.g. if a department within the office shows outstanding performance in generating more revenue then the rest of the areas or has performed well in reducing the complaints in that area then should be given some special incentives and should be provided company’s certificate for good performance because a company’s certificate means a lot to any employee. They should give all of them some role in decision making and should give them chance to achieve their full potential. Moreover job security should be given top priority because if the employee feels being in an uncertain environment and does not feel being a part of that company so he/she can never perform well, so in order to make them contribute effectively and to fulfill their responsibilities UFONE needs to work on job security. In addition, the employees should be promoted and given more benefits and greater responsibility based on their efficiency and experience. All this which will help them in keeping their employees loyal and committed and as a result employee turnover will be low.

Proper training and development keeps an organization ready to face untoward situations and helps them in gaining competitive edge over its competitors. UFONE should review the performance of employees after every quarter for this purpose they should make the separate profile of each employee and their performance should be evaluated against the standard performance required for the success of the organization, this will help UFONE in finding out key areas for development for that particular employee and accordingly they can assess what his/her training needs are. Moreover in response to the case discussed above, they should invite all the employees for the training programs instead of inviting a couple of employees from every department because all of them deserve to improve and work on their skills and to get better training.

Organization environment and structure is considered as the most critical factor for the success of the organization in case of UFONE the employees suggestions should be given due consideration while making the strategy this will make employee feel as a part of the organization and besides that flexible working hours and family friendly policies should also be introduced because they don’t need only money in fact, they should take care of their personal needs as well. As earlier we have discussed that sometimes employee works till 8pm so this is against their own needs, they should set a proper schedule for taking out the work from employees.