Page 25 - DLIS104_MANAGEMENT OF LIBRARIES AND INFORMATION CENTRES

Management of Libraries and Information Centres

Notes The uniqueness of these resources is preferred to homogeneity and HRM has a central role in
developing human resources that are valuable, rare, and difficult to copy or substitute and that are
effectively organized. Overall, the theory of HRM argues that the goal of human resource
management is to help an organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining
employees and also to manage them effectively. The key word here perhaps is “fit”, i.e. a HRM
approach seeks to ensure a fit between the management of an organization’s employees, and the
overall strategic direction of the company (Miller, 1989).
The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines; therefore we
need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace. Fields such as psychology,
industrial relations, industrial engineering, sociology, economics, and critical theories:
postmodernism, post-structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities offer bachelor
and master degrees in Human Resources Management or in Human Resources and Industrial
Relations.

Notes One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich,
defines 4 fields for the HRM function:
Strategic business partner
Change Agent
Employee champion
Administration Expert

Business practice

Human resources management involves several processes. Together they are supposed to achieve
the above mentioned goal. These processes can be performed in an HR department, but some tasks
can also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other departments. When effectively
integrated they provide significant economic benefit to the company.
Workforce planning
Recruitment (sometimes separated into attraction and selection)
Induction orientation and on boarding
Skills management
Training and development
Personnel administration
Compensation in wage
Time management
Travel management (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
Payroll (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
Employee benefits administration
Personnel cost planning
Performance appraisal
Labor relations

HRM strategy

An HRM strategy pertains to the means as to how to implement the specific functions of Human
Resource Management. An organization’s HR function may possess recruitment and selection
policies, disciplinary procedures, reward/recognition policies, an HR plan, or learning and
development policies; however all of these functional areas of HRM need to be aligned and
correlated, in order to correspond with the overall business strategy. An HRM strategy thus is an
overall plan, concerning the implementation of specific HRM functional areas.
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