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Unit 3: Human Resource Management

An HRM strategy typically consists of the following factors: Notes
“Best fit” and “best practice” meaning that there is correlation between the HRM strategy
and the overall corporate strategy. As HRM as a field seeks to manage human resources in
order to achieve properly organizational goals, an organization’s HRM strategy seeks to
accomplish such management by applying a firm’s personnel needs with the goals/objec-
tives of the organization. As an example, a firm selling cars could have a corporate strategy
of increasing car sales by 10% over a five-year period. Accordingly, the HRM strategy would
seek to facilitate how exactly to manage personnel in order to achieve the 10% figure. Specific
HRM functions, such as recruitment and selection, reward/recognition, an HR plan, or learn-
ing and development policies, would be tailored to achieve the corporate objectives.
Close co-operation between HR and the top/senior management, in the development of the
corporate strategy. Theoretically, a senior HR representative should be present when an
organization’s corporate objectives are devised. This is so, since it is a firm’s personnel who
actually construct a good, or provide a service. The personnel’s proper management is vital
in the firm being successful, or even existing as a going concern. Thus, HR can be seen as one
of the critical departments within the functional area of an organization.
Continual monitoring of the strategy, via employee feedback, surveys, etc.
The implementation of an HR strategy is not always required, and may depend on a number of
factors, namely the size of the firm, the organizational culture within the firm or the industry that
the firm operates in and also the people in the firm. An HRM strategy can be divided, in general,
into two facets the people strategy and the HR functional strategy. The people strategy pertains to
the point listed in the first paragraph, namely the careful correlation of HRM policies/actions to
attain the goals laid down in the corporate strategy. The HR functional strategy relates to the
policies employed within the HR functional area itself, regarding the management of persons
internal to it, to ensure its own departmental goals are met.

Functions

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key
among them is deciding the staffing needs of an organization and whether to use independent
contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees,
ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel
and management practices conform to various regulations. Activities also include managing your
approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies.
Usually small businesses (for-profit or nonprofit) have to carry out these activities themselves
because they can’t yet afford part- or full-time help. However, they should always ensure that
employees have and are aware of personnel policies which conform to current regulations. These
policies are often in the form of employee manuals, which all employees have.

Did u know? The HRM function and HRD profession have undergone major changes over
the past 20-30 years. Many years ago, large organizations looked to the
“Personnel Department,” mostly to manage the paperwork around hiring
and paying people. More recently, organizations consider the “HR
Department” as playing an important role in staffing, training and helping to
manage people so that people and the organization are performing at
maximum capability in a highly fulfilling manner.

3.1.1 Selection
Selection is the process of evaluating the qualifications, experience, skill, knowledge, etc, of an
applicant in relation to the requirements of the job to determine his suitability for the job. The
selection procedure is concerned with securing relevant information from applicants and selecting
the most suitable among them, based on an assessment of how successful the employee would be
in the job, if he were placed in the vacant position. The selection process has two basic objectives:
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