Page 10 - DMGT406_HUMAN_RESOURCE_MANAGEMENT

Unit 1: Understanding the Nature and Scope of Human Resource Management

1.1.1 Definitions Notes

According to M L Cuming, "Human Resource Management is concerned with obtaining the best
possible staff for an organization and having got them looking after them, so that they want to
stay and give their best to their jobs."
Dale Yoder defines Human Resource Management as that part of the phase of management
dealing effectively with control and use of manpower as distinguished from other source of
power.
According to F. E. L. Brech, Human Resource Management is that part of management progress
which is primarily concerned with the human constituents of an organization.
Edison defines, Human Resource Management as the science of human engineering.
According to Leon C. Megginson, the term human resource can be thought of as, "the total
knowledge, skill, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes of an Organization's workforce, as
well as the values, attitudes and beliefs of the individuals involved."
RM is a progressive field: We can pave back its evolution from administration to personnel
management and now to human resource management. The scope of each of these fields is now
discussed:
1. Administration: In early days of establishment of various fields of management, a
department called administration was made. The objective of this department was to hire,
monitor, supervise and compensate the workforce for the organization and also to monitor
the overall operation.
Later on with the growth of industrialization and advent of more systematic and scientific
management, a natural offshoot of administration in the name of personnel management
was formed, which later on gained importance and became a full-fledged and distinct
field of management.
2. Personnel Management: As defined by the Institute of Personnel Management in the U.K.
and also adopted by Indian Institute of Personnel Management:
"Personnel Management is the responsibility of all those who manage people as well as
being a description of the work of those who are employed as specialists. It is that part of
management which is concerned with people at work and with the relationships within
an enterprise. It applies not only to industry and commerce but to all fields of employment".
3. Human Resource Management: With rising competition and globalization, it was realized
that the only way to maintain a superior position or rather, even remain in competition is
to have such resources that are distinct from competitors and the only means to maintain
that distinctiveness is through attracting and retaining the right human resource in the
organization. Hence, the field of human resource management evolved from personnel
management. The differences between the two are more on philosophical changes than on
the functions. On the one hand, personnel management has the philosophy of maintaining
human resources in the organization, whereas HRM has a philosophy of developing its
human resources and considers human resources as the most important resource of the
organization.

1.2 HRM Functions

All managers are, in a sense, HR managers, since they all get involved in activities like recruiting,
interviewing, selecting, and training. Yet most firms also have a human resource department

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