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Unit 1: Introduction to Human Resource Management

knowledge work. As such, the HR environment has changed. The challenge posed by the Notes
changed environment is fostering HRM practices to respond to the need and requirement
of knowledge workers. Every organization depends increasingly on knowledge—patents,
processes, management skills, technologies and intellectual capital. As a result of these
changes, organizations are giving and will continue to give growing emphasis to their
human capital, i.e., knowledge, education, training skills and expertise of their employees.
1.6.2 Changing Role of the HR Manager

The HR environment is changing and so is the role of the HR manager. The HR manager
today has to adapt to suit the changed environment. Some of the important HR practices are
explained below:
Flatter Organizations: The pyramidal organization structure is getting converted into flat
organization. The reducing levels of hierarchy mean that more people report to one manager.
Therefore, employees will have to work on their own will with less interference from the
manager.

Employee Empowerment: The days are gone when managers exercised formal power over
employees to get work done. Under the changed conditions, employees have now become
‘knowledge workers.’ Knowledge workers need to be provided with greater autonomy
through information sharing and provision of control over factors that affect performance.
Granting sanction to the employers to make decisions in their work matters is called
‘employee empowerment’.
Team Work: Modern organizations rely more on multi-function of workers so that workers
do not remain confined to a single function but can do more than one function. Employees
contribute to organization more as members of the team. The managerial implications are
that these workers should be managed as a team and not as an individual in isolation.
Therefore, managers need to follow a holistic approach of management.
Ethical Management: Ethical issues pose fundamental questions about fairness, justice,
truthfulness and social responsibility. Ethics therefore means what ‘ought’ to be done. For
the HR manager, there are ethical ways in which the manager ought to act relative to a given
human resource issue. Research conducted by Robert D Gatewood and Archie B Carnell
provides some guidelines that can help the HR manager:

• Does the behaviour or result achieve comply with all applicable laws, regulations and
government codes?
• Does the behaviour or result achieved comply with all organizational standards of
ethical behaviour?
• Does the behaviour or result achieved comply with professional standards of ethical
behaviour?

The points mentioned above pertain only to complying with laws and regulations.
Organizational members need to go beyond laws and regulations. They need to be guided
by values and codes of behaviour. Here it becomes the responsibility of the HR manager
to conduct training programmes to induce ethical behaviour in organizations.

1.7 Human Resource Policies

Human resource policies are systems of codified decisions, established by an organization,
to support administrative personnel functions, performance management, employee relations
and resource planning. Each company has a different set of circumstances, and so develops
an individual set of human resource policies. HR policies provide an organization with a
mechanism to manage risk by staying up to date with current trends in employment
standards and legislation. The policies must be framed in a manner that the companies vision

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