The History of Human Resource Management Human resource management is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human resource management" and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. Human Resource management is evolving rapidly. Human resource management is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce. (1) Human resource management has it roots in the late and early 1900's. When workers jobs became less labor intense and more working with machinary. The scientific management movement began. This movement was started by Frederick Taylor when he wrote about it a book titled The Principles of Scientific Management. The book stated, "The principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employee."(2) Taylor believed that management should use the techniques used by scientist to research and test work skills to improve the efficiency of the workforce. Also around the same time came the industrial welfare movement. This was usually a voluntary effort by employers to improve the conditions in their factories. The effort also extended into the employees life outside of the work place. The employer would try to provide assistance to employees to purchase a home, medical care, or assistance for education. The human relations movement is the major influence of the modern human resource management. The movement focused on how employees group behavior and how employee feelings. This movement was influenced by the Hawthorne Studies and the belief that employees worked better in a social system. By the late 1800s, people problems were a very real concern in the workplace. For the average blue-collar worker, most jobs were low-paying, monotonous and unsafe. Some industries experienced difficulty recruiting and retaining employees because of the poor working conditions workers were exposed to. As the means of production continued to shift from farmlands and guilds to city factories, concerns grew about wages, safety, and child labor and 12-hour workdays. Workers began to band together in unions to protect their interests and improve living standards. Government stepped in to provide basic rights and protections for workers.
In conclusion, the period from 1875 to 1890 brought many attempts at bettering the working conditions, but many of the working class’s attempts at being recognized went unnoticed. This resulted in violence, frustration, and unnecessary deaths. The series of failed strikes and attempts to receive government intervention resulted in heightened anger among the employees. Without an increase in wages, decrease in working hours, and improvement of working facilities, many workers left their jobs leaving the employer angry and in need of workers. None were available, however, because they were either protesting for better working conditions, signing a contract with a better company, or blocking rail and roadways in order to get their points across to the government.
Factory workers of this time had very little freedom. Aside from having to work outrageous hours for 6 days of the week, there was no job security, no solid way to survive day-to-day, and if a family member were to suffer an accident, families had no financial means to carry on. In the early 1900s, there were no labor laws, including the right to organize, an eight-hour day, safety standards, or unemployment/disability pensions. M...
The United States’s industrialization lead to a great boom in both economic and population growth, allowing businesses to flourish. With more money and workers at their disposal, employers often would often mistreat workers, suddenly cutting their wages or firing them. With only profit in mind, industries eventually became monopolized and the conditions of workers only worsened. Defenseless and barely able to survive, laborers soon found power in uniting with each other, leading to the establishment of American labor unions during the Gilded Age. They provided workers with necessary protection from their employers’ capricious decisions, and while their presence elicited fear in business owners, unions eventually bettered the standard of living for the American proletarian through compromise.
The environment industrial workers faced during the years 1875 to 1900, was extremely harsh. While the United States just finished a war, it was also trying to compete against other countries in the industrial world. Workers were not even given the option for retirement pensions, benefits, or vacation time. They endured excessive hour shifts, trifle amounts of pay, and dangerous conditions while working in the factories. Labor movements could not handle this anymore; therefore, they took action. The main points they argued for were safer atmospheres, honest pay, and easier working shifts.
The importance of Human Resource management is associated with the beginning of mankind. As the knowledge of survival had begun including safety, health, hunting and gathering, tribal leaders passed on the knowledge to their youth. However more advanced HRM functions were developed as early as 1000 B.C and 2000 B.C. Since the modern management theory took over, the working environment was transformed into a more friendly and safe work place. The workers were termed as most valuable resources. While some companies took the human side of employment seriously, there were others who did not find it mandatory. Hence they faced huge labor unions and factory shut downs (Henning, 2001).
Human resource management is a complex area of study. It involves the leadership and management of an organization’s people in a way that allows for optimization of company goals
An example of these horrible working conditions would be in the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. 146 people were killed because there was no fire escapes and the managers chained the doors shut to prevent anyone from leaving during work. Besides the fact of the horrible working conditions, most Americans were only making 500$ a year, while they were working 10 hours or more a day 7 days a week. The working conditions often made people sick and a lot of times would end up with death. By 1900 industrial accidents killed thirty-five thousand workers each year and maimed five hundred thousand others, and the numbers continued to rise. Child labor was also on the rise as 1.7 million people were working in factories by 1900. Progressivists changed this by implementing child labor laws, higher minimum wages, lowering work hours and improving working conditions. This was necessary because to many workers were dying, in poverty or just being worn down.
Human resource management is the process of recruiting, selecting, developing, utilizing, compensating, and motivating staff of the organization to satisfy them. Hr concerned with "managing people in organizations as effectively as possible for the good of employees, the company, and society" (schuler, 1998, p27).
Human Resource Management is defined as the process of managing human talent to achieve an organization’s objectives (Bohlander & Snell, 2010). A more detailed definition is given by the Society for Human Resource Management which states that “human resource management is the function within an organization that focuses on recruiting, managing, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization” (Schmidt, 2011). The role that human resource management plays is the most vital in all business organizations. This importance is easily seen in running a health care facility. Human resource in health care is important in improving the overall patient health outcomes and the delivery of health care services.
Human Resources (HR) management includes all the activities and decisions that are there to improve the effectiveness of human resources (employees) and of the company or business as a whole.
What is human resource management? Human resource management is the task of recruiting, management and delivering guidance for the people within the organization from the top of the ladder to the bottom. The human resource managers provide information, training, guidance, career counseling, information regarding safety practices, and oversee many other operations that would contribute to the success of the organization. There are many ways to view and explain human resource management. One way to look a human resource management would be to see it as one individual governs and directs the labor of another. Looking it from the viewpoint human resource is basically labor administration. Human resource management can also be defined as “management/ administrative function in business, government, and nonprofit organizations that is responsible for handling employment, or personnel issues (Kaufman, 2008, pg 3-4). There are so many different functions that human resource management is responsible for the are the jack of all trades. Human resources provide information and play a key role in the development for the strategic management of the organization. In this paper, it will discuss why it is vital to take human management from an administrative role to
Human resources management is getting more important nowadays as it helps company to accomplish their target, and achieve sustainability and competitive advantage. According to many researchers, most of the successful companies in 21 century are the one who focused on the development of integrated human resource system. Human Resource Management focuses on personnel related areas such as job design, resource planning, performance management system, recruitment, selection, compensations and employee relations (Marquardt 2004, p.2).
Human Resource Management (HRM) is fundamentally another name for personnel management. It is the process of making sure the employees are as creative as they can be. HRM is a way of grouping the range of activities associated with managing people that are variously categorised under employee relations, industrial/labour relations, personnel management and organisational behaviour. Many academic departments where research and teaching in all these areas take place have adopted the title department of human resources management. HRM is a coordinated approach to managing people that seeks to integrate the various personnel activates so that they are compatible with each other. Therefore the key areas of employee resourcing, employee development, employee reward and employee involvement are considered to be interrelated. Policy-making and procedures in one of these areas will have an impact on other areas, therefore human resources management is an approach that takes a holistic view and considers how various areas can be integrated.
With the introduction of Human Resources, people in an organization have taken a new role. Long gone were the days when an accountant is a clerk. In today’s day and age, an employee is an asset for that company. They are a major investment and companies thrive in protecting their interests and development. Human Resources (HR) have developed and now is a full fledged field. Most companies have some sort of Human Resource management. Basically where there is hiring and firing, there is Human Resources activities involved. Whether it is a small firm or a large corporation, Recruitment and Selection is needed in every kind of organization.
Human resource management is the attraction, selection, retention, development and utilization of Human Resource in order to achieve both individual and organizational goals. Management of Human Resources is important and vital in an organization. HRM is regarded as a strategic function in many organizations as they concern about intellectual enterprise.