Back in the old days, prior to the 1980s, no one every sought out the human resources department–most of us found our employee answers in the “personnel” department. Author and HR trainer, Marco Köster, points out that personnel management has a stigma attached, sort of a “welfare image,” and it’s based on “managing personnel from marginalization.” Think of the old personnel department here that usually consisted of one or two staff, unilateral forms and staff answering not to an HR department head, but to upper management.
Human resource management (HRM), on the other hand, which Köster says developed in the 1980s, looked at managing personnel in a way that “regarded people as the key resource of organizations.”
Basically, the duties and responsibilities of personnel management may have been stereotypical in nature where HRM looked at the whole employee, their uniqueness, traits, work habits, goals, and desires and managed at a higher level. HR tools included better recruitment processes, policy and procedure manuals, and a wide array of performance appraisals to develop and nurture the employee.
So, along with these definitions of both types of employee management, what are the similarities between HRM and personnel management?
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What’s Similar?
If we look at both of these management entities, while the differences may be many over a broad perspective, the similarities are often subtle, such as:
Payroll & Associated Tasks – Within both the HRM and the personnel office, both manage payroll and all associated tasks such as benefit management, tax deductions, and garnishments. Both HRM and personnel management often utilize payroll software programs and track employees’ time worked.
New Hires – Again, another similarity between HRM and personnel management comes the new hire process. Once new hire polices are developed, both can handle orientation seminars, initial paperwork, explanation of company procedures and similar new hire activities.
Documentation – Here again, both management entities can offer employee warnings and employee evaluations and maintain employee files.
Development – Both the HR or personnel manager may indeed seek ways to improve employees through training, motivation, collaboration and mentoring, albeit HR management may turn to a more explosive and explored attack in this area.
Which Is Better?
As an HR manager for many years, I think the type of management entity used for employees depends on the size of the company. Because there are some similarities between HRM and personnel management, the number of employees is often the factor that determines and defines each along with their uses.
A smaller firm with less than 25 employees may find the worker fearful of a large human resources department. Further, a large HR department may be too costly for the small business owner. The small business owner may choose the office manager/personnel management position as a solution.
Companies that employee a large number of people and have varied departments and locations—which is becoming the norm with telecommuting and the global economy–may wish to utilize human resource management to its full potential offering skilled and trained staff that provide a wide arrange of services to increase workplace motivation through job satisfaction. Companies on a larger scale that utilize HRM often have an HR manager and supervisors as well as staff to maintain the department—the difference being that the HR department is a single department with its own goals and responsibilities.
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Functions of HRM
Human Resource Management is a continuous process of ensuring the availability of eligible and willing workforce i.e. putting the right man at the right job. In a nutshell, it is an art of utilizing the human resources of an organization, in the most efficient and effective way. HRM covers a broad spectrum of activities which includes:
- Employment
- Recruitment and Selection
- Training and Development
- Employee Services
- Salary and Wages
- Industrial Relations
- Health and safety
- Education
- Working conditions
- Appraisal and Assessment
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Key Differences Between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management
The following are the major differences between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management:
- The part of management that deals with the workforce within the enterprise is known as Personnel Management. The branch of management, which focuses on the best possible use of the enterprise’s manpower is known as Human Resource Management.
- Personnel Management treats workers as tools or machines whereas Human Resource Management treats it as an important asset of the organization.
- Human Resource Management is the advanced version of Personnel Management.
- Decision Making is slow in Personnel Management, but the same is comparatively fast in Human Resource Management.
- In Personnel Management there is a piecemeal distribution of initiatives. However, integrated distribution of initiatives is there in Human Resource Management.
- In Personnel Management, the basis of job design is the division of work while, in the case of Human Resource Management, employees are divided into groups or teams for performing any task.
- In PM, the negotiations are based on collective bargaining with the union leader. Conversely, in HRM, there is no need for collective bargaining as individual contracts exist with each employee.
- In PM, the pay is based on job evaluation. Unlike HRM, where the basis of pay is performance evaluation.
- Personnel management primarily focuses on ordinary activities, such as employee hiring, remunerating, training, and harmony. On the contrary, human resource management focuses on treating employees as valued assets, which are to be valued, used and preserved.
Conclusion
Human Resource Management has come up with an extension over Personnel Management, which eradicated the shortcomings of the Personnel Management. It is quite essential in this era of intense competition where every organization have to put their manpower and their needs first.
Nowadays, it is very challenging to retain and maintain good employees for a long time as they are fully aware of their rights and any organization cannot treat them like machines. So, HRM has been evolved to unite the organization with their employees for the attainment of a common goal.