Human Resource Management (HRM)

Definition: Human Resource Management (HRM) refers to that branch of management which deals with people working in an organisation. It comprises functions related to human resource, i.e. recruitment and selection, induction, training and development, performance management, health and safety, industrial relations, compensation and so forth.

Human Resource Management is a polished form of Personnel Management that views employees as the asset of the organisation, which are to be valued, used for the benefit of the organisation and retained.

Functions of Human Resource Management

1. Planning: Keeping in mind the firm’s overall business environment, vision, mission and objectives, strategies etc., preparing a forecast of human resource needs in the coming time.
2. Staffing: Recruiting candidates that possess the right set of skills, knowledge, qualification and experience to fill the vacancies.
3. Developing: One of the important functions of human resource management is to identify the learning needs of the employees to make sure that the employees have the knowledge and skills needed to perform a job efficiently and effectively.
4. Managing Change: HRM plays a significant role in managing change in the organization. Whenever a change is necessary and proposed to be introduced in the company, the human resource department communicates the importance of change to the employees and also convinces them to accept the change positively.
5. Ensuring health and safety: It identifies and monitors the health and safety of the employees at the workplace to decrease employee turnover and also adhere to the statutory standards and regulations in this regard.
6. Maintaining relationships: HRM ensures the worker’s participation in the management to maintain a healthy relationship between the employees and management. Further, it also helps in the process of negotiation and collective bargaining.
7. Evaluating: HRM designs the process that identifies, evaluates and conveys the elements of the HR practices and the HR system as well that adds value to the firm.

One of the important functions of Human Resource Management is that it helps in the development of human capital. Human Capital can be defined as the stock of employees’ skills, competencies, knowledge and abilities, which do not appear in the company’s Balance Sheet but has an important role to play in the performance of the organization.

Objectives of Human Resource Management

The fundamental objective of the HRM is to supply competent and willing manpower to the company. Apart from this, there are many other objectives which are discussed as under:

• To ensure optimum utilization of the human resources of the organization.
• To make certain that the individual goals of the employees working at the firm are in alignment with the goals of the firm.
• To ensure the right person for the right job.
• To identify whether the employee’s job satisfaction is at its fullest or not and if not, then make efforts to increase it to the maximum possible level.
• To improve the capabilities of the employees by providing proper training so that they can perform their jobs better.
• To impart a sense of coordination, team spirit and inter-team collaboration among the employees.
• To maintain quality in the work life.
• To ensure that the organisation is free from any kind of harassment at the workplace.

A word from Business Jargons

Human Resource Management is based on the assumption that it is the manpower of the organization which can create a distinction, in the sense that the employees are the ones who are capable of gaining a competitive advantage.