This paper covers definition of human resource management and a range of human resource activities that managers at all levels must understand. The main functions of HRM explained include staffing, training and development, motivation, and maintenance of employees. Besides, the author addresses the role of human resource management in a firm’s strategic plan, which entails job analysis to identify, specific knowledge, abilities, and skills, which the job candidate must have to meet. Moreover, HRM determines techniques to lower personnel costs and determine efficient ways of providing employee amenities.
Human resource management (HRM) refers to the process of recruiting and developing workers to become valuable to the firm in attaining its goals (Goss, 2008). Human resource management is responsible for job analysis, recruiting the best qualified employees for the job, planning personnel needs, offering benefits and needs, controlling wages and salaries, orienting and training, resolving disputes, evaluating performance, and communicating with all workers at all levels (Goss, 2008). The core qualities of human resource management are effective negotiation skills and extensive knowledge of the firm.
Primary Function of HRM
The main functions of management include planning (which involves establishing goals), organizing (which involves determining which activities need to be finished to achieve the goals). Leading (which entails making sure that right persons are on work with relevant skills, and motivating or inspiring them to high productivity levels), and controlling (which entails monitoring activities to make sure that objectives are met) (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007).
Human resource management concerns with staffing, training and development, motivation, and maintenance. In other words, human resource management consists of four activities: recruiting persons, preparing, stimulating, and keeping them (Goss, 2008). Before hiring a candidate, human resource individuals must plan employment. Hiring employees cannot be carried out haphazardly; there must be a description for the reason of requiring persons who have specific knowledge, skills and abilities linked to particular jobs. Not until the firm’s strategy and mission are fully developed can HR managers start to determine HR needs (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007).When human resource management embarks on the recruiting or hiring process, it tries to get and secure the best applicant.
After hiring stage, selection phase follows. Selection tries to thin out a group of applications received during the phase of recruiting, and choose an applicant who best qualifies for the job. In addition, HRM guarantees that the best prospect accepts or admits a job offer. Consequently, human resource management must communicate all the necessary information to the successful applicant, for instance, the firm culture, what is anticipated or expected of workers, and any other relevant information pertinent to the applicant’s decision-making process. The selection process or procedure ends the staffing task. The main aim of staffing function, therefore, is to locate competent workers and bring them to the firm.
The focus of HRM, in training and development, is on familiarizing or orienting the new worker to the regulations, rules, and goals of the firm, work unit, and department. Thereafter, as the new employee becomes comfortable with his/her work environment, intense training starts. Moreover, HRM plays a significant role in shaping new employees or workers to be completely productive after a short period. To achieve this, human resource management embarks on 4 areas within training and development stage: employee training, workers development, organization growth, and career development or growth. It is significant to note that worker and career growth is more workers’ centered, while worker training is designed to enhance competency on the new job. Firm development, in contrast, concentrates on system-wide changes (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007).
The Role of HRM in a Firm’s Strategic Plan
Human resource management serves the firm by establishing the lowest-cost strategies to the practices of human resource management. It determines techniques to lower personnel costs and determine efficient ways of providing employee amenities (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007). Human resource management takes whatever steps to ensure return on investment by the firm for HR activities; establishing the value which human resource management brings to the firm (Goss, 2008).
Particularly, when a firm plans strategically, it establishes its objectives and goals for a specified time period. These objectives and goals always result in structural changes within the firm; that is, these alterations promotes changes within job requirements, how people are grouped, and reporting relationships (Goss, 2008). As such, these revised or new structures are characterized with a host of crucial jobs or tasks. It is these tasks which human resource management must fulfill (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007).
As jobs are analyzed, specific knowledge, abilities, and skills are identified which the job candidate must have to meet. Through the job or work analysis procedure, human resource management identifies the key qualifications for a specific job. This is key business acumen, because jobs are critically connected to the company’s strategic direction, and is within guidelines of employment legislation (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007). Moreover, all actions involved within human resource management resolve about an accurate job description. No successful recruitment can occur without the knowledge of skills needed, nor can anybody properly set performance standards and compensation rates or fairly invoke disciplinary procedures without accurate job description (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007).
Human resource management plays significant role in firm’s strategic plan by helping in the implementation of continuous improvement. Whenever a firm embarks on an improvement effort, changes must occur within the company (DeCenzo & Robbins, 2007). As such, firm development efforts dominate. Therefore, HRM prepares employees for the changes. This needs extensive and clear communications of what is expected, why the change is needed, as well as the effects of change on workers. Improvements efforts can change work patterns, reporting relationships, and operations (Goss, 2008). Human resource management, therefore, is significant in the firm’s strategic plan as it helps the affected workers to overcome barriers, which can emerge from resistance to change.
In summary, the paper describes how the goals of the organization can be attained with and through people. Moreover, it is shown that working with people needs an understanding of what make them function. Satisfying monetary requirements alone cannot have a long term impact. It is imperative that the strategic plan of an organization be done after proper job analysis to determine specific knowledge, abilities, and skills needed for the job.
References
Goss, D. (2008). Principles of human resource management. London: Routledge.
DeCenzo, D., & Robbins, S. (2007). Fundamentals of human resource management (9th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.
