Экономические науки/ 5. Управление трудовыми ресурсами

Докторант PhD, 2 курс Байырбекова Р.Т.

Евразийский государственный университет имени Л.Н. Гумилева, г.Астана, Республика Казахстан

e-mail:trust_me_angel@mail.ru

Modern trends in organisation management practice: the transition from personnel management to HRM

Personnel are still the most important thing. Realizing this, especially in the period of crisis, every company director would really like to see his or her confederates’ team nearby, joined by common understanding of goals and tasks and working sound and in concord. But how should this team be formed, how should be determined the rules regulating interaction within this team? It is obvious that there is a necessity of creation of a certain conduct model and determination of standards of taking and realization of management decisions; this is one of basic business management problems.

On the whole, HR management research has a long history. A. Fayol in his famous “General and industrial management” specified a row of organizational principles which refer to HR management. Than there had been openings of E.Mayo, fundamental works of K. Levyn, А. Maslow and other scientists. Research of this field is still continuing. [1] To our mind, this is connected, first of all, with the nature of investigation object itself, the human being, with his eternal desire of changes and new knowledge.

Some twenty years ago HR management field was treated as additional, non-strategic company’s division. Forming of new values and new knowledge- and innovations-based economy has lead to reconsideration of this point of view. Nowadays human resources are the main tool of competitive advantage and economical growth of the company. That is why recently in international management sphere they have started to talk not just about personnel management, but about strategic HR management (HRM). According to specialist’s definition, HR management is a special approach to personnel management aimed at reaching competitive advantages by way of strategic distribution of qualified and loyal personnel and using entire range of culture, structure and staff technologies. Michael Armstrong (Armstrong, 1987), in his turn, answers this question in the following manner: “Some personnel managers do not even imagine what “HRM” letters mean; for others this is just a concept of “old wine in new bottle”. [2] Notwithstanding popular treatment of HRM as a new name for traditional name of personnel management, many people consider as an advantage that this concept treats people as key resources that are mainly managed by chief executives who are directly involved into business planning. This idea is not new, but many organizations do not pay enough attention to it”.

Reformation of personnel management into HR management can be seen in the following main trends of staff management:

1. All recent years in developed countries there is relative and absolute growth of number of HR service workers.

2. The status of this job has increased: HR service managers of the majority of corporations have begun to enter the board or even the board of directors; the attention to level of personnel managers’ qualification has also increased.

3. In the conditions of growing competition (including the competition for highly qualified staff) isolation of staff policy from general business strategy affected the success of corporation activity on the whole.

Whereas these notions are cognate in general, systems of personnel and HR management have some common features:

· strategies of both personnel and HR management follow organizational strategy;

· both approaches admit that linear managers are responsible for workers management. Staff service provides managers with necessary consulting for implementing their liabilities;

· values of both personnel management and “mobile” version of HRM identically explain “respect towards personality”, balance of organizational and individual demands and people’s development for reaching maximal level of competence, which promotes increase of personal satisfaction and reaching a company’s goals;

· both approaches admit that one of the most important processes is the selection of people corresponding to permanently changing company’s requirements, the selection of people for appropriate positions and in-site staff development;

· both approaches use one range of tools for selection, analysis of competence, labor efficiency management, training, managing staff development and awarding process;

· both systems pay a great attention to communication processes and active participation taken by workers in labor relations system of the company.

But before stating peculiarities of activity of new formation managers, let’s start to point out significant difference between two directions of staff management: personnel and HR management. Hendry and Pettigrew consider (Hendry and Pettigrew, 1990) that HRM can be treated as “personnel management in perspective”. [1] The main difference between HR and personnel management are:

1. Different from personnel management, HR management is redirected from workers’ needs to organization’s demand in labor force; and priorities of staff management are first of all determined by results of functional analysis of current and projected work places, but not by current staff potential of organization.

2. Getting strategic measurement by HR management makes staff policy more active, comparing to passive and reactive policy, which is usual for traditional models of personnel management.

3. HRM represents integrated activity of linear managers, whereas personnel management aims to influence on them.

4. There is redirection of staff management system into individual work with personnel; consequently, collective values dominating in personnel management are changing into individual ones.

5. Whereas traditionally personnel manager should aim to save on expenses connected on reproduction of labor-power (and consequently, is not interested in long-term investments into human capital), the technology of HR management is aimed to increase of such investment efficiency, providing constant professional growth for the staff and labor conditions quality improvement.

6. HRM stresses the importance of top managers’ participation in the process of cultural formation, whereas personnel management always treats company’s development and related ideas of unitary, social and psychological character with doubt.

7. New system of staff management assumes strong and adaptive corporate culture stimulating atmosphere of mutual responsibility of employee and employer, aiming of all corporate workers to make their company “the best one” at the expense of initiative support on all organizational level, constant technical and organizational innovations and open discussion of problems.

8. Personnel management as activity is aimed on working staff not taking managing offices, whereas HRM, not having clear enough direction, nevertheless, aimed on managing staff. [3]

The technology of HR management gives synergic effect if the main processes in synergic action are adequate planning, efficient knowledge and current information exchange between organization’s staff and current work coordination; and if the following requirements in corporation are met:

· system of adaptation to external and internal labor market (individual career planning, personnel training and retraining, stimulation of professional growth and staff rotation) should be well developed;

· there is flexible system of work organization (quality control circles, independent work groups);

· payment systems based on principles of all-round consideration of personal contribution (including those made by workers themselves) and (or) level of professional competence (knowledge and skills really mastered by workers) are used;

· quite high level of participation of separate workers and work groups in elaboration and approval of management decisions connected with their everyday work) is supported;

· the practice of delegation of authority to subordinate staff is used;

· a branching system of organizational communication providing two- and multipartite vertical, horizontal and diagonal connections within the organization is functioning.

All mentioned above, in its turn, demonstrates HRM’s strong orientation to management and business and opens strategic nature of HRM. Basically, the concept of HR management considers the whole spectrum of interests presented in the company; in this case interests of its members are admitted, but first of all, they comply with interests of the company. Therefore, the importance of strategic integration and strong corporate culture is emerging, which is formed on the basis of foresight and leading style of management.

Years go by, and scientific world is constantly changing. New paradigms, concepts, notions and theories are being introduced. Every paradigm may cause a lot of disputes or may be treated as a logical evolution development in this sphere by scientific circles. And the dispute about topicality and promptness of HRM concept as a perspective of personnel management is still continuing. Nevertheless, we should notice that such trends as strategic integration, culture management, personnel loyalty, general idea of labor quality and investments into human capital are a significant part of HRM. Moreover, this model corresponds to methods of flexible business control and resource management in modern post-crisis conditions of company’s existence. That is why, notwithstanding with some criticism expressed by theorists of management, HRM concept is spreading as an alternative to “personnel management” for practitioners; more and more top-managers are realizing correspondence of this model to modern realities inside their companies.

References:

1. Grachev, M.V. Superpersonal: HRM in an international corporation. - Moscow: Delo, 1993. - pg.52-85

2. Michael Armstrong. Strategic Human Resource Management: translated from English (a series of "Management for the leader) - Moscow: INFRA-M, 2002. - VIII, pg.143

3. Human Resource Management: management and counselling / edited by V.V. Shcherbina. Moscow: Independent Institute for Civil Society, 2004.-pg.255.