Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Structure:
1.1 Introduction
Objectives
1.2 Distinction between Personnel Management & Human Resources Management
SAQ’s
1.3 Human Resources and its importance
SAQ’s
1.4 Evolution of the Human Resource Management
SAQ’s
1.5 Human Relations Theory
SAQ’s
1.6 Objectives of Human Relations
1.7 Summary
1.8 TQ’s
1.9 Answers to SAQ’s and TQ’s
1.1 Introduction
Modern organizational setting is characterised by constant changes relating to environmental
factors and human resources. As regards environmental factors, we find changes in the
operating organizational structure, the network of working procedures, customs or norms and
the economic, political and social patterns in which organizations exist. Moreover, there is
constant change in human resources new individuals are being employed with their new
ideas and expectations while the existing workforce is constantly changing their ideas,
attitudes and values. Specifically, as Dale Yoder observes, the changes affecting employment
relationships in these two dimensions reveal the following trends:
1) Increased complexity of organization and employment communication and a distinction
between owners, managers and workers.
2) Decreased number of employers and selfemployed and enlarged size of workforce.
3) Enhanced need for training in view of increased requirements of specialised skills.
4) Public interventions and legal complication in employeremployee relationships
5) Enhanced training and development of managers and professionalization of management
education
6) Possibility of employment explosion in view of the everincreasing size of workforce.
7) Rising formal level of education of rankandfile employees who are becoming
increasingly critical of management malpractices and errors
8) Rankandfile employees’ rapidly growing demands in different employment situations.
9) Increased applications of behavioural science by enterprising managers.
10) Recognition of close relationship between profits and earnings and ability to manage
human resources.
Indeed, these trends manifest themselves in problem areas as identified by managers in
organizational settings. Although the changes may provide solution to some problems, they
may create several new ones. There is an urgent need to understand these problems,
anticipate them and to find solutions. The responsibility to find out the solutions to these
problems lies with every manager who has to be prepared to deal with different changes
effectively through educational and development programmes. Obviously, every manager is
responsible for management of human resources, of course, with the advice and help of
Personnel Department. Management of human resources is the essence of being a manager
who has to get things done through others. Specifically, his task relates to leading, mobilising
and directing the efforts of people without which he can be a technician but not a manager.
Thus, every manager has to develop and maintain his competence in managing human
resources which have assumed utmost significance in modern organisations.
Objectives:
After studying this unit, you will be able to:
· Understand Human resources as a function
· Importance and evolution of HRM
· The Concept of Human Relations
1.2 Distinction between Personnel Management & Human Resources Management
The genesis of Human Resources Management traces its roots to the erstwhile Personnel
Management that was prevalent in the companies of a few decades ago. Though the two terms
'Personnel Management' and 'Human Resources Management' are interchangeably used by
most of the authors, there are some differences between them. Management of Human
Resources is a new field of study embodying behavioural science knowledge relating to the
working of line and staff officials and union leaders to motivate organizational goals. On the
other hand, Personnel Management is that phase of management which deals with the effective
control and use of manpower. Yoder, Henemen and others agreed that the HRM is a broad
concept which covers many personnel aspects and include social, professional and individual
enterprise aspects, whereas Personnel Management focuses only on personnel aspects such as
leadership, justice determination, task specialisation, staffing, performance appraisal, etc. HRM
is more growthoriented whereas Personnel Management is slightly narrow. Human Resource
Planning is very vital in HRM. This is because it leads to the maximum utilization of human
resources, reduces excessive labour turnover and high absenteeism; improves productivity and
aids in achieving the objectives of an organisation. In addition to the above function, HRM
emphasizes on training, an important area of personnel, which covers the following aspects:
1. Increasing productivity;
2. Improving quality;
3. Improving organisational climate;
4. Ensuring personnel growth etc.
While in practice both pertained to people management philosophically the approach is vastly
different. The expectations from Personnel management approach is to ‘take care’ of the
people working in a organization, addressing grievances and complaints formed a large part
of the Personnel Management function. The focus is largely reactive and followed the Theory
X approach that believed that people do not naturally like to work and need to be coerced to
work and often need to be driven to work. The philosophy is more the ‘stick’ approach rather
than ‘carrot’ approach. Employee welfare is of paramount importance and managing
industrial relations as a result of heightened trade union activity formed the highlights of the
Personnel Management functions.
Human Resources Management on the other hand adopts a proactive approach to managing
people and the focus is on employee development and delight. Hiring the right talent,
providing for ample opportunities for career growth and job satisfaction are the highlights of
this management style. The basic philosophy is driven by the Theory Y approach where the
belief is that people like to work and do not prefer to be supervised and made to perform.
Self Assessment Questions I
1. Personnel Management is proactive while Human Resources Management is
reactive (True / False)
2. Trade unions influence the HRM policies of a company (True / False)
3. Career planning and employee growth is a initiative of the HRM philosophy (True
/ False)
1.3 Human Resources and its importance
From the national standpoint, the human resources can be defined as the total knowledge,
skills, creative abilities, talents and aptitudes obtained in the population whereas from the
viewpoint of the individual enterprise, they represent the total of the inherent abilities,
acquired knowledge and skills as exemplified in the talents and aptitudes of its employees.
The human resources have also been designated as human factors. According to Julius, ‘the
human factor’ refers to a whole consisting of interrelated, interdependent and interacting
physiological, psychological, sociological and ethical components. As regards physiological
components, it requires several inputs like food, rest and environmental conditions to satisfy
the physiological needs. It also requires protection against harmful and destructive conditions
and attempts to avoid loss of income as a measure to have physiological security.
Psychologically, it is characterised by emotions and impulses. It likes and dislikes certain
things and some things make one happy while making others unhappy. It is inspired as well
as depressed by certain situations. It has numerous psychological needs such as autonomy,
achievement, power, acquisitiveness etc., which it tends to satisfy in surroundings. As a
social being, it needs to satisfy its needs for affiliation, status, approval, prestige etc., through
interaction with others. Again as an ethical creature, it has concepts of right and wrong. It
tends to do what it thinks right obviously the human factor is dynamic in nature as it revealed
in motivation and defence mechanism. It is an ongoing process involving the above four
subprocesses.
The human resources are assuming increasing significance in modern organizations.
Obviously, majority of the problems in organizational setting are human and social rather
than physical, technical or economic. The failure to recognise this fact causes immense loss
to the nation, enterprise and the individual. It is a truism that productivity is associated
markedly with the nature of human resources and their total environment consisting of inter
related, interdependent and interacting economic and non economic (i.e., political,
religious, cultural, sociological and psychological factors. Thus, the significance of human
resources can be examined from at least two standpointseconomic and noneconomic.
Self Assessment Questions II
1. According to_____________, ‘the human factor’ refers to a whole consisting of
interrelated, interdependent and interacting physiological, psychological,
sociological and ethical components.
2. Psychologically, it is characterised by _____________ and ______________.
3. Majority of the problems in organizational setting are _________ and _______
rather than physical, technical or economic
1.4. Evolution of the Human Resource Management
The historical development of human relations knowledge applied to job setting warrants some
attention in any book about human relations. Any history of the application of systematic
knowledge about human behaviour to the job must use some arbitrary milestones. For instance,
the crew chiefs concerned with constructing the Egyptian pyramids must have had useful
informal concepts of leadership available to them.
The Hawthorne Studies: As described in virtually every book written about management, the
human relations or behavioral school of management began in 1927 with a group of studies
conducted at the Hawthorne plant of Western Electric, an AT&T subsidiary. Curiously, these
studies were prompted by an experiment carried out by the company's engineers between
1924 and 1927. Following the scientific management tradition, these engineers were applying
research methods to answer jobrelated problems.
Two groups were studied to determine the effects of different levels of illumination on
worker performance. One group received increased illumination, while the other did not. A
preliminary finding was that, when illumination was increased, the level of performance also
increased. Surprisingly to the engineers, productivity also increased when the level of
illumination was decreased almost to moonlight levels. One interpretation made of these
results was that the workers involved in the experiment enjoyed being the centre of attention;
they reacted positively because management cared about them. Such a phenomenon taking
place in any research setting is now called the Hawthorne effect.
As a result of these preliminary investigations, a team of researchers headed by Elton Mayo
and F.J. Roethlisberger from Harvard conducted a lengthy series of experiments extending
over a six year period. The conclusions they reached served as the bedrock of later
developments in the human relations approach to management. Among their key findings
were the following:
· Economic incentives are less potent than generally believed in
influencing workers to achieve high levels of output.
· Leadership practices and workgroup pressures profoundly influence employee satisfaction
and performance.
· Any factor influencing employee behaviour is embedded in a social
system. For instance, to understand the impact of pay on performance, you also have to
understand the climate that exists in the work group and the leadership style of the superior.
Leadership Style and Practices: As a consequence of the Hawthorne Studies, worker
attitudes, morale, and group influences became a concern of researchers. A notable
development of the nature occurred shortly after World War II at the University of Michigan.
A group of social scientists formed an organization, later to be called the Institute for Social
Research, to study those principles of leadership that were associated with highest
productivity.
Based upon work with clerical and production workers, an important conclusion was that
supervisors of highproducing units behaved differently from those of lowproducing units.
Among the differences in style noted were that supervisors of productive groups in
comparison to their lower producing counterparts were:
· More emotionally supportive of subordinates.
· More likely to pay a differentiated role plan, regulate, and coordinate
the activities of subordinates, but not become directly involved in work
tasks.
· More likely to exercise general rather than close or light supervision.
· The origin and progress of the human relations movement (particularly in U.S.A.) has
been due to certain social and cultural forces working there, such as Recognition of the
dignity of the individual and his personality. The individual has a lot of freedom of
choice and the idea of decision making by oneself is deeprooted in the national
tradition.
· A child is brought up to value independence and encouraged to think on his own and
not to be dependent on parents.
· Virtual disappearance of owner managers and the growth of professional managers
capable of managing according to professional code.
· Strong organizations of labour, at all levels, calling for higher skills in communication
and participative behaviour on the part of the management.
· Shortage of labour led to skilled labour being treated as nearly irreplaceable. Hence,
much greater care in utilising this scarce and valuable resource had to be thought of in
the form of "Human Relations."
· Higher standards of living of American labour. Since their physical and security needs
were generally satisfied, increased participation alone could satisfy their emerging
social and ego needs.
· The possible weakening of work ethics, requiring managers to develop new attitudes
towards labour.
· The changing work environmentgreater specialization and a large scope of operations
which require a greater degree of managerial effectiveness with and through workers.
· A significant increase in the general educational level of workers who, as a result,
demanded more from their employers.
Concurrent with the growth of human relations in work organizations, has been the burgeoning
of techniques and programmes to foster human growth off the job. In the last two decades,
millions of people seeking personal growth (or sometimes simply emotional arousal) have
participated in programmes such as encounter groups, marriage enrichment groups, Erhard
seminar training, couples groups, and transactional analysis.
During the early 1970s, the human potential (meaning development of one's potential)
movement began to appear in work settings. Management awareness training and
assertiveness training represent two other techniques related to the development of human
potential. Both are designed to deal with the problem of job discrimination against women. In
management awareness training, managers are made more sensitive to their sexist attitudes
(such as thinking of all engineers are male) and in changing their attitudes.
Assertiveness training has been widely used to help women to be more direct in making
known their demands for equal opportunity.
Career development programmes in industry are more prevalent today than at any time in the
past. Although varying widely in content, all these programmes are designed to help the
individual make career decisions that will move him or her toward self fulfillment. In the
process, it is assumed that the person will make a better contribution to the organization.
Self Assessment Questions III
1. Leadership practices and workgroup pressures profoundly influence employee
__________________________________.
2. Any factor influencing employee behaviour is embedded in a__________. For
instance, to understand the impact of pay on performance, you also have to
understand the __________that exists in the work group and the ____________ of
the superior.
3. The origin and progress of the human relations movement (particularly in U.S.A.)
1.5 Human Relations Theory
To understand the nature of human relations, we begin with a concise and operational
definition. The definition must be concise to convey the essence of the concept, and it must be
operational to provide a practical basis for our understanding of human relations. Such an
understanding should help us to become a more effective manager.
Human Relations in Management is a process that brings workers into contact with and
causes them to be influenced by their leaders, their jobs, and other aspects of the
organizations which they work. It includes everything in the work environment that
influences the behavior of workers: their relationships with their bosses and with other
workers, the nature of the work they do, and the impact on them of the practices of the
organization as a whole. The process of human relations is of major concern to managers
because it determines how the welfare of the organization is accomplished. This definition of
human relations defers from many of the definitions offered in other classrooms and
textbooks, which limit the focus of human relations to interpersonal interactions. These other
definitions either ignore or place little emphasis on the influence of people's jobs or of
various aspects of the organizations in which they work. Indeed, the decline in popularity of
the term " human relations" stems in part from the frustrations experienced by managers of
the fifties and sixties who attempted to use a human relations concept which was un
realistically limited to peoplepeople relationships. For example, there is probably little to be
gained from practicing sound human relations with workers whose jobs are so boring that
they feel alienated from the rest of the organization. Similarly, it is difficult to practice good
human relations when communication systems are so poor that workers have no forum for
venting their jobrelated frustrations.
In the broadest sense, "human relations refer to the interaction of people in all walks of lifein
schools, homes, business and government." When applied to a business or an industry, they
refer to the interaction of people employed in a business firm or an industrial unit; and the
interaction between the business or industry and persons and groups outside it. When a
relationship exists in an organization, it is referred to as 'employeehuman relations'; and
when it exists outside it, it is known as 'public human relations'. Huneryager' and Heckmann
define the expression thus:”... Human relations are a systematic, developing body of
knowledge devoted to explaining the behavior of individuals in the working organization." In
the opinion of McFarland, "Human Relations is the study and practice of utilizing human
resources through knowledge and through an understanding of the activities, attitudes,
sentiments, and interrelationships of people at work."
Self Assessment Questions IV
1. ______________________________ is a process that brings workers into
contact with and causes them to be influenced by their leaders, their jobs, and
other aspects of the organizations which they work.
2. The decline in popularity of the term “human relations" stems in part from the
frustrations experienced by managers of the fifties and sixties who attempted to
use a human relations concept which was unrealistically limited to
___________________________.
3. In the broadest sense, human relations refer to the _______________of people
in all walks of lifein schools, homes, business and government.
1.6 Objectives of Human Relations
A human Relations Programme represents an attempt at improving employee morale and
motivation through an improved threeway communications and through employee
participation in the decision making processes. Human relations seek to emphasise 'employee'
aspects of work rather than technical or economic aspects. It also seeks to make employment
and working conditions less impersonal. On the positive side, the human relations approach
emphasises policies and techniques designed to improve employee morale and job satisfaction.
It is believed that this is accompanied by increased employee efficiency and reduction in
employee unrest.
An understanding of human behaviour can:
i) Assist the manager to develop a better realization of how his own attitudes and behaviour
play a part in everyday affairs;
ii) Assist him to develop a keener sensitivity towards the other people;
iii) Help him to develop an improved understanding of the problems of reconciling his own
interests and capabilities with the needs and goals of the organization of which he is or
will become, a part;
iv) Enable him to anticipate and prevent problems, or at least to resolve more effectively
those that he cannot avoid;
v) Assist him to see things as they are not as they should, or as he would , like them to be;
and
vi) Assist him to cast aside some of the excess mental luggage that increase his mental load
but his effectiveness.
The Scope of Human Relations springs up from the problems which have many different
causes and perspectives. Halloran has stated these as:
· Every person brings a unique set of talents, ambitions and work experience to a job.
These personal attributes change over time, often as a result of the degree of success of
failure the person experiences in the work world. Matching so many unique sets of
personal qualities to a standardized technology can create problems.
· The organizational aspects of a company, such as its size, geographic location, economic
health, and degree of automation, define the scope of work and the activity in each work
division. These frequently arbitrary, structural definitions often cause difficulties in
human relations.
· Innovations in technology and production methods generally require the restructuring of
job roles and responsibilities. Radical changes in basic organizational structure can cause
severe strains between workers and management and create intense problems in human
relations.
· Promotion of individuals to positions of greater responsibility and authority generally
creates a need for changed behaviour patterns between the new supervisors and their
former peers, which in time, can create human relations problems.
· Inexperienced workers may not be able to perform their roles or tasks in work groups in a
competent manner. The time they take to adjust can not only create problems with
production schedules, but can also create particular kinds of human relations problems
between them and their coworkers and supervisors.
The variety of causes of human relations problems lead to the conclusion that no one
programme or single approach can create conditions for good human relations. Therefore,
different kinds of programmes would be necessary for dealing with these different sets of
problems.
Self Assessment Questions V
1. Human relations seek to emphasise '_________' aspects of work rather than
technical or economic aspects.
2. Every person brings a unique set of talents, ambitions and work experience to a
job. Innovations in technology and production methods generally require the
restructuring of________________________________.
3. ____________________may not be able to perform their roles or tasks in work
1.7. Summary
· Management of human resources is the essence of being a manager who has to get things
done through others.
· The human resources have also been designated as human factors.
· According to Julius, ‘the human factor’ refers to a whole consisting of interrelated,
interdependent and interacting physiological, psychological, sociological and ethical
components.
· Majority of the problems in organizational setting are human and social rather than
physical, technical or economic.
· The physical resources will not give results unless the human resources are applied to
them.
· Management of human resources is being regarded as a specialised profession such as that
of medicine and law.
· The Personnel Department is responsible for many varied functions including employment,
safety, training, wage and salary administration and research and development.
· The Head of the Personnel Department is associated with top management and helps it in
the formulation of personnel policies for the company.
· Human Relations in Management is a process that brings workers into contact with and
causes them to be influenced by their leaders, their jobs, and other aspects of the
organizations which they work. It includes everything in the work environment that
influences the behaviour of workers:
· A human relations programme represents an attempt at improving employee morale and
motivation.
· As a consequence of the Hawthorne Studies, worker attitudes, morale, and group influences
became a concern of researchers.
· The terms 'Personnel Management' and 'Human Resources Management' are
interchangeably used by most of the authors, though there are some differences between
them.
· HRM is a broad concept which covers many personnel aspects and includes social,
professional and individual enterprise aspects, whereas Personnel Management focuses
only on personnel aspects such as leadership, justice determination, task specialisation,
staffing, performance appraisal, etc.
· HRM is more growthoriented whereas Personnel Management is slightly narrow.
1.8 Terminal Questions
1. What is Human Resources Management? What is its importance in the
Modern world?
2. Bring out with examples the interaction between Economic and Non
economic factors in Human Resources Management.
3. Enumerate the growth of Human Resources Management in India and
its impact on India's ethos.
4. Explain the factors responsible for growth of Human Relations.
5. Distinguish between Personnel Management & Human Resources Management.
1.9 Answers to SAQs and TQs
Self Assessment Questions I
1False, 2False, 3True, 4False
Self Assessment Questions II
1 Jucius, 2emotions and impulses, 3. Human and social
Self Assessment Questions III
1satisfaction and performance, 2social system, climate, leadership style, 3 social and cultural
forces, 4 sensitive to their attitudes, changing their attitudes
Self Assessment Questions IV
1Human Relations Management, 2 peoplepeople relationships, 3 interaction
Self Assessment Questions V
1employee, 2 job roles and responsibilities, 3 Inexperienced workers
Answers to TQs:
1. Refer to 1.3
2. Refer to 1.4
3. Refer to 1.5
4. Refer to 1.5
5. Refer to 1.6