HRM PRACTICES



HRM Practices



HRM Practices

Introduction

Human resource management (HRM) refers to the design of formal programs to enhance the effective and efficient use of employees to achieve organizational goals. In essence, it is the people practices and ranges from hiring new employees to developing them into successful organizational members to managing their separation from the company. Human resource (HR) professionals administer these programs and can be generalists or specialists. Generalists have some knowledge about each HR function (i.e., jack-of-all trades), while specialists are experts in one particular function such as recruitment, labor relations, or training.

Purposes of HRM

Traditionally, the primary purpose of HRM has been administrative, which includes designing and administering programs, such as recruiting, training, performance evaluations, payroll, and benefits. A second purpose of HRM is being an employee advocate. Human resource professionals need to voice employee concerns and protect their rights by acting as liaisons. Third, HRM must serve as a change agent by helping organizations adapt to the constantly changing business environment. For example, HR professionals can enact family-friendly policies in response to the increased number of women in the workforce. Finally and most important, HRM should be strategic by aligning all HR functions with organizational goals. For example, if a company's mission includes providing excellent customer service, HR professionals must hire and train workers with good customer service skills, provide feedback on customer interactions, and reward those displaying superior service.

John Lewis Policy

Shared responsibility

Social and environmental responsibility involves everyone. In our own case, the John Lewis Partnership's unique structure means that Partners share the responsibilities of ownership as well as its rewards. We aim to develop and implement social and environmental policies which fit in with our Partners everyday activities and responsibilities.

Honesty and accountability

Democratic ownership means sharing profit, knowledge and power. We will communicate our environmental policies, objectives and performance openly and honestly to our Partners and to others with an interest in our activities, including customers and suppliers. We will encourage them to communicate with us and will seek their views.

Sustainable progress

We are committed to improving our performance. We will take into account technical developments, changing scientific evidence, costs and customer concerns and expectations in the development and implementation of all new social and environmental policies and procedures. We will monitor our performance, set objectives for improvements and report our progress.

Demonstrable compliance

As a minimum, we will meet or exceed all relevant legislation. Where no legislation exists we will seek to develop and implement our own appropriate standards.

What are Best Practices?

This idea can be traced back for some considerable time. For instance, Taylor's (1911) earlier “scientific management” implied that there was “one best way” of managing. We can recall, as do Boxall and Purcell (2003), that studies of individual best practices within the major HR categories of selection, training, and appraisal have a very long tradition, such as when much effort was put into improving selection practices for officers and training for production workers during both World Wars.

In the 1960s, best practice would have been taken as ...