HNBS 121 HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT - H4

HNBS 121 Human Resources Management - H4



Difference between HR and Personnel Management

A healthy debate went on for quite some time about the differences between personnel management and Human Resource Management but eventually died. Though the terms HR and HRM are now in general use and have replaced Personnel Management, these terms had been used interchangeably and were synonymous to each other. The difference between these two started to emerge with the evolution in the practices. The traditional practices remained in the domain of Personnel Management but modern and enhanced practices are categorized as Human Resource Management. Traditional approaches to personnel management have actually evolved into Practices of HR.

Technology and changing focus of the organization have played major role in the evolution of HR which made it distinct to Personnel Management. We make sure that we use the latest technology in all the HR function with particular focus on employees to make sure we are fulfilling their needs in a best possible manner while incurring least cost to the organization and completing our tasks on minimum time possible.

Some experts and academicians in HR field have denied the notion that there is a significant difference between Personnel Management and HRM. They see HR as an old wine in a new bottle. We see these two things as 'Good' and 'Better' and acknowledge the fact that HR has added another 'rich' dimension to a multi-faceted role. We distinguish HR from Personnel Management by sharply focusing to treat people as a key and highly significant resource of an organization in its concern for managing people.

Our HR strategies just like traditional Personnel Management strategies flow from the integration and business fit but we put more emphasis on integration and strategic fit. We recognize the responsibility of line managers in terms of their support service and necessary advice to enable and assist HR managers to carry out their responsibilities for managing people, as traditional Personnel Management do but our focus is more on a business and management philosophy of an organization (Budhwar & Sparrow, 2002, Pp.599-638).

Our HR practices holds the values of Personnel Management and are somehow identical when it comes to the respect for employees, balancing individual and organizational needs, and developing people to help them achieve their maximum competence which not only give them personal satisfaction but also facilitate them towards the achievement of organizational objectives. But our HR practices rather focus its attention and put more emphasis on the achievement of commitment and management of organizational culture. Our strategic HR practices just like Personnel Management recognizes the need to equally develop all employees and managers to match them with the ever-changing requirements of the organization. In our HR plan, we see line managers as the implementers of HR policies and give more importance to their role, therefore emphasize more on their developmental needs. But we recognize that line managers have their own limitations and giving them extra work without any formal authority may have ...