HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Human Resources Management

Human Resources Management

Introduction

Human Resource Management (HRM) is the term used to describe formal systems devised for the management of people within an organization. These human resources responsibilities are generally divided into three major areas of management: staffing, employee compensation, and defining/designing work. Essentially, the purpose of HRM is to maximize the productivity of an organization by optimizing the effectiveness of its employees (Phillip, 2005).

1. Trainingdevelopment and E-Learning

Training and development (T&D) activities identify and ensure, through planned learning programs, the development of key competencies that enable individuals to perform to the best of their ability, aptitude, and attitude on the job. The T&D functions have evolved to contend with and respond to social and economic events, as well as being highly influenced by changes in management trends and philosophies. Effective training provides opportunities for people to perform in new functions and to be promoted into new situations.

Training should be distinguished from education. Education is instruction in more general knowledge such as history, philosophy, economics, or mathematics. Training teaches the learner how to do a specific task or function (i.e., manage their time, change a behavior, or run a machine). Being more technically oriented, training is more applicable to the adult learner who brings different experiences and psychological predispositions to the workplace.

T&D has evolved from simple apprenticeship programs to a blend of instruments, including classroom-based instruction, systematic job instruction, team building, simulation, Web-based individualized instruction, and many others (Mathis and John, 2005). Before industrialization, training focused primarily on direct instruction and apprenticeships. Initially, as factories began to emerge in the Industrial Revolution, the first-line supervisor was normally assigned responsibility for training the workforce. Rationalization of work, division of labor, and routinized production created workers who became the keepers of the machinery. Due to this specialization, apprenticeships and on-the-job training were the training methods employed.

As the Industrial Revolution gained momentum, the number of factories increased and grew larger, and it became necessary to hire more employees directly from the farming communities who had little or no manufacturing experience. Unable to keep pace through one-on-one apprenticeships or on-the-job assignments, training moved into the classroom with assigned “trainers,” enabling several people to be trained simultaneously with minimal disruptions to the production line (Mathis and John, 2005). “Vestibule” training was developed for jobs requiring skill development on particular equipment away from the pressures of a production schedule.

By the first decade of the twentieth century, the United States had become a fully industrialized society with modern management, higher wages, and low unemployment. America's involvement in World War I created a widespread labor shortage, especially in skilled worker categories, because of the sudden need for production of wartime armaments, draft to government service and the military, and restrictions on immigration. Training departments were established in many companies to answer the call for faster and more efficient training methodology. A just-in-time method was developed, consisting of a four-step process that enhanced the teaching of repetitive, manipulative skills in a fast-advancing, automated ...