why study human resource management essay

why study human resource management essay

The Importance of Studying Human Resource Management: An In-Depth Exploration

1. Introduction to Human Resource Management

The growing importance of HR is generally acknowledged, but the naming, identification, and concept of the HR functions remain problematic. For example, the concept of ‘Human Resource Management’ (HRM), the difference between HRM and Personnel Management, the HRM function and the HRM Department, the HR Manager’s role and the relationship between the HRM function and supervisor, and regular performance activities such as organizational culture and structure have previously been mentioned by numerous HRM scholars with diverse views. Despite these distinctions, a common concept of HRM might be communicated in the discussion and the comprehension of the HRM function. This paper aims to analyze HRM’s main theoretical and practical concerns, particularly for HRM lecturers and business organizations’ managers.

The nature of HRM: An organization can’t build a good team of working professionals without good human resources. The key functions of the Human Resources Management (HRM) team include recruiting people, training them, performance appraisals, motivating employees, workplace communication, workplace safety, and much more. That’s why today’s main challenges are to attract, retain, and develop employees. Organizations must develop the capabilities of their workers in the digital age to ensure their viability.

2. Key Concepts and Theories in Human Resource Management

Lastly, theories of employee engagement and well-being exist because employees have other intrinsic value that one must take into account when designing and implementing HRM strategies. These theories are associated with employees as they draw attention to the importance of people as something other than factors of production. Hertzberg’s two-factor theory, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs theory, etc., have been researched extensively in respect of HRM. What these theories suggest is that employees are happy and willing to come back to work if the job meets their needs. As such, in order to raise employee engagement, the desired behavior needs to provide strong content which enables employees to forever improve the level of employee engagement.

Theories of employee performance and reward, on the other hand, are focused on HRM activities that aim to boost employee performance which attempts to create value for the firm. These many theories all tend to suggest that employee performance can be improved, which leads to increased organizational profitability and effectiveness.

In the HRM literature generally, several models can be applied when studying and thinking about HRM including the guest model (1987), the Harvard model (1984), the Warwick model (1984), the pluralist model (John Storey, 1989), and the resource-based view of the firm (RBV). The most seminal of these models were developed by the Harvard Business School in the 1980s, which continue to influence HRM studies even today.

Various concepts and theories have been developed in respect of the study of Human Resource Management (HRM) and industrial relations. These provide a framework which helps students to learn about HRM and make sense of the field. This paper provides an in-depth discussion of some of the more important key concepts and theories. Broadly, these can be divided into theories that are concerned with HRM itself, employee performance and reward, and employee engagement and well-being.

3. The Role of Human Resource Management in Organizational Success

There is little doubt that the way in which employers run their personnel significantly influences the degree to which the organization meets its stated goals. Traditional studies of the effectiveness of personnel management have tended to examine single practices or practices in isolation from each other. More recent research has shown, however, that an integrated package of personnel management practices can contribute significantly more to organizational effectiveness than individual policies operating alone. Such integration is an essential feature of the concept of strategic human resource management as described by Florence. This concept focuses on the way in which organizations can achieve and sustain competitive advantage through the strategic deployment of highly committed and capable personnel working closely with those responsible for developing organizational goals.

With the advent of human resource management, the shift from “personnel management” has become clear. There is no longer the need to argue that enhancing personnel effectiveness is one of the ways of enabling the organizations to effectively meet their goals. Personnel management was not in a strong position to deal with the systems aspects of organizations; for example, it was not able to deal with the impact that a new information system would have on personnel. In contrast, human resource management can deal with such interrelationships, having implications for the extent to which a personnel specialist can be accepted as a manager, rather than merely an advisor, working at a strategic level and with line managers within the organization they serve.

4. Emerging Trends and Innovations in Human Resource Management

Various key ideas on human resource management which are central to its foundations, practice and applications will be critically explored in terms of their meaning, relevance, and scope. Discussions are also forwarded on recent innovative trends, people management expertise and roles in corporations which influence competitive advantages of the business. The HRM and industrial relations debate on the nature of the treatment of its workers, strategic human resource management (SHRM), rewards, training, etc., enlightens the relationship, the tension and the complementarities between the IR and HRM development of the curriculum, and explores the extent to which its teaching philosophy and pedagogical methods should follow a complementary teaching approach. Furthermore, this paper also provides an in-depth critical analysis of the HRM/management literature in terms of its general characteristics, the key issues and themes of the field and its main influential authors.

Various challenges exist for human resource management. Key among them is the requirement to be more innovative in the face of international competition for high product market and workforce quality. There is a need to think strategically in the absence of complete ignorance about external and internal forces, knowing the limits of the legitimacy and self-regulation imposed by the social actor of a corporation. Nowadays, questions of social responsibility are sometimes confused with those of human resource development and empowerment. Moreover, the administrators in the head offices are under increasing pressure to show the productivity of the individual workers and the various organizational units, to demonstrate that their human resources are well utilized and apportioned in an innovative way. This paper reports on important changes in the nature of HRM innovations, in empirical research findings on the effects of such innovations, and emphasizes the need for further work.

5. Conclusion: The Value and Future of Human Resource Management Studies

Having management knowledge is not the same thing as having an HRM educational background, although in the past, possessing management knowledge was sufficient. Today, the study of Human Resource Management is very vital. Thus, the decision to explore the methods of teaching Human Resource Management has arisen, and the reasons for a separate “HRM course” are scrutinized, as well as those for differentiating it from related disciplines such as Personnel Management, Industrial Relations, and Labour Economics.

Today, the world’s leading companies realize that the source of their competitive edge lies in the strategic deployment of their human resources and a set of transformational people management practices. These practices are vital for the changes in people’s attitudes and motivation that the new strategies require. This sets a key challenge for business and management education – most students major in business and management in the broad sense. This broad coverage gives them the qualifications and knowledge they need in a particular field of business administration, but may, in some cases, provide them with expertise that is too general. Most people move into specialist jobs within general organizational areas.