Personnel management vs. human resource management Essay

Personnel management vs. human resource management - Essay Example The philosophy ingrained behind HRM is that humans are the assets of an organization just like information and other. As such, pre-planned strategies have to be chalked out to properly manage the employees at work. It thus takes into account all internal or external factors that have a bearing on the performance levels of employees namely culture of organization, structure, value system, dependency on other departments and cross-functional teams, psychological traits of employees, peer and social group, etc. It is thus an inter-related strategic function focused primarily on quality of human output achieved (IQPC 2006). Evolution of HRM from Personnel Management As mentioned before, HRM has evolved from personnel management through successive stages. Initially, personnel management was just rephrased as human resources management with no major difference in understanding or practice. With increased impetus on enhanced performance demands, coherent people structure and need for a cent ral workforce policy, personnel management was re-conceptualized and named as human resources management with specific attention on four major employee areas- work systems, reward systems, employee influence and human resource flow (Poole 1999:98). However, with shifting focus from cost minimization to utility maximization, personnel management was made distinctive from human resources management as strategy crept into the latter. Thus, while personnel management regards people as workforce and treats matters on superficial levels reactively, human resources management adopts a proactive approach and considers people as assets and primary resource of an organization. Similarities between... Any new initiative in a business scenario first starts at operational level but with continued success and evident results;it turns strategic in its scope,implications,and implementations.One such management function is personnel management which started decades back as a mere administrative tool to control operational activities of workforce.With the change in mindset of businessmen and policy makers and with the consideration of workforce as human assets for an organization, personnel management turned strategic with incorporation of other ‘soft’ factors like performance, motivation, quality, behavior patterns, non-monetary benefits and above all, linkage between organizational objectives and human resource objectives.After analyzing the similarities and differences between personnel management and human resources management, it is pretty much obvious that differences outweigh the similarities. Similarities between the two are of very general nature which cannot serve as the basis for any academic analysis or discussion. It is the differing side which actually initiates the development of an opinion regarding how personnel management and human resources management and related. In modern context when globalization is taking the world by storm and responsibility of sustained competitive edge stays on people, these gaps between personnel management and human resources management will be widened.