Personnel Management and Human Resource Management the Changing Dynamics

Personnel Management and Definition of Human Resource Management

Personnel Management (PM) in the UK has evolved over many years can be traced back to the Factory Acts of 1840’s a period when Capitalists with insight such as Rowntree and Cadbury motivated by religious convictions strived to improve the conditions and lives of the workers (Henderson, 2011). It was much later in the 1970’s that (PM) and sometimes called Personnel Administration (PA) was reinforced.

Human Resource Management (HRM) is defined as “is concerned with the employment, development and reward of people in organisations and the conduct of relationships between management and the workforce’. Armstrong (1999, p.3).

Comparative Analysis

An interesting comparison however makes it much more difficult to comprehend the difference as illustrated below.

		Personnel Management (PM)	Human Resource Management (HRM)
Strategic Nature		Specifically Day to Day related /Adhoc Reactive, Short term none strategic	Dealing with Day to day issues proactive nature integrated with other Mgt. functions Long term strategic
Contract		Compliance from the employee	Based on seeking willingness of the commitment by employee
Job Design		Typically, scientific Mgt based	Typically, team based
Training and Development		Limited and usually restricted to training non-managerial employees Narrowly job-related	Transformed into a learning and development philosophy, job-related training All employees including management is trained
Staff Welfare		Limited left to the last consideration	No explicit welfare role
Remuneration		Collective based Rate Pay for position	Market Based Pay for contribution Pay for performance individual or Group
Recruitment		Sophisticated recruitment practices for senior staff only Strong reliance on external local labour market for most recruitment	Sophisticated Recruitment for all staff Strong internal labour market for core employees Greater reliance on external labour market for non-core
Organisation Structure		Hierarchical /Vertical Integrations	Flexible, Core Teams, High degree of outsourcing

adapted and developed from Guest (1987)

The comparison shows major area of differences for instance in nature of strategy and long-term orientation, more team based, flexibility, all employees including management is trained, Recruitment and Pay systems have changed particularly in the practice of Human Resource Management.  Armstrong (2006) suggest that the term Personnel Management has been largely replace by the term Human Resource Management.

Closing remarks

Other major changes in HRM is the adaptation of HPWP’s, Talent Management, Shift of HRM roles to front line managers are some of the major changes that has made HRM/D more strategic and Business goals oriented than (PM) HRM managers also perform specialist roles and work as Service providers and Business Partners in the contemporary workforce.

References

Armstrong, M.,  (1999) A handbook of human resources management practice. Kogan Page UK

Armstrong, M., (2006) A handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 10^th Edition, Kogan Page UK.

Henderson, I., (2011) Human Resource Management for MBA Students 2nd Edition. Published by CIPD

Guest (1987) Comparison Personnel Management and HRM management