Personnel management and Human Resource management

Personnel Management and Human Resource Management

The history of Human Resources Management traces its roots to the erstwhile Personnel Management that was prevalent in the companies of a few decades ago. Though the two terms ‘Personnel Management’ and ‘Human Resources Management’ are interchangeably used by most of the authors, there are key differentiators that make Personnel Management (PM) different from Human Resources Management (HRM). Human Resource Management is clearly based on the foundation of behavioral science knowledge relating to the handling of employees to motivate organizational goals. The focus is more proactive approach and pays attention to employee satisfaction and delight. Business goals and objectives and the strategies that will enable this to happen are the foundation for HRM. The basic philosophy is driven by the Theory Y approach where the belief is that people like to work and do not prefer to be supervised and made to perform. The employee becomes a champion for the organization and its product/service.

Personnel Management is that management style that deals with the control and reactive problem solving approach to resolve employee issues in an organization. The philosophy of the PM approach relied on the Theory X approach that believed that people do not naturally like to work and need to be coerced to work and often need to be driven to work. Is more the ‘stick’ approach rather than ‘carrot’ approach. Rigid rules of do’s and doesn’t exist and these provide the framework for the employee’s behavior at the workplace. Employee welfare and formal grievance systems play a significant role here and thereby managing industrial relations with high amount of trade union activity are highlighted.

Very few organizations today practice this style to people management, as the benefits and the long term gains from a HRM approach, impact business results far more. HRM emphasizes on training, as an important area of people management, which covers the following aspects:

1. Increasing productivity;
2. Improving quality;
3. Improving organizational climate;
4. Ensuring personnels growth etc.