Human Resource Mangement Essay -- Personnel Management

Human Resource Mangement Describe and critically evaluate the key factors that shape the role and practices of the HR/Personnel function within an organisation with which you are familiar. On the basis of your analysis identify the main HR challenges currently facing this organisation. Relate your analysis to appropriate literature. Introduction People are an important and expensive resource to a business. This asset has the capacity to be highly productive and generate revenue for the firm, but it also requires much attention and maintenance. When the direct costs of employment are added to the indirect costs of recruitment and selection, training and development, the organisation's investment in an average full-time employee can exceed  £100,000 in a short space of time. Therefore one of the fundamental factors is how to attract the right employee and retain their services, gaining efficiency throughout. Before answering the first part of the question â€Å"Describe and critically evaluate the key factors that shape the role and practices of the HR/Personnel function within an organisation with which you are familiar†, the differences between HRM and the older style ‘Personnel Management’ requires defining. Human Resource Management HRM can be defined as any part of the management structure that relates to people at work. It involves everything from recruitment to training to performance appraisal and overall employee welfare. HRM is originally an American management term that has taken over from the more restrictive 'Personnel Management', and denotes a more proactive and business-focused role, with an emphasis on good communication and staff commitment, more flexible work practices, and performance-related reward systems. http://www.leavingcert.net/. Once considered a more peripheral activity, HRM has now moved to the core of the business. The author’s own perspective of this assignment is delivered from within the steel industry. An employee in middle management with a history of working from grass roots to Manufacturing Manager over a 10 year period within the Basic Oxygen Steel making plant (BOS). A plant where the iron from the Blast furnace iron is refined and then re-alloyed to be supplied at the correct time temperature and specification to the Continuously Cast plant (CONCAST) where semi-finished products are ... ...emphasis on good communication and staff commitment, more flexible work practices, and performance-related reward systems as opposed to Personnel Management These philosophies are carried out by the first line management, which begs the question, â€Å"Have the lesser experienced plant personnel carried out a process that has inherently been carried out by trained professional HR managers and got the numbers wrong, furthermore, was it implemented correctly? Overall because of the reduction in numbers within the HR department, Plant managers and Line managers are now carrying out many tasks and the HR department have a significantly lesser role in the organisation. With no forecast of any change in philosophy and increase in expenditure then the situation is unlikely to change. The input of an active Trade Union and informed official needs to be considered, there is a definite need for both and the HRM department must ensure that a relationship continues. Bibliography: Human resource Management, A Contemporary Perspective, 2nd Edition, 1997. Ian Beardwell and Len Holden. Human Resource Management, ‘Rhetoric’ and Realities’. Karen Legge http://www.leavingcert.net/