The Evolution of Human Resources Management

A friend of mine is managing a small company that is growing faster than she anticipated. She manages the HR on her own juggling it from a number of her other responsibilities. She came to me to ask whether I know someone who could help her in the day to day operations of HR. I asked her if she has ever considered hiring an HR Manager. She told me that she does not need an HR Manager but only someone who can help her in the ‘operations’ and all other requirements. Obviously she is adamant to pay a good salary to someone whose job she can juggle all on her own and other administration staff can do. I asked her, so what is your HR strategy?

Have you planned for your staffing, compensation, retention, training, and employment policies? What systems will you require to ensure efficiency?

What is the revenue growth you are expecting in the next six months and what is the ratio of manpower you require to support this growth? How many people do you need to hire? What are the level of capabilities of people you hire?

She sheepishly said, “Well, No. I never haven’t gotten that far. It looks like there are so much things to be done!” I just smiled at her and started discussing.

How Human Resources Management changed over the years?

In the past, Human Resources Management meant recording leaves, processing payroll, sending birthday greetings to employees, ensuring discipline, arranging company outings, and making sure that all employee-related forms have been filled out correctly.

Human Resources Management has since then evolved and has become an even more important role to the organisation. More than the previous tasks, HRM deals with the overall process of employing people, compensating, training, developing policies relevant to staff, and developing strategies to retain employees.

The former tasks is important however, the latter is crucial to the success of the organisation as it is critically aligned to the overall strategy of the business.

With the transformed HR Management definition, it is necessary to point out that every manager in the organisation has some roles to play relating to Human Resources and not just the one who has the title of HR Manager. In the understanding that businesses invest a lot of money in human capital, it is therefore almost obligatory to have a competent professional making it happen and combining important things altogether.