1.2 What Is HR Management?

In the 21st-century organization, human resource professionals partner strategically with top management and are charged with attracting, developing, and retaining individuals through talent management. The study of human resource management begins by looking at changing organizational environments that require HR professionals to keep up with the latest practices and legislation affecting people at work. Throughout this course, we will discuss the global and dynamic nature of the modern workplace. In the process, we will examine the critical role of HR within the organization and the importance of integrating the HR function into the strategic mission of the firm.

The basic functions of HR management include planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling. In the early 1900s, HR was primarily focused on distributing paychecks and hiring employees. The 1930s saw the passage of prounion legislation as personnel-focused employees assumed roles to protect their organizations in interactions with unions. After President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the personnel office took on a whole new role as the protector. Today, the HR practitioner is becoming increasingly important as a strategic partner.

Strategic Human Resources

What does it mean to be a strategic partner?

Strategy is concerned with how organizations compete. In other words, an organization’s strategy is its game plan on how it is going to grow the business, stake out a market position, attract customers, compete successfully, and achieve its targeted objectives. The idea behind strategic human resource management is to create HR policies that empower individuals to help achieve the organization’s strategy. To engage in strategic human resource management, managers must first understand what the organization’s strategy is and then come up with HR practices and policies that support that strategy.

Strategic human resource management emphasizes the importance of viewing employees as assets, who have the ability to create a strategic advantage through a highly committed and capable workforce. It is the employees, not technology, machinery, or processes, that provide the firm with a competitive advantage.

The Role of Top Management

Top management often determines how important HRM will be within the organization. If top management doesn’t emphasize the importance of the HR department to the organization’s overall success, line managers and others won’t either. As a result, those in the HR department will likely only perform the most routine activities and will respond to needs in a reactive manner rather than make proactive contributions. On the other hand, when top management relies on HR to help make strategic and other important decisions within the firm, line managers and others will follow, allowing HR the opportunity to contribute and help achieve organizational goals. As the world becomes increasingly complex, managers and others are responding with greater recognition of the important and critical role of HR.

HR Objectives

As previously discussed, HR functions and activities are important largely because they serve to attract, retain, and motivate employees. However, it is also widely acknowledged that by effectively realizing these explicit objectives, HR functions and activities can positively affect the bottom line. Conversely, poorly selected employees can cause real harm to a company, and poorly designed programs for maintaining employee motivation can leave employees unsatisfied while performance suffers. There are four implicit HR objectives:

1. Improve productivity

2. Improve quality of work life

3. Ensure legal compliance

4. Foster ethical behavior

Improve Productivity

Productivity is an important goal for any organization. HRM can do many things to improve productivity through people. The most productive organizations have recognized this, and these organizations treat HR better than less productive organizations do. Two areas in which HR managers can make a significant contribution to productivity improvements are work organization and design. Because of the need for creative and productive employees, traditionally structured work—in which employee tasks and responsibilities are described in detail—can block creativity and restrict employees’ ability to contribute and add value. Today, HRM has a unique and timely opportunity to improve productivity. More and more, however, this includes increasing output with higher quality than ever before. This new emphasis on combining quantity with quality is one of the many forces increasing the need for effective HRM.

Improve Quality of Work Life

Compared to employees of the past, employees today prefer a greater level of involvement with their work. For example, most employees today desire more autonomy and a chance to make a greater contribution to the organization. Many employers are convinced that by providing opportunities for employees to realize these aspirations, employees will be more content, and, as a result, the quality of work life (QWL) within the organization will improve.

Ensure Legal Compliance

In working with employees, organizations must comply with the many laws, regulations, arbitrations, and court decisions regarding employees and the workplace. Because these laws impact nearly all functions and activities with which HRM is involved, HR managers and personnel must be familiar with the laws and regulations that affect hiring and pay decisions, promotion activities, health and safety considerations, and labor relations. Legislation at the national and state levels continues to emphasize the rights of employees.

Foster Ethical Behavior

Because HR professionals play a central role in creating and sustaining a positive work environment, it is important that they consistently engage in ethical behavior. Moral philosophy refers to the principles, rules, and values that individuals use in deciding what is right or wrong. While this definition may seem straightforward, understanding how we apply principles and values in our own lives is very complicated, especially when faced with a decision in which we must choose one value over another. Because most HR professionals are in positions of authority within the organization, they can influence others to make moral choices and engage in ethical behavior. HR professionals can best do this by creating an organizational culture where ethical behavior is encouraged and cultivated. Such a culture is created by:

• Creating a positive work environment

• Hiring ethical individuals

• Providing ethical training

• Labeling and modeling ethical behavior

• Creating a well-defined code of ethics

• Establishing an open-door policy

• Providing an employee assistance program (EAP)

The study of ethics is nothing new and can be traced to ancient Greek philosophers like Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. The word ethics comes from the Greeks, who used the word ethos to describe character. Ethics includes the moral principles and values that an individual uses to decide whether an action is appropriate. Ethics provides the foundation for what is good and bad in decision-making and is concerned with the kinds of values and morals that society finds desirable and appropriate. Because ethics is based on character, ethics is also concerned with the virtue of individuals and their motives. An ethical dilemma arises when the actions of a person or organization might negatively influence or impact another individual. Business ethics, therefore, can be described as the values and principles that are used to evaluate whether the collective behavior of members of an organization is appropriate.

Ethical theories are often divided into two separate categories. The first category is utilitarian theories, which focus on the consequences of an action. The second is deontological theories, which focus on how well an action conforms to certain rules or duties. Utilitarian ethics focuses on the consequences, or end result, of an action. According to a utilitarian theory, managers can decide what course of action to take by analyzing the results of each possible decision and choosing the option that has the most desirable results. Deontological theories do not focus on the results of an action, looking instead at whether an action is good in and of itself. Deontological ethics focuses more on moral obligations and responsibilities of individuals to do the right thing.