Written by In every business organization, the most essential element that drives success is the human resources
Human resources refer to the people who make up the workforce of a business. They are an integral part of any organization and play a critical role in the success of the organization.
As such, they must be managed effectively and judiciously. The management of human resources is called human resource management.
More appropriately, human resource management is the management function concerned with the utilization of the organization’s most important resource (human resource) towards achieving organizational goals.
It is the branch of management concerned with planning, recruiting, motivating, and maintaining people in an organization.
Human resource management is also concerned with hiring, training, developing, compensating, and retaining employees to achieve the goals of the organization.
The main purpose of human resource management is to achieve organizational success through the people ( or human resources).
Scope Of Human Resource Management
The scope of human resource management (HRM) is broad and encompasses a wide range of activities related to managing the organization’s workforce.
The following are some of the key areas that fall under the scope of HRM:
1. Human resource planning: This is concerned with analyzing and identifying the type of employees that an organization would require to achieve its goal.
Human resource planning ensures that the organization has the right people at the right time at the right people and in the right quantity.
2. Recruitment and selection: Recruitment and selection are essential activities of HRM. Recruitment refers to the process of identifying and attracting potential candidates for a job vacancy, while selection involves choosing the best candidate from among the applicants based on their qualifications, skills, and experience.
Recruitment and selection involve finding and hiring the right people for the job, based on the skills, experience, and qualifications required for the position.
3. Training and development: With the fast-changing pace of technology, workers need to be trained on how to make maximum use of this technology.
Training and development represent a coherent and organized attempt by an organization to improve employees’ performance.
It includes all activities aimed at providing employees with the necessary skills and knowledge to perform their job effectively.
4. Compensation and benefit: This is an activity of human resource management that is concerned with employee remuneration.
It includes wages, salaries, bonuses, insurance, retirement plans, and vacation pay.
HRM ensures that the compensation is fair and equitable so to motivate employees to perform at their best.
5. Performance appraisal: Employing workers is not enough. From time to time, the overall contribution of the workers to the company should be reviewed. This is called performance appraisal.
Performance appraisal is a systematic process of evaluating an employee’s performance.
It helps in identifying an employee’s strengths and weaknesses, providing feedback, and developing a plan to improve their performance.
Performance appraisal is a means for managers to evaluate the efficiency and contribution of their workers, and is, therefore, an important activity in human resource management.
6. Employee assistance: This area involves providing support to employees in managing their personal and professional lives.
It includes counselling, providing mental health support, and addressing personal issues that may affect the job performance of an employee.
Employee assistance stimulates a positive employer-employee relationship while maintaining a profit.
Employee assistance is necessary because employees are unique in their behaviour, personality, and expectation. Hence, employee assistance provides counselling and solution to employees’ problems that may be affecting their productivity.
7. Union/labour relation: This is concerned with ensuring that there is a healthy relationship between the employee/union and the organization. It involves all activities that ensure that there is industrial peace in the organization.
Union management and conflict management are some of the activities of Human resource management relating to union/labour relations.
A healthy union-organizational relationship is essential for the success of the organization.
A positive relationship leads to better employee satisfaction, increased productivity, and reduced employee turnover.
On the other hand, a negative relationship can result in strikes, lockouts, and other forms of industrial action, which can lead to financial losses for the organization
Objectives Of Human Resources Management
There are four main objectives of human resource management, namely; societal objectives, organizational objectives, personnel objectives, and functional objectives.
1. Societal objectives: Human resource management seeks to ensure that the organization is liable to society’s legal and ethical needs, such as:
- Equal pay for equal work: Human resources seeks to ensure that employees who perform the same job functions and have the same level of skills and experience should be paid equally, regardless of their gender or race. HRM ensures that the organization has a transparent pay structure and implements policies and practices that promote pay equity
- Woman empowerment: This is another societal objective that HRM seeks to achieve. HRM seeks to ensure that the organization’s policies and practices do not discriminate against women and create a culture that promotes diversity and inclusion.
- Generation of employment opportunities: HRM should create job opportunities for the unemployed and underemployed members of society
Failure of the organization to use its resources to satisfy these social needs may lead to restriction and sanctions.
For example, an organization that does not provide equal pay for equal work may face legal action, negative publicity, and a loss of reputation.
2. Organizational objectives: Thi objective recognizes the role of human resource management in achieving efficiency and effectiveness in the organization.
Achieving efficiency and effectiveness in an organization requires a well-trained and highly motivated workforce that is aligned with the company’s goals and objectives.
Human resource management plays a critical role in achieving these objectives by ensuring that the organization has the right people with the right skills and experience, providing training and development opportunities to enhance employee performance, and creating a positive work environment that fosters employee engagement and motivation.
The organizational objectives of human resource management are captured in this phrase: “ensure that the right people are in the right job and at the right quantity to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in the organization”.
3. Personnel objectives: Apart from the organizational objectives, Human resources management seeks to assist employees in achieving their personal goals so as to get their commitment.
When employees feel that their personal goals are being supported, they tend to be more engaged in their work and feel a sense of loyalty towards the organization.
More so, If the personal goal of an employee is met, retaining and motivating such workers will be easily achieved.
4. Functional objectives: Human resource management also seeks to ensure that there is no shortage or surplus of human resources in the organization.
This is important because having too few employees can result in a lack of productivity and reduced efficiency while having too many employees can lead to unnecessary expenses and a drain on resources.
So, If there is an excess or shortage of human resources, the resources of the organization will be wasted.
As a result, human resources management ensures human resources are adequately managed to suit the organization’s functional requirements for human resources.
