Comparison between HRM and Personnel Management
concerned with strategic issues of employing people. Paul has clear objectives which he and his department work towards, and one of these is to reduce the levels of absenteeism by 5% in the next six months. They are also involved in new ways of getting employees to work more efficiently and effectively, and Paul spends a great deal of his time reviewing policies and procedures and getting his staff to work with members of the workforce in the design of these. He is particularly interested in providing more effective ways of communicating with the workforce, and at present his department communicates with employees through weekly newsletters and the internal e-mail system on computers. Paul tends to rarely leave his office and most of his contacts are with other mangers in other specialisms. His personal computer provides information about daily absenteeism levels, levels of labour turnover and other staff statistics. His department will provide advice to line mangers and will coordinate recruitment campaigns and advertising, but in general the line mangers are encouraged to take responsibility for their own team from recruitment through to dismissal. There is no recognised trade union, but team working is strongly encouraged.
Discussion of Activity 1.2
These two thumbnail sketches provide rather stereotyped views, with Susan operating in a manner more typical of the personnel management approach and Paul in a way more typical of human resource management, but this may not be reflected in their job titles.
You will note that in suggesting how one might try to judge whether a given company is pursuing an HRM approach or a personnel management approach, we talked about involvement in strategic decision-making: we did suggest asking whether HRM or personnel management is used in the relevant job titles. There does not seem to be any proven relationship between the chosen nomenclature within companies and their approach to the management of people. In Activity 1.2, we said both Susan and Paul may have the title of either Human Resource Manager or Personnel Manager. Even the Institute of Personnel and Development can be cited as an example of the lack of clarity that exists in the use of these terms. The IPD uses the words "personnel" and "personnel management" in its name and in the name of its monthly journal (People Management: the Magazine for Professionals in Personnel Training and Development), and has distanced itself to some extent from the debate and from the term "human resource management", which had been incorporated into the name of one of its journals prior to 1995 (Personnel Management: the Journal for Human Resource Managers).
Pause for Thought 1.2
Which approach - human resource management or personnel management - do you personally feel more at ease with?
Often the distinctions are not at all clearcut: titles, as we have seen, do not necessarily provide clues, and in many organisations elements of the HRM approach and the personnel approach will co-exist [next page]