A PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 746.

The philosophy of human resource management was first put forward in 1979 (Torrington and Chapman, 1979). The original was:

Personnel management is most realistically seen as a series of activities enabling working man and his employing organization to reach agreement about the nature and objectives of the employment relationship between them, and then to fulfil those agreements. (Torrington and Chapman 1979)

Personnel management is a series of activities which: first enables working people and the organization which uses their skills to agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship and, secondly, ensures that the agreement is fulfilled (Torrington, Hall and Taylor 2005)

Only by satisfying the needs of the individual contributor will the business obtain the commitment to organizational objectives that is needed for organizational success, and only by contributing to organizational success will individuals be able to satisfy their personal employment needs. It is when employer and employee – or business and supplier of skills – accept that mutuality and reciprocal dependence that human resource management is exciting, centre stage and productive of business success. Where the employer is concerned with employees only as factors of production, personnel management is boring and a cost that will always be trimmed.

Where employees have no trust in their employer and adopt an entirely instrumental orientation to their work, they will be fed up and will make ineffectual the work of any PM function.