For the success of any industry or business organization, human resource management plays a pivotal role. Human resource management (HRM) is concerned with all the aspects of management of people in the organizations. The functions of human resource management range widely from workforce planning, recruitment and selection, talent management, performance and reward management, strategic HRM, knowledge management, human capital management, corporate social responsibility, organizational development, employee relations, employee well-being, the provision of employee services and so on.
However, it is probably the stiffest art to manage the human being in reality. Humans are the most complex creature. The feeling, tastes, thoughts, audibility, behavior, likes, dislikes, desires, understandings, etc. vary from individual to individual. The individuals in an organization are employed from different religious, ethnic, political, and cultural backgrounds. All of these make individuals unique in morals, values, and beliefs. Such variety and complexity of individuals reflect largely in the workplace. In general, managing human resources is quite a challenging task. So, we can finally term HRM as a philosophy that deals with how people should be managed.
HRM is new terminology and is used in place of Personnel Management or Personnel Administration (Ghosh, 2006)1. Under the ambit of HRM, the human elements of an organization are treated as a resource that contributes best to the execution of the organizational destination. It subscribes to the notion that humans are different from the other non-human resources and they need empowerment, involvement, the gratification of psychological needs, appropriate climate to explicit their worth, espousal to their jobs and as well as to the organizations. Thus, HRM is basically a strategic approach towards procuring, developing, compensating, and maintaining the human resources.
HRM has gained much more importance since 1990 onwards. Due to the Liberalization, Privatization, and the Globalization (LPG) policy in 1990-1991, the industrial activities have changed drastically in developing countries like India. As a result of that, companies have confronted more competition than they had prior to the nineties. Every business organization seeks to have competitive predominance through the creation of a dynamic and committed workforce, who can be able to produce quality goods and services at a comparatively lower cost. Under these situations, business organizations generate strength; develop competencies and efficiencies to survive, develop, and confront challenges. Therefore, a business organization demands human resources that have competencies, positive values, and attitudes to accept challenges.
Organizations cannot function without human resources; all organizations are managed and run by human resources. At this juncture, this is important to know about HRM. Following are some of the definitions given by the experts on HRM that will help us to understand the meaning of HRM.
E. B. Flippo (1984) defined that HRM as the process of management that deals with procurement, training and development, compensation of employees’ services, maintenance and integration of their functions for the attainment of each individual, organizational, and finally societal objectives.
Michael Armstrong (2014)3 has expressed that HRM is related to the employment, development, and reward of people in the organization and the conduct of relationship between the employer and employee.
Yoder, Heneman, Turnbull & Stone (1958)4 opinioned that HRM is regarded as one of the inseparable part of management which is dealing with the feasible controlling and also uses of man forces as this is distinct and unique from any other sources of power.
Hence, it is acceptable and very much important to conclude that human resources play a crucial factor in the enhancement and improvement of the organization. Proper utilization of human resources organization can fulfill its mission, vision, and objectives. So, the management of human resources is more important rather than other resources.
For citing this article use:
- Roy, N. C. (2019). Management of human resources in Indian tea industry: With special reference to North Bengal region.
