Concepts under Human Resources Management

As we know, there are many sub-concepts that come under Human Resources Management. Mentioned below are some of the main concepts that every organization should concern itself with in order to manage the human resources of the organization.

• Recruitment and Staffing

Finding the right talent or the right people who are capable of achieving the expected objective of the organization is meant by recruitment and staffing.

When there are suitable people in the suitable roles, it ensures the fact that the organization is on a correct path to meet goals and objectives, as it consists of relevant skills and a suitable enterprise .

Therefore, it is one of the main concepts that come under Human Resources Management

Recruitment and staffing is a main responsibility of every HRM department or the owners of any organization, and for this purpose, the required activities include analyzing the job roles, preparing suitable job descriptions for each job role, advertising the job opportunities to the external parties, sourcing necessary candidates who are interested in the job roles, carrying out necessary selection processes and having interviews, and finally onboarding the highly suitable employees to respective positions. 

• Training and Development 

When the right talent is found and recruited in the organization, the HRM has to satisfy the requirement of providing Training and Development; to the staffed employees.

The main objective of providing training and development is to equip employees with knowledge and relevant skills to perform their job, fulfilling the expected level.

Because of training and development, the performance, the productivity, and the capacity of the employees are increased, and it will bring positive results to the organization while encouraging the employees to grow themselves in the organization.

Activities such as conducting training programs, on-the-job training activities, questionnaires, presentations, discussions, etc., can be categorized as activities to provide training and development. 

• Performance Management and Evaluation

The main objective of Performance Management and Evaluation is to ensure that all employees are performing their duties in aligned with the goals and objectives of the organization and that they are satisfying the level of expectation of the management.

As per this concept, the management gets the ability and opportunity to recognize what are the key areas that need improvement and what is the level of behavior of the workforce. 

When the workforce's performance is evaluated, the management gets a chance to recognize and reward top performers of the organization, and it leads to improving productivity as well as acting as a boost to developing the efficiency of the employees.

Setting up goals and conducting evaluations and appraisals are the methods used in this concept.

• Employee Engagement and Motivation

Creating a productive and positive environment at the workplace to motivate all employees and let them feel valued is the expectation of this concept.

Generally, when there is a positive working environment, all employees are psychologically motivated to stay within the organization and grow themselves with the organization.

When employees are engaged and motivated well, their productivity begins to expand, and they naturally tend to increase their efficiency of work.

Surveys and special events and programs can be introduced by the management to increase engagement with employees, and results from them can be used to take necessary decisions.

• Benefits and Remunerations

Here, the main focus is to build up a fair pay structure; in other words, to design an attractive remuneration package for all employees of the organization in order to motivate and retain them in the organization.

The workforce of every organization is providing their service for a payment that is 'the Salary or Wage.' When employees are not being fairly paid and satisfied, they start leaving the organization seeking new opportunities.

So the management of every organization should be highly concerned about benefits and payments that are received by the workforce and should make sure whether they are sufficient for their well-being.

So methods like providing performance bonuses, providing annual salary increments, providing health benefits and retirement plans, and benchmarking the salary scales can be put into practice by the management to motivate and retain the workforce within the organization.

• Employee Relationship Management

Under this concept, the main focus area is the relationship between the workforce and the management. 

As human resources are living resources, conflicts among the employees, scenarios of dissatisfaction, personal problems, unfair practices and actions among the employees, and other similar things could be seen in random situations. 

When there is a strong relationship among employees and the management, the workforce gets the ability to raise their voices and discuss with the management about their issues and seek fair solutions for them.

Unless the employees will be dissatisfied and they might feel uncomfortable, and it would automatically reduce the taste that they have for their organization.

Therefore, management of an organization should take necessary steps to retain a strong employee relationship to overcome the issues and to increase the productivity of employees while retaining them.

Managing conflicts, actively addressing grievances, giving fair decisions to the problems of the workforce, and other similar actions can take place by the management under this concept. 

• Talent Management & Retention

Talent Management has become one of the main concepts that comes under HRM in modern days. Generally, creating a pool of talent by a talent pipeline within the organization can be described as talent management.

Through talent management, the organization gets the ability to ensure that the organization has talented people it needs to achieve expected goals and objectives.

Among a group of employees, there can be very skillful people with multiple talents and capacities, sometimes beyond the assigned job task. So when the management identifies this, they can use these identified talents in a strategic way to enhance the efficiency of the workforce and to increase the efficiency of the overall work process.

The main objective of talent management & retention is to attract, identify, and develop the top talents and also to retain those talents within the organization.

When an organization retains skilled employees, it reduces the risk of employee turnover and helps with the overall development of the organization.

Hence, every organization should take every necessary step to identify, develop, treat, and retain valuable talents, as it is playing a vital role in terms of reaching the goals and objectives of the organization.

Activities like talent identification programs, events, employee engagement moments, and on-the-job evaluation activities can be taken as the methods to meet and enhance the talents in the organization.

• Health, Safety and Well-Being

Under this concept, the main objective is to ensure a safe and healthy working environment for all employees of the organization.

If the workplace is hazardous for the workforce and if it brings health problems physically or mentally to the workforce, the productivity of the workforce will decrease, and it would lead the organization to have a high employee turnover ratio that would be an obstacle to reaching expected goals and objectives of the organization.

The other main outcome of not having a stable, safe working environment is increasing absenteeism of the employees. Because of that, a delay in the process will occur, and it will bring delays in the expected output level. 

Therefore, every organization should be highly concerned about health, safety and well-being of the workforce. As the measures, the actions like providing health insurance schemes to employees and their immediate family members, establishing suitable safety protocols, setting up a suitable structure with an action plan in the organization to overcome or treat any health-related issues of all employees, and providing counseling support to employees can be discussed.

• Workforce and Succession Planning 

Under this concept, the main objective is to make sure that the right number of skilled employees are available in the organization to meet expected goals and objectives. 

Although an organization has a skilled workforce, if the capacity of the workforce is not sufficient to drive the operation, the organization will not be able to reach its objectives.

Therefore, the organization should have a proper plan to recruit an essential number of skilled employees for the relevant tasks and should always be cautious about this.

While planning the workforce, the management should consider the succession planning. There should be a specific plan to retain a sufficiently skilled workforce as a good succession plan, as if the organization does not have a plan to have a sufficient workforce in the future, the future of the organization will not be successful.

• Human Resource Analytics 

Under this concept, the main objective is to make sure that the right number of skilled employees are available in the organization to meet expected goals and objectives. 

Under HR Analytics, the management should use data analytics to make necessary crucial HR decisions.

Outcomes of observations under the data analytics will help management to improve and enhance all necessary sub-concepts that come under human resources management. 

For better decision-making, relevant authorities should analyze the current status of the human resources in the organization, as the success of the organization mainly depends on the most valuable human resource.

Methods like employee surveys, questionnaires, one-on-one meetings, and performance evaluations can be used to gather data for the analytics. 

AIHR.COM (Academy to Innovate HR) has discussed sub-concepts of HRM through a concept, ''The Seven HR Basics'' as follows:

1. Recruitment & selection 
2. Performance management 
3. Learning & development 
4. Succession planning 
5. Compensation and benefits 
6. Human Resources Information System (HRIS)
7. HR data and analytics

You may watch the video below, which clearly emphasizes the importance of HRM concepts. It brings a modernized discussion on these facts.

 

SUMMARY

To have effective HRM in any organization, the management or the relevant authority of that organization should be highly concerned with concepts that come under HRM (the ones we discussed above throughout this article).

When these elements are well managed and ensured, it will generate a strong HRM framework in the organization, which enables the pathway to reach the expected goals and objectives of the organization.

Success is the final and the farthest step that every organization dreams of stepping on. So for that purpose, effective Human Resources Management is the Key that opens the door to success.

References,

Armstrong, M., 2020. Armstrong’s Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice. 15th ed. London: Kogan Page.

Available at: https://www.koganpage.com/product/armstrongs-handbook-of-human-resource-management-practice

Dessler, G., 2020. Human Resource Management. 16th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Available at: https://www.pearson.com/en-us/subject-catalog/p/human-resource-management

Torrington, D., Hall, L., Taylor, S. and Atkinson, C., 2017. Human Resource Management. 10th ed. Harlow: Pearson Education.
Available at: https://www.pearson.com/en-gb/subject-catalog/p/human-resource-management

Milkovich, G.T., Newman, J.M. and Gerhart, B., 2014. Compensation. 11th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education.
Available at: https://www.mheducation.com/highered/product/compensation-milkovich-newman.html

Kahn, W.A., 1990. Psychological conditions of personal engagement and disengagement at work. Academy of Management Journal, 33(4), pp.692-724.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.5465/256287

Cooper, C.L. and Cartwright, S., 1994. Healthy mind; healthy organization—A proactive approach to occupational stress. Human Relations, 47(4), pp.455–471.
Available at: https://doi.org/10.1177/