history and the role of human resource

The History of Human Resource Management (HRM) begins around the end of the 19th
century, when welfare officers (sometimes called 'welfare secretaries') came into being. They
were women and involved with the protection of women and girls. Their creation was a
reaction to the:
Harshness of industrial conditions.
Pressures arising from the extension of the franchise
Influence of trade unions and the labour movement
Campaigning of enlightened employers, often Quakers, for what was called ‘industrial
betterment

As the role grew there was some tension between the aim of moral protection of women and
children and the need for higher output.
20th century developments
The First World War accelerated change in the development of personnel management.
Women were recruited in large numbers to fill the gaps left by men going to fight. This meant
reaching agreement with trade unions (often after bitter disputes) about ‘dilution’– accepting
unskilled women into craftsmen’s jobs and changing manning levels.

During the 1920s, jobs with the titles of ‘Labour Manager’ or ‘Employment Manager’ were
introduced to the engineering industry and other industries where there were large factories.
The role involved handling absence, recruitment, dismissal and queries over bonuses.
Employers’ federations, particularly in engineering and shipbuilding, negotiated national pay
rates with the unions, but there were local and district variations and there was plenty of scope
for disputes.

During the 1930s, the economy was beginning to pick up. Big corporations in these newer
sectors saw value in improving employee benefits as a way of recruiting, retaining and
motivating employees. But older industries such as textiles, mining and shipbuilding were hit by
the worldwide recession. These sectors did not adopt new techniques, seeing no need to do so
because they had no difficulty in recruiting labour.
The Second World War brought about welfare and personnel work on a full-time basis at all
establishments producing war materials. The Ministry of Labour and National Service insisted
on it, just as the Government had insisted on welfare workers in munitions factories in the
previous conflict. The Government saw specialist personnel management as part of the drive
for greater efficiency. As a result, the number of people in the personnel function grew
substantially; there were around 5,300 in 1943.

Around the mid-80s, the term ‘Human Resource Management’ arrived from the USA. The term
‘Human Resources’ is an interesting one; it seemed to suggest that employees were an asset or
resource-like machines, but at the same time HR also appeared to emphasise employee
commitment and motivation. At Consensus HR, we always emphasise to clients the importance
of making the most of one of your most important business assets and resources: your people.

Today's HR Activities
In today’s HR world we ensure that we cover a number of specialist disciplines, including:

Diversity (plus other aspects of employment law)

Reward (including compensation, benefits, pensions)
Resourcing (such as recruitment, disciplinary and redundancy processes)
Employee relations (including performance and absence management)
Organisation development and design
Learning and development
Correcting systems, policies & procedures

The Historical Background Of Human Resource Management

https://www.whatishumanresource.com/the-historical-background-of-human-resource-
management
The term "human resource management" has been commonly used for about the last ten to
fifteen years. Prior to that, the field was generally known as "personnel administration." The
name change is not merely cosmetics.
Personnel administration, which emerged as a clearly defined field by the 1920s (at least in the
US), was largely concerned the technical aspects of hiring, evaluating, training, and
compensating employees and was very much of "staff" function in most organizations. The field
did not normally focus on the relationship of disparate employment practices on overall
organizational performance or on the systematic relationships among such practices. The field
also lacked a unifying paradigm.

HRM developed in response to the substantial increase in competitive pressures American

business organizations began experiencing by the late 1970s as a result of such factors as
globalization, deregulation, and rapid technological change. These pressures gave rise to an
enhanced concern on the part of firms to engage in strategic planning--a process of anticipating
future changes in the environment conditions (the nature as well as level of the market) and
aligning the various components of the organization in such a way as to promote organizational
effectiveness.

Human resource management (HRM), also called personnel management, consists of all the
activities undertaken by an enterprise to ensure the effective utilization of employees toward
the attainment of individual, group, and organizational goals. An organization's HRM function
focuses on the people side of management. It consists of practices that help the organization to
deal effectively with its people during the various phases of the employment cycle, including
pre-hire, staffing, and post-hire. The pre-hire phase involves planning practices. The
organization must decide what types of job openings will exist in the upcoming period and
determine the necessary qualifications for performing these jobs. During the hire phase, the
organization selects its employees. Selection practices include recruiting applicants, assessing
their qualifications, and ultimately selecting those who are deemed to be the most qualified.

What is the role of the human resources?

Human Resources manages 5 main duties: talent management, compensation and employee
benefits, training and development, compliance, and workplace safety. An HR department can
help provide organizational structure and the ability to meet business needs by effectively
managing the employee lifecycle.

- An effective human resources (HR) management department can help provide

organizational structure and the ability to meet business needs by managing your
business’s most valuable asset – your employees.
-
- Several disciplines make up the HR department, and human resources managers
working at smaller companies might perform more than one of the five main duties:
talent management, compensation and benefits for employees, training and
development, compliance, and workplace safety.

1. Talent Management
The talent management team in the HR department covers a lot of ground. What used to be
distinct areas of the department have been rolled up under one umbrella.
-The talent management team is responsible for recruiting, hiring, developing, and retaining
employees.

Recruiters are the heavy lifters in building any company’s workforce. They’re responsible for
the total hiring process including posting positions on job boards, sourcing candidates through
job fairs and social media, serving as the first-line contacts for running background checks to
screen candidates, conducting the initial interviews, and coordinating with the hiring manager
responsible for making the final selection. A recruiter’s success is determined by several key
metrics: the number of positions they fill each year, where candidates are coming from (e.g.,
job postings, social media, career fairs, etc.), the time it takes to fill positions, and reasons why
an applicant wasn’t hired. (NOTE: If you’re having trouble attracting talent to your company, it’s
time to evaluate why. Take our recruiting quiz to see how you measure up.)
2. Compensation and Benefits
In smaller companies the compensation and benefits roles can often be overseen by one or two
human resources professionals, but companies with a larger workforce will typically split up the
duties. HR functions in compensation include evaluating the pay practices of competitors and
establishing the compensation structure. The compensation department is also responsible for
creating job descriptions in tandem with department managers, as well as working with talent
management on succession planning.

- On the benefits side, HR practitioners are typically responsible for functions such as
negotiating group health coverage rates with insurance carriers or coordinating with the
company’s 401(k) administrator. Of course, payroll is also part of the compensation and
benefits area of HR, but many companies choose to outsource this function to a
bookkeeper or payroll service provider. Those that don’t generally put payroll
practitioners in a separate team that works on the tactical process of generating payroll,
with the compensation team focusing mainly on planning and strategy.

3.Training and Development

Every company wants to see its employees thrive, which means providing them with all the
tools they need to succeed. These tools aren’t necessarily physical such as laptops, job-related
software, or tools for a particular trade; they can include new employee orientation, leadership
training programs, personal and professional development, and managerial training.
- Training and development (sometimes called learning and development) is an integral
part of the HR team. Depending on the type of employee role played at the company,
the training team might be responsible for building out instructional programs that have
a direct effect on the success of the business. Today, many colleges and universities
offer degrees in training and development; an instructional design degree would also be
helpful in this role.

4. HR Compliance
Legal and regulatory compliance is a critical component of any HR department. Employment
and labor laws are highly complex, and having a team devoted to monitoring this ever-changing
landscape is essential to keeping companies out of trouble with federal, state, and local
governments’ laws.
- The HR compliance team is also heavily involved—working in tandem with other HR
practitioners—in developing all company policy that makes up the employee handbook.
5. Workplace Safety
Of course, every company wants to provide a safe place to work for its employees, and the
Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA) actually mandates that employers provide a
safe working environment for their workers.