INTRODUCTION TO HRM

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION TO HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

As human resources have become viewed as more critical to organizational success, many

organizations have realized that it is the people in an organization that can provide a competitive

advantage. Throughout the book it will be emphasized that the people as human resources

contribute to and affect the competitive success of the organization.

Human Resource (HR) management deals with the “Design of formal systems in an organization

to ensure the effective and efficient use of human talent to accomplish organizational goals. In an

organization, the management of human resources means that they must be recruited,

compensated, trained, and developed”.

A basic concept of management states that manager works in organizations. Organization has

three basic components, people, purpose, and structure.

As we said that HRM is the management of people working in an organization, it is a subject

related to human. For simplicity, we can say that it is the management of humans or people. it

is a managerial function that tries to match an organization’s needs to the skills and abilities of its

employees.

Human resource management is the process of acquiring, training, appraising, and compensating

employees and of attending to their labor relations, health and safety and fairness concern.

Let’s see what is meant by the three key term:- human, resource, and management.

• Human (employees working in an organization)

• Resources (Human, Physical, Financial, Technical, Informational etc)

• Management (Function of Planning, Organizing, Leading & Controlling of organizational

Resources to accomplish goals efficiently and effectively)

What is human resource management?

As we said that HRM is the management of people working in an organization, it is a subject

related to human. For simplicity, we can say that it is the management of humans or people. HRM

is a managerial function that tries to match an organization’s needs to the skills and abilities of its

employees. Human Resource Management is responsible for how people are managed in the

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organizations. It is responsible for bringing people in organization helping them perform their

work, compensating them for their work and solving problems that arise.

Growing Importance of HRMThe success of organizations increasingly depends on people-embodied know-how- the knowledge, skill, Attitude.

Nature of HRM:

HRM involves management functions like planning, organizing, staffing, directing and

controlling.

It involves procurement, development, maintenance and management of human resource.

It helps to achieve individual, organizational and social objectives.

HRM is a mighty disciplinary subject. It includes the study of management psychology

communication, economics and sociology.

It involves team spirit and team work.

HRM plays important role in creating organizations and helping them survive. Our world is an

Organizational world. We are surrounded by organizations and we participate in them as

members,Employees, customers, and clients. Most of our life is spent in organization, and they

supply the goods and services on which we depend to live. Organizations on the other hand

depend on people, and without people, they would disappear.

Factors Contributing to the Growing Importance of HRM

a. Accommodation to workers' needs

Workers are demanding that organizations accommodate their personal needs by instituting such

programs as flexible work schedules, parental leave, child-care and elder-care assistance, and job

sharing. The human resource department plays a central role in establishing and implementing

policies designed to reduce the friction between organizational demands and family

responsibilities.

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b. Increased complexity of the Manager’s job

Management has become an increasingly complex and demanding job for many reasons, including

foreign competition, new technology, expanding scientific information, and rapid change.

Therefore, organizations frequently ask human resource managers for assistance in making

strategic business decisions and in matching the distinctive competencies of the firm's human

resources to the mission of the organization. Executives need assistance from the human resource

department in matters of recruitment, performance evaluation, compensation, and discipline.

c. Legislation and litigation

The enactment of state laws has contributed enormously to the proliferation and importance of

human resource functions. The record keeping and reporting requirements of the laws are so

extensive that to comply with them, many human resource departments must work countless

hours and often must hire additional staff. Four areas that have been influenced most by

legislation include equal employment, Compensation, safety, and labor relations. An organization's

failure to comply with laws regulating these areas can result in extremely costly back-pay awards,

class action suits, and penalties.

d. Consistency

Human resource policies help to maintain consistency and equity within an organization.

Consistency is particularly important in compensation and promotion decisions. When managers

make compensation decisions without consulting the human resource department the salary

structure tends to become very uneven and unfair promotion decisions also may be handled

unfairly when the HR department does not coordinate the decision of individual manger.

e. Expertise

Now days there exist sophisticated personnel activities that require special expertise. For example,

researchers have developed complex procedures for making employee-selection decisions;

statistical formulas that combine interviews, test scores, and application-blank information have

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replaced the subjective interviews traditionally used in making selection decisions. Similarly, many

organizations have developed compensation systems with elaborate benefits packages to replace

simple hourly pay or piece rate incentive system

f. Cost of Human Resource

Human resource activities have become increasingly important because of the high cost of

personal problem. The largest single expense in most organizations is labor cost, which is often

considerably higher than the necessary because of such problems as absenteeism tardiness and

discrimination.

Why are we concerned with HRM?

1. Helps you get results - through others.

Different managerial techniques help mangers to direct the performance of employees in

desirable direction in order to achieve the organizational objectives. Through the efforts of others

working in an organization,managers get things done that require effective human resource

management.

2. Helps you avoid common personnel mistakes Qualified HR mangers utilize organization

resources in such a way that helps to avoid common personnel mistakes like the following…

1. Hiring the wrong person for the job

2. Experiencing high turnover

3. Finding employees not doing their best

4. Having your company taken to court because of your discriminatory actions

5. Having your company cited under federal occupational safety laws for unsafe practices

6. Allowing a lack of training to undermine your department’s effectiveness

7. Committing any unfair labor practices

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3. helps you to gain Competitive Advantage

Among all the resources possessed by the organizations it is only Manpower or the Human

resources that create the real difference. Because all organizations can have the same technology,

they can possess same type of financial resources, same sort of raw material can be used to

produce the goods and services but the organizational source that can really create the difference

is work force of the organization. Therefore they are the main sources of innovation creativity in

the organizations that can be used as a competitive advantage. In today’s competitive

environment, these are the people which can create competitive advantageous for the

organizations. The world around us is changing. No longer can we consider our share of the “good

Life” given. If we are to maintain some semblance of that life, we as individual, as organizations,

as society will have to fight actively for it an increasingly competitive global environment. If

organizations are able to mange its work force efficiently/effectively this will be beneficial for all

stakeholders (Organization, Employees and Society).

THE VALUE OF PEOPLE

Manager’s ad economists traditionally have seen human resource management as a necessary

expense, rather than a source of value to their organization. Economic value is usually associated

with capital equipment technology and facilities. However in the changing corporate environment

more and more organizations are awakening to the importance of human capital as the next

competitive advantage. (Competitive advantage is a position of a company in a competitive

landscape that allows the company earning return on investments higher than the cost of

investments. Competitive advantage should be relevant, unique, and sustainable).human capital

( an organizations employees, described in terms of their training experience judgment,

intelligence, relationships and insight)

A barrier to business expansion is not only availability of financial capital but also access to talent-

that is human capital.in summary people are crucial to organizational success and the human and

intellectual capital of an organizations workforce provides and opportunity for substantial

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competitive advantage. “as the resident people experts’ HR leaders are ideally suited to advice

their organization on the best means for realizing their objectives. Decisions such as whom to hire,

what to pay, when training to offer and how to evaluate employee performance directly affects

employee’s motivation, engagement and ability to provide goods and services that customers

value. Companies that attempt to increase their competitiveness by investing in new technology

and promoting quality throughout the organization also invest in state of the art staffing training

and compensation practices these types of practices indicate that employees are viewed as

valuable investments.

The concept of a human resource management implies the employees are resources of the

employer.as a type of resource ,HUMAN CAPITAL meant the organizations employees described in

terms of their training, experience ,judgment ,intelligence and relationship and insight-the

employee characteristics that can add economic value to the organization.in other words whether

it manufactures bicycles or forecast’s the weather, for an org to succeed at what it does, it needs

employees with certain qualities, such as particular kinds of skills and experience. This view means

employees in todays organizations are not interchangeably ,easily replaced parts of a system but

the source of the company success or failure.by influencing who works for the org and how those

people work,HRM therefore contributes to such basic measures of an organizations success as

quality profitability and customer satisfaction fig 1.2 shows this relationship.

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Hrm is critical to the success of an org, because human capital has certain qualities that make it

valuable. interms of business strategy, an org can succeed if it has a sustainable competitive

advantage( is better than competitors something and can hold that advantage over a sustained

period of time) therefore we can conclude that org need the kind of resources that will give them

such an advantage. HR have these necessary qualities:

HR are valuable. High quality employees provides a needed service as they performance

many critical functions

HR are rare in the sense that a person with high levels of the needed skills and knowledge

is not common.an org might spend months looking for a talented and experienced

manager or technician

Hr can’t be imitated.to imitate hr at a high performing competitor, you would have to

figure out which employees are providing the advantage and how. Then you would have to

recruit ppl who can do precisely the same thing and setup the systems that enable those

people to imitate your competitor.

HR have no good substitute’s. When people are well trained and highly motivated, they

learn, develop their abilities and care about cutomers.it is difficult to imagine another

resource that can match committed and talented employees.

These qualities imply that HR have enormous potential.an org realizes this potential through its

approach to HCM that is how it practices HRM

Effective mgt of HR can form the foundation of a high performance work system- an org in which

technology, organizational structure, people and processes all work together to give an

organization an advantage in the competitive envrionemnt.as technology changes how

organizations manufacture.transport,communicate and keep track of information,hRM must

ensure that the organization s has the right kinds of people to meet the new challenges.maintaing

a high performance work system might include development of training programs, recruitment of

people with new skills sets and establishment of reward for such behaviors as teamwork, flexibility

and learning.

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HR Management Activities

The central focus for HR management must be on contributing to organizational success. As Figure

1—4 depicts, key to enhancing organizational performance is ensuring that human resources

activities support organizational efforts focusing on productivity, service, and quality.

Productivity: As measured by the amount of output per employee, continuous improvement of

productivity has become even more important as global competition has increased. The

productivity of the human resources in an organization is affected significantly by management

efforts, programs, and systems.

The amount of output per unit of input (labor, equipment, and capital). There are many different

ways of measuring productivity. For example, in a factory productivity might be measured based

on the number of hours it takes to produce a good, while in the service sector productivity might

be measured based on the revenue generated by an employee divided by his/her salary.

E.G number of cars over a specified period. example: productivity = (number of cars produced) ÷

(manhours to produce these).

Quality: The quality of products and services delivered significantly affects organizational success

over the long term. If an organization gains a reputation for providing poor-quality products and

services, it reduces its organizational growth and performance. An emphasis on quality requires

continuous changes aimed at improving work processes. That need opens the door for

reengineering the organizational work done by people. Customer value received and satisfaction

become the bases for judging success, along with more traditional HR measures of performance

and efficiency.

Service: Because people frequently produce the products or services offered by an organization,

HR management considerations must be included when identifying service blockages and

redesigning operational processes. Involving all employees, not just managers, in problem solving

often requires changes in corporate culture, leadership styles, and HR policies and practices.

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FIGURE 1—4 Management Activities

Producticity planning,equal employment O,M,S,C,S,O G,E,C,P,S,L,ET

Quality staffing,HRD,C&B,H.S.S

Service Employee & labour R/S

To accomplish these goals, HR management is composed of several groups of

interlinked activities. However, the performance of the HR activities must be done

in the context of the organization, which is represented by the inner rings in Figure

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1—4. Additionally, all managers with HR responsibilities must consider external

Environmental forces—such as legal, political, economic, social, cultural, and technological

Ones—when addressing these activities. These external considerations Are especially important

when HR activities must be managed internationally

The HR activities for which a brief overview follows are:

FUNCTIONS AND RESPONSIBILITIES OF HRM DEPARTMENT

In all but the smallest organizations a HR department is responsible for the functions of HRM. on

average an organization has one HRM staff person for every 100 employees served by the

department however this ratio may vary widely across organizations. Another general guideline is

that a specialized HRM role is often created when an organization has reached the size of approx.

40 employees.table1.1 details the responsibilities of HRM department these responsibilities’

include the practices introduced in fig 1.1 plus two areas of responsibility that support those

practices

1) establishing and administering HRM policies

2) Ensuring compliance with legal r requirements.

Although the HRM dept has responsibility for these areas many of requirement are performed

by supervisors or other inside or outside the organization.no two HRM dept have precisely the

same roles ,because of differences in org sizes and characteristics of the work force, the industry

and managements values.in some companies., the HRM dept handles all the activities listed in

table1.1.in others it may share the roles and duties with managers and supervisor of other depts

such as finance operations or information tech.when managers and supervisor actively perform a

variety of HRM activities the HRM dept usually retains responsibility for consistency and

compliance with all legal requrenment.in some companies the HRM dept actively advises top

mgt.in others the dept responds to top level management decisions and implements staffing

training and compensation activities in light of company strategy and policies.

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Let’s take a look at an overview of the HRM funcitons and some of the options available for

carrying them out.HRM involve both the selection of which options to use and the activities

related to implementations. Later chapters will explore each function in greater details

1. ANALYZING AND DESIGNING JOBS

To produce their given product or service (or set of products or services) companies require that a

number of tasks to be performed. the tasks are grouped in various combination to form jobs,

ideally the tasks should be grouped in a ways that help the organization to operate efficiently and

to obtain people with the right qualifications to do the jobs well. This function involves the

activities of job analysis and job design.

job analysis is the process of getting detailed information about jobs

Job design is the process of defining the way work will be performed and the tasks that a

given job requires.

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2. Recruiting and hiring employees

On the basis of job analysis and job design an organization can determine the kinds of

employees it needs. With this knowledge it carries out the function of recruiting and hiring

employees. Recruitment is the process through which the org seeks applicants for

potential employment. Selection refers to the process by which the org attempts to

identify applicants with the necessary knowledge skills abilities and other characteristics

that will help the org achieve its goals.an org makes selection decisions in order to add

employees to its workforce, as well as to transfer existing employees to new positions.at

At some organizations the selection process may focus on specific skills such as experience

with a particular programming language or types of eqioments.at others selection may

focus on general abilities such as the ability to work as a part of a team or find creative

solutions. The focus an org favor’s will affect many choices, from the way the org

measures ability ,to the questions it asks in interviews, to the places it recruits. Table 1.2

lists employability skills, attitudes and behavior’s needed to participate and progress in

today’s dynamics world of work.HRM professionals also provide guidance related to

redeploying employees, termination and outplacement. TABLE 1.2

3. TRAINING AND DEVELOPING EMPLOYEES

Although organization base hiring decisions on candidates existing qualifications, most

orgs provide ways for their employees to broaden or deepen their knowledge skills and

abilities.to do this orgs provide for employee training and development. Training is a

planned effort to enable employees to learn job related knowledge, skills,and behviour.for

example any orgs offers safety training to teach employees safe work habits. Development

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involve acquiring knowledge skills and behavior’s that improve employees a ability to meet

the challenges of a variety of new or existing jobs, including the client and customer

demands of those jobs. Development programs often focus on preparing employees for

management responsibility.

4. MANAGING PERFORMANCE

Managing HRM include keeping track of how well employees are performing relative to

objectives such as job descriptions and goals for a particular positions. The process of

ensuring that employee’s activities and output’s match the organizations goals is called

performance m management. The activities of performance management include

specifying the tasks and outcomes of a job that contribute to the organizations success.

Then various measures are used to compare the employee’s performance over some time

period with the desired performance. Often rewards- the topic of the next section are

developed to encourage good performance.

5. COMPENSATION AND REWARDS

Planning pay and benefits involves many decisions often complex and based on knowledge

of a multitude of legal requirement.an important decision is how much to offer in salary or

wages as opposed to bonuses, commissions and other performance related pay. Other

decision involve which benefits to offer from retirement plans to various kinds of

insurance to other more intangible rewards such opportunities for learning and personal

growth. All such decisions have implications for the organizations bottom line, as well as

for employee motivation

Administering pay and benefits is another big responsibility organizations needs systems

for keeping track of each employees earnings and benefits. Employees need information

about their health plans and retirement’s plans and other benefits. Keeping track of this

involves extensive record keeping and reporting to management, employees and others,

while ensuring compliance with all applicable legislation.

6. MAINTAIN POSITIVE EMPLOYEE AND LABOR RELATIONS

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Organizations often depend on HRM professionals to help them identify and perform

many of the tasks related to maintain positive relations with employees. This function

often includes providing for communication’s to employees.

In orgs where employees belong to union, labor relations entails additional

responsibilities. The org periodically conducts collective bargaining to negotiate an

employment contract with union memebers.the HRM dept also maintains communication

with union representatives to ensure that issues are resolved as they arise.

7. ESTABLISHING AND ADMINISTERING HRM POLICIES

All the HRM activities described so far re require fair and consistent decisions and most

require substantial record keeping. Orgs depends on their HRM dept to help establish

policies related to hiring, discipline and promotions and benefits and the other activities of

HRM

All aspects of HRM require HRM professionals to collect and safeguards information. From

the preparing of employee handbooks to processing job applications, performance

appraisals, benefits enrolment and government mandated reports, handling records about

employees requires accuracy as well as sensitivity to employee privacy

8. ENSURING COMPLIANCE WITH FEDERAL AND PROVINCIAL LEGISLATION

Some gov have laws and regulations concerning the treatment of employees. These laws

govern such matters as human rights and employment equity, employee’s safety and

health, employee’s compensation and benefits and employee privacy. Most managers

depend on HRM professional’s to help them keep up to date and on track with these

requirements. Ensuring compliance with laws requires that HRM professionals keep watch

over a rapidly changing legal landscape.

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HR Management in Transition

The field of HR management is undergoing transition because organizations

themselves are changing. As a result, the terminology in the field is in transition.

Traditionally called personnel departments, many of these entities have been renamed

human resource departments. But more than the name has changed as HR

management continues to be the “people” focus in organizations.

HR as Employee Advocate

Traditionally, HR has been viewed as the “employee advocate” in organizations.9 As the voice for

employee concerns, HR professionals traditionally have been seen as “company morale officers”

who do not understand the business realities of the organizations and do not contribute

measurably to the strategic success of the business. Some have even suggested dismantling HR

departments totally because they contribute little to the productivity and growth of

organizations.10 Despite this view, HR plays a valuable role as the “champion” for employees and

employee issues. One example is the stress that many employees feel when balancing work and

family pressures. HR professionals must be the advocate for employees, recognizing that they

have other lives besides work, and ensuring that organizational policies and practices consider

these pressures. Otherwise, in many cases, the organization loses valuable human resources who

do not want to continue working in a “family-unfriendly” environment. Closely related, HR

professionals spend considerable time on HR “crisis management” dealing with employee

problems that are both work and non-work related.11 Another facet of employee advocacy is to

ensure that fair and equitable treatment is given to people regardless of their personal

background or circumstances. 12 Some entity inside the organization must monitor employee

situations and respond to employee complaints about unfair treatment or inappropriate actions.

Otherwise, employers would face even more lawsuits and regulatory complaints than they do

now. As HR management has changed, it has become clear that there is a need for HR to balance

being the advocate for employees and being a business contributor. 13 What this balancing means

is that it is vital for HR professionals to represent employee issues and concerns in the

organization. However, just being an effective employee advocate is not sufficient. Instead, the HR

professionals must be strategic contributors, partners with operating managers, administratively

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efficient, and cost effective. As Figure 1—5 depicts, HR management has three roles in

organizations. The traditional administrative and operational roles of HR management have

broadened to include more strategic facets. It should be emphasized that as HR roles shift to the

right, the previous roles still must be met and the additional ones performed. Also, the continuum

shows that the primary focus of HR as it becomes more strategic, changes to considerations with

longer time horizons and the broader impact of HR decisions.

Administrative Role of HR Management

The administrative role of HR management is heavily oriented to processing and record keeping.

Maintaining employee files and HR-related databases, processing employee benefits claims,

answering questions about tuition and/or sick leave policies, and compiling and submitting

required state and federal government reports are all examples of the administrative nature of HR

management. These activities must be performed efficiently and promptly. However, this role

resulted in HR management in some organizations getting the reputation of paper shufflers who

primarily tell managers and employees what cannot be done. If limited to the administrative role,

HR staff are seen primarily as clerical and lower-level administrative contributors to the

organization.

in some organizations these administrative functions are being outsourced to

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external providers, rather than being done inside the HR departments. Also, technology

is being used to automate many of the administrative tasks

Operational Role of HR Management

Operational activities are tactical in nature. Compliance with equal employment opportunity and

other laws must be ensured, employment applications must be processed, current openings must

be filled through interviews, supervisors must be trained, safety problems must be resolved, and

wages and salaries must be administered. In short, a wide variety of the efforts performed

typically are associated with coordinating the management of HR activities with the actions of

managers and supervisors throughout the organization. This operational emphasis still exists in

some organizations, partly because of individual limitations of HR staff members and partly

because of top management’s resistance to an expanded HR role. Typically, the operational role

requires HR professionals to identify and implement Operational programs and policies in the

organization. They are the major implementers of the HR portion of organizational strategic plans

developed by top Management, rather than being deeply involved in developing those strategic

plans.Cost-effective as well

Strategic Role of HR Management

Organizational human resources have grown as a strategic emphasis because effective use of

people in the organization can provide a competitive advantage, both domestically and abroad.

The strategic role of HR management emphasizes that the people in an organization are valuable

resources representing significant organizational investments. For HR to play a strategic role it

must focus on the longer-term implications of HR issues.15 How changing workforce

demographics and workforce shortages will affect the organization, and what means will be used

to address the shortages over time, are illustrations of the strategic role. The importance of this

role has been the subject of extensive discussion recently in the field, and those discussions have

emphasized the need for HR management to become a greater strategic contributor to the

success of organizations

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HR Management Challenges

The environment faced by HR management is a challenging one; changes are occurring rapidly

across a wide range of issues. A study by the Hudson Institute, entitled Workforce 2020, has

highlighted some of the most important workforce issues. From that and other sources, it appears

that the most prevalent challenges facing HR management are as follows:

1. Economic and technological change

2. Globalization of business

3. Workforce availability and quality concerns

4. Demographics and diversity issues

5. Organizational restructuring

The environment faced by human resource is challenging one; changes are occurring rapidly

across a wide range of issues. It appears that the most prevalent challenges facing HR

management are as follows:

1. Economic and technological change:

Several economic changes have occurred that have altered employment and occupational

patterns in the United States. A major change is the shift of jobs from manufacturing and

agriculture to service industries and telecommunications. This shift has meant that some

organizations have had to reduce the number of employees, while others have had to attract and

retain employees with different capabilities than previously were needed. Additionally, pressures

from global competitors have forced many U.S. firms to close facilities, adapt their management

practices, and increase productivity and decrease labor costs in order to become more

competitive. Finally, the explosive growth of information technology, particularly which linked to

the Internet, has forced many changes throughout organizations of all types.

2. GLOBALIZATION

A poor product or service will not survive today because of the nature of globalization. Markets

have been liberalized throughout the world. The European communist block has imploded

providing vast new

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Potential markets. Trading agreements through the World Trade Association have allowed goods

to be marketed in most countries with tariffs and barriers eliminated or vastly reduced. The

Asian/Pacific region has grown at an extraordinary pace, especially China, providing a vast range of

competitive or alternative goods for the world market at lower prices. This competition has led to

organizations taking far more care of their labor costs by either increasing productivity, eliminating

wasteful bureaucracies and jobs which add no value, or outsourcing to cheaper suppliers. All of

these actions affect the way people are employed. Handy (1994) created a new equation for

success _ 1⁄2 workforce, paid twice as much, producing three times as much. With increased

competition, organizations are finding that a good product or service

3. Workforce Availability and Quality

In many parts of the United States today, significant workforce shortages exist due to an

inadequate supply of workers with the skills needed to perform the jobs being added. In the last

several years news reports have regularly described tight labor markets with unemployment rates

in some locales below 3%. Also, continuously there are reports by industries and companies facing

shortages of qualified, experienced workers. Jobs with extreme supply shortages for several years

have included specialized information systems technicians, physical therapists, plumbers, air

conditioning repair technicians, and many others. Consequently, HR professionals have faced

greater pressures to recruit and train workers.

4. Demographics and Diversity

The U.S. workforce has been changing dramatically. It is more diverse racially, women are in the

labor force in much greater numbers than ever before, and the average age of the workforce is

now considerably older than before. As a result of these demographic shifts, HR management in

organizations has had to adapt to a more varied labor force both externally and internally. The

three most prominent dimensions of the demographic shifts affecting organizations are

highlighted next.

5. Organizational Restructuring

Many organizations have restructured in the past few years in order to become more competitive.

Also, mergers and acquisitions of firms in the same industries have been made to ensure global

competitiveness. The “mega-mergers” in the banking, petroleum, and telecommunications

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industries have been very visible, but mergers and acquisitions of firms in many other industries

have increased in recent years. As part of the organizational changes, many organizations have

“rightsized” either by (1) eliminating layers of managers, (2) closing facilities, (3) merging with

other organizations, or (4) outplacing workers. A common transformation has been to flatten

organizations by removing several layers of management and to improve productivity, quality, and

service while also reducing costs. As a result, jobs are redesigned and people affected. One of the

challenges that HR management faces with organizational restructuring is dealing with the human

consequences of change. The human cost associated with downsizing has been much discussed in

the popular press: a survivor’s mentality for those who remain,

unfulfilled cost savings estimates, loss of loyalty, and many people looking for new jobs.

Whereas many large firms have cut jobs by reducing their workforces, many smaller firms have

continued to create jobs. This is particularly true in hightechnology industries, such as software

development. These entrepreneurial firms are faced with growth, while trying to attract sufficient

workers with flexible capabilities and to conserve financial resources. More discussion on HR’s role

in organizational restructurings is found in Chapter 2, focusing on strategic HR planning.

Consequently, in both large and small organizations the management of HR activities is crucial.

ASSIGNMENT: - 5 marks (group assignment)

1. Functions of management (planning,organizing,staffing,leading,controlling)

2. Types of managers

3. Managerial skills

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