Human Resource Management

The focus of human resource management (HRM) is to manage people within the employer-employee relationship (Stone, 1995). However, such a broad definition is unable to distinguish HRM from its‘ predecessor’ - Personnel Management. Some say that HRM "involves the productive utilisation of people" (Stone, 1995: p. 4), and is therefore more proactive than Personnel Management (Harrison, 1993: p.32). Others say that HRM is unique in that it seeks to strategically integrate the human resource (HR) function within the overall corporate strategy (Boxall, 1996; Skelton, 1996). Furthermore, HRM can be described as having a ‘hard’ and a ‘soft’ version. Such elasticity in the use of the term HRM makes the development of a general theory for HRM seemingly impossible. This report will seek to give a brief review of Human Resource Management, in all of its disguises, whilst making recommendations for Wesson to move from Personnel to HRM.

What is HRM?

Within most large organ...