Distinguishing HRM from Personnel Management

 1.What is Human Resource Management

Human resource management (HRM) is the practice of recruiting, hiring, deploying and managing an organization's employees. HRM is often referred to simply as human resources (HR). A company or organization's HR department is usually responsible for creating, putting into effect and overseeing policies governing workers and the relationship of the organization with its employees. The term human resources were first used in the early 1900s, and then more widely in the 1960s, to describe the people who work for the organization, in aggregate.

HRM is employee management with an emphasis on those employees as assets of the business. In this context, employees are sometimes referred to as human capital. As with other business assets, the goal is to make effective use of employees, reducing risk and maximizing return on investment (ROI).

The modern HR technology term human capital management (HCM) has been used more frequently compared to the term HRM. The term HCM has had widespread adoption by large and midsize companies and other organizations of software to manage many HR functions.

Chai, (2023)

2. What is Personnel Management

Personnel management is an administrative function within an organization that oversees the hiring, organization and support of employee positions. A branch of human resources, personnel management focuses on recruiting the right individuals to fit a position and supporting those already working for the company. This area also functions as a tool for evaluating the hiring process and gaining insight into employee satisfaction. Personnel management professionals work to provide the resources and tools staff members need to thrive in their work environment every day. (indeed.com, 2023)

Types of personnel management

Strategic

Strategic personnel management focuses on planning how to best support staff members. This includes current and future strategies such as managing turnover rates, determining recruitment policies and maintaining employee satisfaction. Strategic personnel management also aims to provide ongoing training to help employees grow within the organization to encourage longevity and satisfaction in workplace positions. (indeed.com, 2023)

Tactical

Tactical personnel management involves administrative planning. This includes determining how to schedule current staff members. It also includes predicting the amount of staff necessary to fill positions in the short and long term. Tactical personnel management focuses on recruiting the most qualified candidates through a specific selection process. This type of management also handles training and onboarding for new employees. It is sometimes organized into three parts of staff resources, including technical, functional and organic. (indeed.com, 2023)

Operational

Operational personnel management refers to the daily functions of human resources in employee relations. Support personnel in HR use operational personnel management to handle the basic needs of new employees like providing equipment and passwords to company technology platforms. This area of personnel management is also involved in organizing how employees receive benefits and ongoing support. (indeed.com, 2023)

3.Distinguishing HRM from Personnel Management

The main difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management lies in their scope and orientation. While the scope of personnel management is limited and has an inverted approach, wherein workers are viewed as tool. Here the behavior of the worker can be manipulated as per the core competencies of the organization and are replaced when they are worn-out.

On the other hand, human resource management has a wider scope and considers employees as the asset to the organization. It promotes mutuality in terms of goals, responsibility, reward etc. that will help in enhancing the economic performance and high level of human resource development.

In early centuries, when Human Resource Management (HRM) was not prevalent, then the staffing and payroll of the employees were taken care of, by the Personnel Management (PM). It is popularly known as Traditional Personnel Management. Human Resource Management have emerged as an extension over the Traditional Personnel Management. So, in this article, we are going to throw light on the meaning and differences between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management. (Surbhi, 2022)

Comparison between Human Resource Management and Personal Management

BASIS FOR COMPARISON	PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT	HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Meaning	The aspect of management that is concerned with the work force and their relationship with the entity is known as Personnel Management.	The branch of management that focuses on the most effective use of the manpower of an entity, to achieve the organizational goals is known as Human Resource Management.
Approach	Traditional	Modern
Treatment of manpower	Machines or Tools	Asset
Type of function	Routine function	Strategic function
Basis of Pay	Job Evaluation	Performance Evaluation
Management Role	Transactional	Transformational
Communication	Indirect	Direct
Labor Management	Collective Bargaining Contracts	Individual Contracts
Initiatives	Piecemeal	Integrated
Management Actions	Procedure	Business needs
Decision Making	Slow	Fast
Job Design	Division of Labor	Groups/Teams
Focus	Primarily on mundane activities like employee hiring, remunerating, training, and harmony.	Treat manpower of the organization as valued assets, to be valued, used and preserved.

Conclusion

 Human Resource Management has come up with an extension over Personnel Management, which eradicated the shortcomings of the Personnel Management. It is quite essential in this era of intense competition where every organization have to put their manpower and their needs first.

Nowadays, it is very challenging to retain and maintain good employees for a long time as they are fully aware of their rights and any organization cannot treat them like machines. So, HRM has been evolved to unite the organization with their employees for the attainment of a common goal.(Surbhi, 2022)

References 

1.) techtarget.com 2023 by Wesley Chai / Shaun Sutner

Available in https://www.techtarget.com/searchhrsoftware/definition/human-resource-management-HRM

2.) Indeed.com 2023

Available in https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/personnel-management-types

3.) Keydifferances.com 2022 by S Surbhi

Available in https://keydifferences.com/difference-between-personnel-management-and-human-resource-management.html