History of human resource management

Human resource management has always been a part of man’s life even before its name was suggested. This paper will discuss how human resource management has changed over the years. The paper will also discuss how the changes in workforce has effected the human resource management of today. The effects of globalization in today’s HRM will also be looked after in this paper. The world has changed over the years and so has the jobs. New jobs have been created and now labor is taken differently by the employers. The economy has brought a big change in how people take the challenges of human resource today. History of Human resource management Human resource management means to manage the people. It is also known as personnel management at times. The human resource management has changed over the past years. Now it is not only about dealing with the employees of the organization but to also see other parts of the organization. The human resource managers of today are more involved in workforce identification and establishment of the firms. Today it is more about strategically managing the firms. Different definitions have been given in the past after looking at the changes that occurred in this field of human resource (Mote, n. d. ). In the past, human resource management was referred to as the labor management. Chinese are known to be the pioneers of the management. Before any other man came up with the concept of human resource the Greeks had already developed the idea of it. Many past civilizations used the concept of human resource management but were not familiar that what it exactly was. The main idea of HRM remains the same and that is to have maximum productivity for the organization. The difference that has arrived is of the strategies that are now involved in achieving this goal of greater productivity through proper management of labor (Lockwood, 2005). In the start the economies around the world were based on agriculture. People worked as farmers or worked for landlords to earn their living. Everyone was on their own and only landlords were the basic human resource managers at that time. Then came the industrial revolution and things changed. Workforce shifted. People switched jobs. A big lot left farming and moved towards working in an industry to earn a better living. Due to this revolution immigration towards developing countries also increased. The human resource management became more complex now. The task now was to deal with people from different nationalities (Khilawala, n. d. ). The culture was different and therefore styles had to be adapted in order to maximize productivity. Proper techniques were developed and recruitment and selection took place through proper channels. With the rise of industrial revolution also came the task of dealing with unions. The human resource department thus had to find ways to resolve conflicts between unions and management. The function of HR changed again. A major shift came from the idea of having a corporate culture. This way people were given more importance. The efficiency was not the only important factor then. The worker’s satisfaction to gain efficiency was now the issue. Human resource management had to again go through the new process of developing new ways of keeping the employees satisfied. The people started looking for jobs that would give them more satisfaction and an environment where they can achieve success with satisfaction. Now it was just not the era of industry but competitive industries(Friedman, n. d. ). Different laws came and the human resource department gained more importance. The corporate put a lot of emphasis on this department because a lot of laws had been passed and no organization wanted a law suit against them from their employees. The human resource department took a new turn when strategic human resource management was introduced. New strategies were now involved and the human resource department was being looked at from a different angle (Mote, n. d. ). The human resource management of today is an entirely different thing. People shift jobs and look at the aspects of better living styles. Globalization has changed the way people see human resource department now. The multi national companies have strong human resource managers in order to look after the employees from different nationalities. This helps in building a strong reputation of the organization. The human resource managers of today not only have to look after the people but the organization as a whole. The main job of today’s human resource managers is to have a focused approach of how the strategies of the organizations will be followed. So it all depends on the human resource managers and their style of management that how they carry the organization in order to achieve greater productivity. The better the attitude of human resource manager the better would be the response from the employees. It is the main job of the managers to keep a focused approach on how to keep the managers and employees satisfied specially in today’s world where there role is so diversified.