Historical trends in HR functions can be analyzed from different perspectives: Evolution of HRM (Human resource management) as a professional and scientific discipline, as a support for management, as a Political and economic conflict between management and employees, and as a growing movement Involved employees affected by the development of artistic, organizational, and social psychology.
The following historical analysis will show the growing importance of staff In the industrial economy of the 20th century a key among the replaceable parts of companies The source of sustainable competitive advantage in 21st century knowledge economics.
Pre-World War II
In the early 20th century and before World War II, the work of workers (pioneers of human resource management) was primarily involved in keeping clerical records of employee information; In other words, it has fulfilled a "caretaker" function. During this period, conventional management philosophy was called scientific management. The central emphasis of scientific management was to maximize productivity of employees. It was thought to be the best way to do any work, and this best way was determined through time and speed studies that investigate the most efficient use of human power in the manufacturing process. Then, the work can be divided into pieces, and the number of tasks completed by an employee in an average working day can be counted. These results formed the basis of the peace-rate pay system, which at the time was seen as the most effective way to motivate employees.
At this point in history, there was little government influence on employment relations; As a result, the terms, practices and conditions of employment were left to the farm owners. As a result, abuses such as child labor and unsafe work environments were common. Some employers set up labor welfare and administration departments to look after the interests of workers while maintaining health records.
Security as well as recording hours work and pay. It is interesting to note that record keeping is one of the major tasks built into the design of an HRIS; However, at this time in history there was no computer technology to automate records. Of course, paper records were kept, and we still see paper record HR systems in many smaller organizations.
Post World War II (1945-1960)
The consolidation and use of labor during the war had a profound effect on the development of workers' efficiency. Managers realized that employee productivity and motivation had a significant impact on the firm's profitability. The post-war human relations movement emphasized that employees were motivated not only by money but also by social and psychological factors, such as gaining recognition for getting work done or gaining work rules.
Due to the need to classify large numbers of people in military service during the war, systematic efforts were made to classify personnel around professional departments to improve recruitment and selection procedures. The central aspect of this classification system was job description, which lists the work, duties, and responsibilities of any person in the job in question. These job description classification systems can be used to design appropriate compensation programs, evaluate individual employee performance, and provide a basis for completion.
Due to degrading staff practices prior to the war, workers began to form trade unions, which played an important role in bargaining for better employment conditions. A significant number of employment laws were enacted in the United States that allowed the establishment of labor unions and defined their opportunities in relation to management. Thus, staff departments had to keep a lot of records and estimate reporting to government agencies. Because of this trend, the personnel department had to establish specialist departments, such as recruitment, labor relations, training and facilities, and government relations.
With its changing and expanding role, the general staff department began to keep increasing numbers and types of employee records and computer technology began to emerge as a possible way to store and retrieve employee data. In some cases in the defense industry, job analysis and
Classification data was input into the computer to better understand, plan and use employee skills as needed. For example, the U.S. Air Force, through its Air Force Human Resources Laboratory (AFHRL), has conducted a thorough and systematic analysis and classification of work, resulting in a
Extensive professional structure. AFHRL has collected data from thousands of jobs in the Air Force and, using a computer software program called the Comprehensive Occupational Data Analysis Program (CODAP), has been able to more accurately establish a job description classification system for Air Force jobs.
Personnel departments outside the defense industry were not using computers at this time. Computers were used for billing and inventory control, but they were rarely used by employees for non-payroll work. The pay function must first be automated. Big organizations started gathering the benefits of new computer technology to keep track of employee compensation, but this function was usually outsourced to vendors as it was still too expensive for a firm to acquire or develop the software needed for pay-roll functions. This function was easy to outsource. It is computer technology has only just begun to be used at this time, and it is important to realize that it was complex and expensive. With increasing legislation on employment relations and employee unions, industrial relations has become one of the main centers of the labor department. Union-management bargaining over employment contracts dominated the department's activities, and these discussions were not computer-based. Despite the increasing use of computerized data processing in other departments such as account and materials management, record keeping was still done manually. The result was an initial reluctance on the part of the staff to acquire and use computer technology for their programs. Advances in computer technology have had a long-term effect on many companies, although the technology has become cheaper and easier to use.
Social Issues Era (1963–1980)
The United States has seen an unprecedented increase in the number of labor laws during this period, including laws that regulate various aspects of employment relations, such as prohibitions of discriminatory practices, promotion of occupational health and safety, and retirement provisions.
Benefits, and tax regulations. As a result, the personnel department was burdened with the additional responsibility of legal compliance, which required a large amount of information to be collected, analyzed and reported to the statutory authorities. For example, in order to demonstrate that there was no unfair discrimination in employment practices, a staff department had to diligently collect, analyze, and store data on all employment functions such as recruitment, training, compensation, and benefits. Avoid threats for the punitive damages for disagreement, it was necessary to ensure that the data was comprehensive, accurate and up to date, which made it essential to automate the process of data collection, analysis and reporting. As you go through the chapters of this book, these various laws and government guidelines will cover specific HR topics.
It was at this time that the personnel departments began to be called human resources departments and the field of human resource management was born. The growing need to comply with numerous employee safety laws or to face significant financial penalties makes senior managers aware of the importance of HRM functions. In other words, effective and correct exercises HRM began to affect the "bottom line" of firms, so the HR department grew significantly and computer technology advanced where it began to be used. As a result, there was a growing demand for HR departments to adopt computer technology to process employee information more efficiently and efficiently. This trend has led to an explosion in the number of vendors who can help the HR department automate their programs in both hardware and software.
At the same time, computer technology was evolving and providing improved productivity at a lower cost. The development of this technology and the increased activity of vendors have led to the development of a comprehensive management information system (MIS) for HRM. Rising costs of computer technology versus employee costs and the rising cost of benefits have made the acquisition of computer-based HRIS a necessary business decision. However, staff departments were still slow to adopt computer technology, despite the MIS report being cheaper than the energy it could provide for storing and retrieving employee data. Thus, the main problem at this time in the historical development of HRIS was not the need or capability of technology, but how to optimize it.
Implement it
Another reason was the developing economies of most industrialized countries. As a result, employee trade unions have successfully negotiated better employment conditions, such as healthcare and retirement benefits. As a result, labor costs have risen, putting pressure on staff managers to justify cost increases as opposed to improving productivity. With increased emphasis on staff participation and
Empowerment, the role of staff work has been transformed from a “supervisor” focus to a “protector”, shifting the focus from maintenance to employee development. Thus, the breadth and depth of HRM functions has expanded, bringing with it the need for strategic thinking and better delivery of HR services.
Cost-Effectiveness Era (1980 to the Early 1990s)
As competition in the emerging European and Asian economies increases, the United States and other multinational corporations have increased their focus on spending reduction through automation and other productivity improvement measures. In the case of HRM, the increased administrative burden has intensified the need to meet a growing number of legal requirements, while the overall functional focus has shifted away from employees.
Employee development and involvement from administration. In order to reduce the cost and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of service delivery through value-added services, HR departments are under pressure to use technology that is becoming cheaper and more powerful. In addition, there was a growing realization in management that the cost of people was a very important part of a company's budget. Some companies estimate that staff costs are up to 80% of their operating costs. As a result, there was a growing demand for HRM functions to justify them.
Employee programs and services. In one of the first books to address this growing need to justify HRM function, Casio (1984) points out that the language of business is dollars and cents, and HR managers need to realize this fact. In the next edition of his book, Casio (1991) quotes Jack Fitzgerald (1980), who more accurately states the need for spending by those responsible for human resource management.
Their function justification:
Few human resource managers—even the most energetic—take the time to analyze the
return on the corporation’s personnel dollar. We feel we aren’t valued in our own
organizations, that we can’t get the resources we need. We complain that management
won’t buy our proposals and wonder why our advice is so often ignored until the crisis
stage. But the human resources manager seldom stands back to look at the total
business and ask: Why am I at the bottom looking up? The answer is painfully
apparent. We don’t act like business managers—like entrepreneurs whose business
happens to be people. (Fitz-enz, 1980).
Even small and medium-sized companies can carry computer-based HR systems that are driven by increasingly user-friendly microcomputers and can be shown to be cost-effective. The conventional management's concern about the use of computers in HR was not that their use would reduce the number of employees required in the HR department, but that employee activity and time could be shifted from transactional records to more transformative activities. The valu organization. This change in the effectiveness of HRM can then be clearly measured in terms of the cost-benefit ratio at the bottom line of the company.
Technological Advancement Era and the Emergence of Strategic HRM (1990 to Present)
With increasing globalization, the economic landscape has changed drastically throughout the 1990s.
Technological advances (especially Internet-enabled web services), and hyper competition.
Business process re-engineering practices have become more common and frequent, resulting in a number of initiatives, such as staffing, reducing management levels, reducing organizational structure bureaucracy, creating autonomous work teams, and outsourcing.
In tracing the evolution of strategic HRM, M. L. Lengnick-Hall, C. A. Lengnick-Hall, Andrade, and Drake (2009) identify seven key themes:
• HR Contingency Perspective and Appropriateness: HR strategies rely on business strategies (cost reduction, quality improvement and innovation) and business settings (production, services, public sector, and not for profit, as well as firm size).
• Change the focus from managing people to making strategic contributions, indicating a resource-based approach to strong and social capital
• HR system components and structure, focusing on HR system architecture and bundles of
high-performance work practices
• Expanding the scope of HRM outside the focal organization to include customers, suppliers and competitors locally and internationally
• Achieving HR implementation and execution by translating the rhetoric into practice
• Measuring the outcomes of Strategic HRM by various means, such as the HR balanced
scorecard approach
• Research methodological issues that stress the importance of evidence-based management
Another important feature of strategic HRM is the adoption and use of HR metrics (Casio, 2000; Lawler and Moharman, 2003). Most executives in an organization have used metrics for decades because of the nature of their business transactions. The marketing department has set an example
The sales target and performance metric that is used is the percentage of sales relative to the target. However, for HR, the focus on measuring the cost effectiveness of programs is relatively recent. Despite recent use of the metrics, their use has continued to grow and deepen as companies seek to compete globally.
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