Assess the extent to which the practice of people management has Essay

Assess the extent to which the practice of people management has changed in the switch from personnel management to human resource management - Essay Example This change in attitude of the management gave rise to the concept of human resource management (HRM) through which personnel policies were implemented to maximize organizational integrity, employee commitment, flexibility and quality. However, there have been debates whether HRM has actually changed the management of people as it evolved from personnel management to human resource management, or even whether the roles of the then personnel manager and that of an HR director differ. Personnel management was concerned with obtaining, organising and motivating the human resources required by the corporation, while HRM has been described as â€Å"high-concept personnel management† (Armstrong, 2000). Armstrong believes that policies and practices such as performance appraisal, skill analysis and merit pay have all existed even earlier but they are now packaged differently without any discernible differences in their content. The HRM theory laid emphasis on organizational integrity, employee commitment, flexibility and quality but it was more of a label to wrap around the observable changes. The HRM concept focused on challenging deficiencies in attitude, coherence, direction and scope of the existing personnel management This fad in the name of HRM was growing because in 1990 only 6 percent of the people management specialists used the HR title which grew to 30 percent by 1998 (Caldwell, 2002). This was called HRMism which was a phenomenon that encompassed a nything to do with managing the employment relationship. Alagse contends that personnel management was traditionally aimed at non-managers whereas HRM focused on management development. Some like Armstrong do not believe that there is change in the way people are managed. The ‘progressive’ people management techniques were flourishing even before the emergence of the HRM practices (cited by Caldwell, 2002). As the competitive environment increased, changes in