What are the emerging Roles of human resource management in this fast changing world of management

Human input in the production process was at one time considered as a variable cost item. People were treated as dispensible units of labour and easily replaceable. Very few could think of developing and maintaining the workforce. The emphasis rather was on controlling and minimising its cost.

This being the position, functions of personnel management remained confined mainly to recruitment, remuneration and separation. The performance of personnel department was judged on the basis of how to recruit manpower of requisite strength and skill and keep its cost at the lowest possible level and get rid of it when no longer required. Labour was the first area to be hit whenever the problem of the reduction of costs arose.

FUNCTIONS: The economic success of Japan in the 80's gave rise to a new thinking about the importance of the human element. The view that human element was a variable cost item gave way to a new concept, namely, that it was a resource to be maintained and not merely used.

As a result, the nomenclature, "personnel management" was replaced by "human resource management", with changes in its role and functions which currently are: manpower planning, recruitment and selection, training and development, remuneration including wages, salaries, benefits administration, career planning, coordinating performance appraisal process, industrial relations and advising the line managers on the rules, regulations governing employment matters.

To meet challenges of competitive environment in the globalization era and of the rapid developments taking place in the social and economic aspects of life, some of the functions of human resource management will have to be readjusted and some others to be brought within the purview of its functions.

EMERGING FUNCTIONS: Some of the concomitants of the modern age such as higher education, higher aspirations, higher standards of living and more liberal ways of life have already started influencing workplaces.

As a result. employees more educated than ever-before, having higher aspirations, find it difficult to respond constructively to the narrowly-defined jobs having no scope for any initiative. In fact, they find their jobs dissatisfying.

The result is more and more apathy towards work with direct impact. on performance. If the contents of an employee's job hold no interest for him, he can hardly be expected to take interest in the job. If the job provides no scope for responsibility, he can hardly be expected to act responsibly.

Moreover, young and educated employees have also started resisting the norms of discipline. In times to come, they are expected to adopt "what I like approach". Thus the question arises: how to deal with the emerging workforce, how to put it to productive use and how to motivate them to achieve the organizational objectives.

As such, developing new forms of work organizations, job enrichment, encouraging employees empowerment and participation, and socio-technical approach to work, could be some of the new areas in which human resource managements will have to pay attention..

The other major problem to be faced by industrial managements in the coming years will be, how to deal with surpluses of workforce arising out of frequent mergers and downsizing to meet the challenges of globalization.

Human resource managements have to tackle this problem in a manner that the industrial peace and working harmony in organizations are not disturbed. One of the possible ways to meet this challenge could be the training of workers in multiple skills and adoption of the strategy of outplacement so that the employees becoming surplus are helped in finding suitable employment.

Dealing with trade unions, including collective bargaining', are presently carried on win-lose basis. This is one of the factors mainly responsible for adversarial labour-management relations having adverse effect on the competitiveness of organizations.

There will be need for the adoption of strategies based on the win-win approach in the new era. Nothing can bring workers closer to each other than having a common problem and endeavouring for its resolution.

The career planning and development activities of human resource management's are presently confined to employees in the management and supervisory cadres only. No attention is given to the development of employees in the cadre of workers.

The result is uneven development leading to imbalance. Moreover, if the job of the educated workers is to be enriched and made more meaningful they have to be trained to meet demands of new jobs.

Personnel policies are presently formulated keeping in view the "job requirements". But the fact remains that when a management hires a person, it hires him as a 'whole-man'.

Although the management may need his hands and muscles yet he brings his thoughts, aspirations, hopes and the burden of all personal and domestic problems to his workplace.

The practice of framing personnel policies on the basis of workman concept has. therefore, to be given up to be replaced by the practice of framing policies on the basis of 'whole-man; to take care of employees' off-the-job problems.

In the process of promoting discipline the emphasis at present is on treating the symptoms rather than on the causes of the problems. The result is that measures adopted, do not produce the desired results. The policy of enforcing discipline through penal measures alone, has to give way to the adoption of more positive measures to produce the desired results.