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Human Resource Management is an organisation’s approach that deals with recruiting, hiring, and superintending the employees of an organisation. However, HRM is not a concept of the twentieth century; it dates back even further. So let us take a look at the timeline of human resource management.
1. During Industrial Revolution
The structured development of human resources started with the Industrial Revolution around the 1850s. The concept of a large number of individuals working in a factory originated during the industrial revolution.
The factory set-up substituted the cottage set-up, and the focus shifted to the development of machinery. Since the factories now needed labor to perform in large numbers, it became necessary for the factories to hire a workforce, provide them with suitable training to work on the machinery, and supervise the workers.
However, there was no official hierarchy present. The relationship revolved more around the master-servant relationship than the employer-employee relationship.
2. During the trade union period
With the factory system’s emergence, the employees soon started to address their common interests of conflict. Employees began to acknowledge how they were forced to work for long hours under life-threatening situations with almost no pay and no compensation.
This instigated the labor workforce to protest for their interest and better working condition. They used different kinds of revolting methods such as strikes, boycotts, slowdowns, walkouts, and sometimes physical force to make the superiors hear them.
Since no factory or company could function without its employees, the superiors had no choice but to listen to the demands of their employees. This created new structured units within the organisation to deal with the welfare and improvements in the interest of employees.
3. With the dilemma of social responsibility
As mentioned earlier, we could see that employers were not sympathetic towards their employees. They only focused on getting their desired outcome and didn’t consider their employees working situation or if they were provided with the wages their worth.
However, when things started to change for good, organisations began to provide a positive working environment and paid attention to the needs of their employees. This approach increased the productivity of organisations.
HRM, therefore, leaned towards a social responsibility of an organisation. Thus, new labor laws were introduced, and they focused on the welfare of employees, improved working condition, and prohibition of child labor.
4. Applying Scientific management
The scientific management era was another revolution that changed the HRM system. This change began in 1900 but reached its peak in 1930 and is still an ongoing and evolving process. The manual workforce was getting exhausted, affecting their productivity and efficiency because employees were not hired based on their skillset.
Therefore, new advanced technology was introduced to exterminate the burden on the employees. Thus, the concept of hiring people suited for the job with the correct tools arose. Scientific management gave rise to the concepts of functional foremanship, wage differential system, and standardisation of employees.
5. Modern Human Resource Management
Right from the industrial revolution, we can see how drastically the process of hiring, the working requirements of employees, and their payment systems changed.
Organisations, irrespective of their sizes and numbers, started to integrate human resources to improve the productivity and efficiency of employees, thereby increasing the success rate of the organisation.
Human resources management now consists of attracting candidates for a certain job, recruiting them, supervising their onboarding program, and ensuring their retention. Also, the HR managers today can take the help of effective digital solutions such as Thinkific to create, deliver and monitor virtual training for employees, especially in the wake of emergencies such as a pandemic like covid-19.
Let us further discuss these key elements of Modern Human Resource Management:
- Attracting Candidates
It is the responsibility of HR to notify the audience looking for a job that there is a job vacancy in their organisation. There are different platforms online where HRs list their hiring, job description, requirements, and salary, where candidates can directly apply for those jobs.
- Recruitment
Recruitment is a screening and selection process of the candidates. This is a time-consuming process because HR has to look at the profile of every individual who has applied and then select a suitable candidate for the job.
- Onboarding process
An onboarding process starts when a candidate is hired. Onboarding is where HR makes the new employee familiar with the organisation and its rules and regulations.
- Retention
Hiring new employees is not the only responsibility of an HR but also retaining previous employees. It is pointless and unfeasible to hire new employees every month with your previous employees shifting.
Conclusion
Human Resource Management has grown exponentially and is still growing. Human resources have now advanced with the advancement of technology. It has now integrated with the HR software to make human resources function more smoothly.
You may also like: How Do Employees Determine the Success of a Business?
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