Managing Human Resources in Contemporary Organisations Essay

Managing Human Resources in Contemporary Organisations - Essay Example Organizations have adopted various strategies and approaches with the aim of overcoming the increasing challenges, as well as meeting or exceeding the set organizational goals and objectives (Redman & Wilkinson, 2009, p. 14). The shift from traditional personnel management to human resource management is one such example of how organizations adopt new approaches and strategies in a bid to increase their competitiveness and improve their performance (Martin-Alcazar, et al., 2012, p. 512). There has been an argument among management practitioners that the traditional personnel management is outdated and that organizations need to adopt a human resource management approach, in order to achieve their goals and objectives in the increasingly challenging business environment (Durovic, 2012, p. 83). This essay will, therefore, discuss whether organizations need to adopt human resource management approach in replacing traditional personnel management that is deemed to be outdated. ... Specifically, personnel management is majorly administrative record-keeping function that seeks to create and maintain employment conditions and terms that are equitable (Legge, 2004, p. 55). On the other hand, the human resource management aims at integrating the functions of traditional personnel management to corporate strategies and goals, as well as performing additional people-centered organizational developmental activities. Basically, it can be seen that the significant differences between these two approaches are in terms of application, approach, and scope (Tripathi, 2002, p. 33). As has been mentioned, personnel management is the traditional approach, while the human resource management is the modern approach. In other words, personnel management preceded human resource management (Storey, 2007, p. 97). The origins of personnel management can be traced to the welfare tradition in the post World War One period where more focus was put on meeting the basic needs of the emplo yees. As the dynamics in relations between management and trade unions changed, the responsibilities of personnel management grew beyond welfare to include areas such as effective personnel and industrial relations administration. Personnel management approach put more emphasis on the formulating and monitoring procedures and rules conformance (Torrington et al, 2002, p. 29). Over the last three decades, there were changes in the business environment that wERE brought about by increasing competition and developments in technology. As a result, customers began to have widened choices which prompted companies to keep innovating and providing the kind of