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22 February, 2021

Personnel Management

Personnel management deals with the managerial function of estimating and classifying human resources requirements for meeting organizational goals through people at work and their relationships with each other.

Personnel Management involves strategies that ensure right number of staff, a right combination of talent, training, and performance in jobs.

According to Edwin B. Flippo – “Personnel Management is the planning, organizing, directing, and controlling of the procurement, development, compensation, integration and maintenance and separation of personnel to the end that individual, organizational and societal objectives are accomplished.”

 

Nature of Personnel Management

  1. Personnel management includes the function of employment, development and compensation- These functions are performed primarily by the personnel management in consultation with other departments.
  2. Personnel management is an extension to general management. It is concerned with promoting and stimulating competent work force to make their fullest contribution to the concern.
  3. Personnel management exist to advise and assist the line managers in personnel matters. Therefore, personnel department is a staff department of an organization.
  4. Personnel management lays emphasize on action rather than making lengthy schedules, plans, and work methods. The problems and grievances of people at work can be solved more effectively through rationale personnel policies.
  5. It is based on human orientation. It tries to help the workers to develop their potential fully to the concern.
  6. It also motivates the employees through its effective incentive plans so that the employees provide fullest co-operation.
  7. Personnel management deals with human resources of a concern. In context to human resources, it manages both individual as well as blue- collar workers

Role of Personnel Manager

Personnel manager is the head of personnel department. He performs both managerial and operative functions of management. His role can be summarized as:

  1. Personnel manager provides assistance to top management- The top management are the people who decide and frame the primary policies of the concern. All kinds of policies related to personnel or workforce can be framed out effectively by the personnel manager.
  2. He advices the line manager as a staff specialist- Personnel manager acts like a staff advisor and assists the line managers in dealing with various personnel matters.
  3. As a counsellor,- As a counsellor, personnel manager attends problems and grievances of employees and guides them. He tries to solve them in best of his capacity.
  4. Personnel manager acts as a mediator- He is a linking pin between management and workers.
  5. He acts as a spokesman- Since he is in direct contact with the employees, he is required to act as representative of organization in committees appointed by government. He represents company in training programs.

Following are the elements of Personnel Management:

  1. Organization- Organization is said to be the framework of many activities taking place in view of goals available in a concern. An organization can be called as a physical framework of various interrelated activities. Right from manpower planning to employees’ maintenance, all activities take place within this framework. The nature of the organization is dependent upon it’s goal. The business concern goal being profit- making. Clubs, hospitals, schools, etc. their goal being service. The objective of consultancy being providing sound advice. Therefore, it is organizational structure on which the achievement of goals of an enterprise depends upon. In personnel management, a manager has therefore to understand the importance of organizational structure.
  2. Job- The second element, i.e., jobs tell us the activities to be performed in the organization. It is said that the goals of an enterprise can be achieved only through the functional department in it. Therefore, seeing the size of organization today, the nature of activities are changing. In addition to the three primary departments, personnel and research department are new additions. Various types of jobs available are :
    1. Physical jobs
    2. Creative jobs
    3. Proficiency jobs
    4. Intellectual jobs
    5. Consultancy jobs
    6. Technical jobs
  3. People- The last and foremost element in personnel management is people. In a organizational structure, where the main aim is to achieve the goals, the presence of manpower becomes vital. Therefore, in order to achieve departmental goals, different kinds of people with different skills are appointed. People form the most important element because :
    1. The organizational structure is meaningless without it.
    2. It helps to achieve the goals of the enterprise.
    3. It helps in manning the functional areas.
    4. It helps in achieving the functional departmental goals.
    5. They make a concern operational.
    6. They give life to a physical organization.

The different types of people which are generally required in a concern are :

    1. Physically fit people
    2. Creative people
    3. Intellectuals
    4. Technical people
    5. Proficient and skilled people

In personnel management, a personnel manager has to understand the relationship of the three elements and their importance in organization. He has to understand basically three relationships:-

  1. Relationship between organization and job
  2. Relationship between job and people
  3. Relationship between people and organization.

Relationship between organization and job helps making a job effective and significant. Relationship between job and people makes the job itself important. Relationship between people and organization gives due importance to organizational structure and the role of people in it.

 Functions of Personnel Management

Following are the four functions of Personnel Management:

  1. Manpower Planning
  2. Recruitment
  3. Selection
  4. Training and Development