Human resource management (HRM) is the effective management of people at work. HRM examines what can or should be done to make working people more productive and satisfied (p.1). HRM also works with recruiting, management, and providing for the direction of the employees of an organization. HRM deals with issues such as compensation, hiring, safety, benefits, communication, orientation, and training.
One of the concepts that I learned from this class is that of the importance of HRM in the planning process of an organization. Planning is the logical setting of a series of goals. These goals focus on differing aspects of an organization. Planning is important at all levels of management. Characteristics of planning vary from company to company and from different levels of management within a company. In light of the four functions of management, planning, organizing, leading and controlling, planning is the fundamental function of management from which the other four stem. Prior to developmental planning, many companies contemplate internal and external factors that significantly impact the planning phase of the four functions of management. These factors set the course for everything the company considers throughout the planning phase. The internal factors include organizational direction, human and asset management. The external factors include collaboration, political issues, technological advances, legislative issues, environmental issues and globalization. (p.31)
Economic conditions have a tremendous impact on the HRM functions of the company. The text says that over the long run, productivity measures can represent a trend (p.37). From our class discussions, much was shared about the various industries that each class member comes from. It was noted discussed that over the last three years, many companies have been forced to downsize and