BS3403

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• BS3403
• Human Resource Management

Sept 2001
Chris Jarvis
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Schedule

• Lectures
• Case study discussion
• Coursework 50, Examination 50
• On-line Forum/Bulletin Board
• Study guide and Learning Resources
• course WWW-site sol.brunel.ac.uk/jarvis/degreemod
  ules/bs3403/
• BOLAsol.brunel.ac.uk/jarvis/bola/personnel/

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MG5012 Managing Human Resources

• Module Texts
• Essential (pre-season training)
• Maund L, 2001, Intro to HRM, Palgrave
• Beardwell I Holden, 2000, HRM, Pitman
• Further
• Cornelius, N (1999) HRM a Managerial
  Perspective, International Thomson
• Legge K, (1995), HRM rhetorics and realities,
  MacMillan

Chris Jarvis HRM Theory and Practice
4
HRM a mature discipline?
Scientific/philosophical rigour Critical
evaluation Complex synthesis Analytical
explanation Technical application Contextual
understanding Descriptive knowledge and
categorisation
5
Scope of HRM

• What business activities? Who does them?
• Evolution of HRM/Personnel function
• HR content
• job and employee related service functions
• HR contexts (STEEPLE)
• social, technological, economic, ethical, legal
  and environmental

6
HRM/Personnel Activities
HR Analysis Planning, Policy and Implementation

• Staffing
• Recruitment
• Placement
• Records

Learning, Training, and Evaluating
Rewards and Contracts
Organisational culture management workforce rela
tionships
The organisation employs people Macro Meso
Micro Meta issues
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Karen Legge - Perspectives on HRM Rhetoric

• descriptive functional (policies, procedures,
  purposes, rules, regulative mechanisms)
• normative (values and commitments managerial,
  libertarian, egalitarian, ethical)
• critical evaluative (strength of theory,
  rhetoric and experience)
• descriptive behavioural (practice, experience
  and interpretation)

Approaches, theoretical strength, control,
philosophies tension
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Personnel/HRM at Board Level
Brain of the Firm?
Chairman
non-Exec Directors
Managing Director
Company Secretary
Sales and
Marketing Director
Finance Director
Variants for public sector
incl. IT Systems
and Payroll
Operations and
Distribution
Functional responses to internal external
conditions
Director
Director of
Human Resources
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Central, functional HRM Services model
Strategy, external/internal, policy,
standards, service quality, organisational
Learning and cultures
Director of
Human Resources
Employee
Personnel
Site Services
HRD Manager
Relations
Services Manager
Occupational Health
Manager
Recruitment
Management Devel
Medical Centre
Rewards policy and change?
Operative training
screening/welfare
Union bargaining and staff representation
Loos/hygiene
Managers
Needs
Health safety
Operators
Contracts
Technical
Design
Welfare
Discipline
Delivery
counselling
Overseas
Social/structural legal adaptation
Evaluation
Social club
Graduates
Sales?
Site security?
Staff appraisal
Managing conflict
General Personnel
Career counselling
a service to management not a third party,
mediator between company staff
Personnel Records
Statistics
Investors in People
Equal opportunities
Technical training
Communications
Catering?
Employment law
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Development of HRM/Personnel
STAGE 3
Strategic Manager
Competitive Advantage
STAGE 2
Contracts Service Manager
Regulative accountability
STAGE 1
Admin. Service Manager
Records and administration
Problem-solving, power and innovation
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Clerks Innovators

• Personnel administrator
• Clerk of works chores, reactive, little
  authority, difficult to prove success, cost not
  profit centre
• Contracts manager Architect deploy systems
  innovate
• (Tyson Fell 1986)
• Conformist innovator (contacts)
• professionalism - accepts ends adjusts
  means
• service innovation within prevailing norms.
• policies for effective staffing, admin services
  consultancy
• Deviant innovator (architect)
• influence ends -means relationships.
• gain acceptance for different success criteria.
• strategic empowerment, creativity,
  organisational culture
• (Legge 1978)

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Development of HRM/Personnel - 2
Dispersed,networked, flexible, K-based
organisation
Competitive, global, lean, high quality, high
tech firm
Externally regulated bureaucratic, efficient
corporation
Modern, bureaucratic, efficient corporation -
internal regulation
Employing people - unregulated master-servant
relationship
Managerial control values and assumptions
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The distributed organisation

• Centralised, corporate activities. Compare with
• Retail distribution
• The short life organisation
• Software house, consultancy and facilities
  management
• European or global firm
• The academic organisation
• The "professional" organisation (solicitors,
  accountants)
• The NHS
• Local and central government
• The knowledge-centred organisation

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Why a separate, bolt on HRM/personnel servicing
function?

• Bureaucratic system maintenance
• regulated environment to service transactions
  (staff ltgt firm).
• admin. burden. Routinisation, consistency,
  predictability.
• Strategic preparedness development
• intelligence expertise.
• anticipate staffing problems. Coordinate, reduce
  risk
• strategic analysis, choice implementation
  (global or local)
• Support development business prosperity
• Stick to the knitting? gt Outsourcing

Each section manager as their own HR manager?
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Scope for Out-sourcing HRM Services
Strategy, external/internal, policy,
standards, service quality, organisational
Learning and cultures
Director of
Human Resources
The distributed, Knowledge-based organisation
Employee
Personnel
Site Services
HRD Manager
Relations
Services Manager
Occupational Health
Manager
Recruitment
Management Devel
Medical Centre
Rewards policy and change?
Operative training
screening/welfare
Union bargaining and staff representation
Loos/hygiene
Managers
Needs
Health safety
Operators
Contracts
Technical
Design
Welfare
Out-source ?
Discipline
Out-source ?
Delivery
counselling
Overseas
Social/structural legal adaptation
Evaluation
Social club
Graduates
Sales?
Site security?
Staff appraisal
Managing conflict
General Personnel
Career counselling
a service to management not a third party,
mediator between company staff
Personnel Records
Statistics
Investors in People
Equal opportunities
Technical training
Communications
Catering?
Employment law
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HR Planning
Planning objectives?
DEMAND forecasting analysis qualitative quantitati
ve
The right people, in the right place, at the
right time, at the right cost and with the right
frame of mind. Jobs, contracts, skills,
organisational membership
SUPPLY Internal external labour supply
Service and Innovation business and population
trends
Short-/long-term PIMs Internet technologies
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Staffing
Jobs filled Competencies Reputation Costs Flexib
ility Harmony Contribution performance
Select
Organizational Goals

• The right candidate
• for the job
• Validity
• Reliability
• Utility of
• application process
• interviews tests
• assessment centres
• reference security checks

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Competence, training and learning
1. Needs
2. Design and implementation
3. Evaluation

• business needs?
• what training needs?
• training objectives learning outcomes
• know-how learning
• criteria for evaluation

• what methods
• training policy
• learning processes
• resources materials
• scheduling
• delivery learning support

• Assess outcomes against criteria
• What outcomes?
• What criteria?

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Rewards and equity issues
External equity
retention distribution pay survey
benchmarking key jobs occupational class
transfer values
Internal equity
Job evaluation Methods

• Individual equity (acceptance motivation)
• Direct
• pay rises (seniority performance)
• broad banding
• skill-based pay
• gain sharing
• Indirect
• benefits and trappings of membership

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Performance Appraisal
define expectations for performance
Describe procedures Values and assumptions Evaluat
e theory/practice Describe behaviours
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Exchange, bargaining and the law

• Contracts - rights and obligations
• Fairness and justice - unfair dismissal
• Liberty, ownership and property - redundancy and
  TUPE
• Right to work eligibility
• Discrimination and equal opportunity
• Union recognition, membership and activities
• Negotiation of wage-work bargain
• Employee surviellance
• Global adaptation and frameworks

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Descriptive-Functional perspective
Purposes, policies, rules, procedures
competencies of personnel HRM practice.
Prescriptions guidelines

• Transactions in internal and external labour
  markets
• services to support staff employment
• personnel records documentation
• recruitment selection
• contracts of employment
• reward systems
• staff training development
• unions collective bargaining
• welfare services
• equal opportunities policies
• communications culture

Very practical Membership Boundary management
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Pay-offs in Employer-Employee Relationship
(after Mumford 1972)

• Task structure - work within policy, procedure
  technical constraints. Jobs, work arrangements
• Knowledge skill - employer wants know-how,
  competence, experience. Employee wants to be put
  to good use be developed
• Psychological - mgt co-workers want committed,
  loyal, motivated staff. Individual wants
  satisfaction
• Efficiency/rewards - employer wants performance
  quality output. Employee wants equity,
  felt-fair rewards opportunity
• Ethical - values commitments in right/wrong
  behaviour

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Normative perspective

• Culture values explicit implicit
  assumptions hire-fire, caring,
• tough love, profit maximisation, power, TQM,
  competitiveness.
• Horse-power contracts vs.. you for your own
  sake
• perform-reward orientation
• people are our greatest asset if. minimum
  cost
• teams, participation, empowerment, quality,
  creativity e.g. McGregor Theory X Y
• unitary vs. pluralistic frameworks TUs
• flexible, lean firm learning organisation

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HRM credibility gap

• Dirty Harry. Big hat - no cattle. Other?
• Line mgr staff disappointment with HRM people.
• Personnels status vs. the control of HRM
  systems
• Rag bag of incidental techniques. Little
  cohesion.
• Personnel cul-de-sac? Filing clerk, social
  worker. Welfare fire-fighter images.
• Im Steve from Personnel. I can help.
• Distant, out of touch, react to events or passive
• Defend status quo - existing policy
• Not risk takers insufficiently business
  oriented
• Little influence over power-brokers

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Critical-Evaluative perspective

• Managers confused, stereotyped perception of a
  personnel service. They agree that...personnel....
  exists to provide a service to the line who
  must decide what this.. should be but when...
  asked about what ideal service they
  needed...many... were at a loss to suggest
  anything other than routines.

Ambiguities tensions in rhetoric delivery of
hard soft HRM under market capitalism. Legge
1978
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Critical-Evaluative Perspective - 2

• Talk and the social construction of reality
• Is HRM theory robust or built on weak
  foundations?
• primary driver of strategy?
• greatest assets funds products brands?
• staff HRM people are costs. Down-size
  out-source!
• language of power - "justifications
  mystifications".
• HRM policies/practices control direct
  performances
• power imbalance - NOT between equal partners.
• external politico-legal intervention
• employers under competition want invisible-hand
  not welfare intervention.
• normative, inclusive view neglects countervailing
  forces
• employees as stakeholders - what stake contract?

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Descriptive-behavioural perspective

• Compare actual behaviour with normative rhetoric?
  Say vs. Do.
• Actual behaviour experience of parties.
• The dramatic metaphor actor, Face, role
  demands, choices constraints. On-stage, back
  stage, off stage
• What do they actually do-feel-assume-accomplish
• political world, pragmatism, egoism vs. idealism
  altruism
• strategic?
• operational staffing?
• client-server relationships alliances -
  individuals/groups?
• Behaviours in situations of co-operation,
  competition, conflict?

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Personnel Client-Server Roles

• figurehead
• leader
• liaison

Interpersonal roles
Information processing roles

• monitor
• disseminator
• spokesperson

• initiator/changer
• resource allocator
• disturbance handler
• negotiator

Decision- making roles
(after H Mintzberg)
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Helper-Battler-Thinker.... a world of
Friendly helper

• trust, concern, respect, affection, empathy.
  Win-together
• understanding, harmonising, compromising,
  encouraging
• confrontation, conflict, competition, position
  play, survival, assertion, emotional resilience.
  Win-or-dont lose
• initiating, negotiation, striving, implementation
  results, pressing for agreement resolving
  differences.
• data, analysis, logic, modelling, systems,
  knowledge.
• information gathering, clarifying, synthesis,
  systems development, defining rules/regulations,
  deciding

Tough battler
Logical thinker
Out-sourcing
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HRM Winning Strategies

• Flexible, lean organisation structures. SBUs.
• Culture generation - competitive, creative,
  innovative, customer, quality added value
• Fit to handle rapid change?
• Competence performance orientation.
• Tough-love
• Intrapreneurs
• Centralisation/decentralisation issues, local
  international/global