NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES AND

TECHNOLOGY
School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

Human Resource Management (HRM-442)

Assignment # 1

SUBMITTED BY:
Name: Abdullah Ashfaq
Registration No: 129399
Section: BEE-8B

Date of Submission: 13th February, 2020

Table of Contents

Topic Page
Number
1. History of Human Resource Management (HRM) 1
a. Slaves and Conscripts 1
b. Authoritarian drive system 1
c. Taylorism 2
d. Psychology and Human Relations 2
2. Development of Human Resource Management in 21st Century 2
a. The Ulrich Challenge 3
b. Models for Human Resource 3
c. Job Search and Recruiting 3
d. Shift to Strategic Human Resource Management 4
3. Human Resource Management in Engineering 5
a. Training and Retaining 5
b. Technical Knowledge Requirements for HR Managers 6
c. Human Resource Management in Tech Giants 6
4. References 6
 Human Resource Management (HRM) involves all the activities conducted to ensure
effective and efficient utilization of employees for the achievement of organizational or
individual goals. The term HRM became common just recently in the past 10 to 15 years.
Before, it was usually known as “personnel administration”. Evolution of HRM constitutes
evolution of ideas and not just practices.

1. History of Human Resource Management (HRM)

HRM has developed through the following stages before it reached the form it is in today.

Psychology
and Human
Taylorism Relations

Authoritarian
Drive System

Slaves and
Conscripts

(Budd, 2016)

a) Slaves and Conscripts

Even 5000 years ago, skilled and unskilled slaves and soldiers needed management. So the
optimal way to manage workers to gain maximum output is an age-old question. In these times,
the elites of the time had the absolute superiority and divine right to instruct and control the
workforce. The workers were seen as inferior.

b) Authoritarian drive system

The modern concern with managing workers comes from the industrial revolution.
Industrialization caused massive shift from farming and cottage industries to factories. It is
important to understand this shift to understand need for HRM. Individuals lost the autonomy,
flexibility and self-management that they used to do before. In factories, individuals had to
work with huge and noisy machines and in large numbers.

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 The industrialists were ambitious and thrifty and they found the workers lacking in these
qualities. Earlier industrialists ensured strict monitoring and discipline of this new workforce
that was not used to working for someone else. This let to creation of “Authoritarian Drive
System”. So the supervisor became the king. He had the unquestioned authority to hire, fire
and motivate workforce by any means possible.

It is believed that personnel management was formed during this time when there was an
emergence in welfare workers who improved working conditions particularly of women and
children in industries.

c) Taylorism (Taylor, 1911)

In early 1900s, production process became complicated and factories became larger than
ever before. Workers were seen as motivated by money and they are willing to work to get
money by most efficient ways.

Frederick W. Taylor, father of scientific management, stated that “the task of factory
management was to determine the best way for the workers to do the job, provide proper tools
and training and to provide incentives for good performance … ”(Taylor, 1911).

This concept involves getting the technical conditions right. It sought to find the one best
way to do a job by breaking it apart into simple, standardized and repetitive tasks that even an
unskilled worker could do. Managers were tasked with division of task and workers were
‘hands’.

d) Psychology and Human Relations

Workers are not only motivated by money, but they also have psychological needs and
social relations. So, this era involved getting the human conditions right. There were efforts to
apply psychological principles to manage workers. It involved appreciating the individual skills
and cognitive abilities of workers as well as the group dynamics. It also involved providing job
satisfaction to the employees.

2. Development of Human Resource Management in 21st Century

We saw throughout history that the HRM principles and practices changed with
transformation in ideas. Trends in economy, technology and demographic make hiring, finding,
motivating and retaining an employee harder. Employers must be proficient in managing
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employees’ knowledge, skills and expertise and this gave rise to the Human Resource
Management (HRM) term.

a) The Ulrich Challenge (Ulrich, 2005)

In the previous century, David Ulrich commented on HR as “often ineffective, incompetent,

and costly; in a phrase, it is value sapping” (Ulrich, 2005). He observed that more of the focus
was on process and efficiency rather than outputs and value. As a result, he proposes that HR
should be defined as what it delivers rather than what it does.

b) Models for Human Resource

In 2000s, the HR started responding to the challenge proposed by David Ulrich which led
to development of ‘three-legged stool’ model for HR. It meant that the HRM can be segmented
into following three areas:

• HR business/strategic partners: Work in a particular business area to achieve

organizational goals.
• Centers of excellence: Small teams with functional expertise.
• Shared services area: Administrative area of HRM.

It is believed that the current trends may lead to HR and talent management becoming
“fully embedded in how work gets done throughout an organization [distributed], thereby
becoming an everyday part of doing business.”(Good & Farley, 2015)

There seems to be a shift back to the time when the line manager was responsible for more
personnel tasks. HR activities are being assigned to employees while the HR managers are
assigned more strategic tasks. Digital and social media are also shaping HR trends.

c) Job Search and Recruiting

People look for jobs using career sites such as LinkedIn, Glassdoor, indeed, etc. This makes
the employment procedure more transparent. According to a survey, 48% of the job seekers
used Glassdoor during their job search (Dessler, 1994). This also allows the hiring managers
to choose candidates from a bigger pool. Talent analytics algorithms allow managers to
increase employee retention. Similarly, talent analytics tools are used to suggest useful courses
for the employee based on the information on learning management system and customer
management system. Analytics plays a big role in HRM and will continue to do so in the future.

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 With increase in remote work, HR will introduce global recruitment policies and
international relocation of employees will become a standard practice. “The future of Human
Resources will be about new networking methods and processes how to make commute
employees know each other.”(Brief HR Management History, 2019)

d) Shift to Strategic Human Resource Management

“I would say [HR is] moving from processing paper to making sure individuals feel valued
in the organization,” says Kate Bischoff, SHRM-SCP (Milligan, 2017). Following are the
significant trends that are shaping the HRM now and will continue to do so in the future.

Trends Then Now What’s next

Social Media Facebook was Social media is Companies may use
thought to be considered as a instant messaging to
distracting and 2/3 of means of communicate
the employers communicating and according to Shawn
blocked these sites. sharing knowledge. Casemore, President
Employee internet Casemore and Co.
activity was Inc
monitored.
Benefits offered A Benefits such as Benefits are more Benefit model
retirement and health flexible and inspired by
la Carte
programs were customized to the consumer-driven
limited. individual. For e.g. plans: Employees are
Amazon offers its allocated some
hourly workers with amount and they can
handsome tuition get the benefits that
benefit and prepares meet their individual
them for other jobs needs. This is the
outside Amazon as plan which LinkedIn
well. launched named
Perk Up in 2015.
Fluid Feedback Annual employee
Real-time feedback It is difficult to
reviews of
and impact delivered predict this. There is
performance and
by employee in the a need to find the
feedback. Making
past few years or system that benefits
employees competemonths. both the employee
against each other.
Collaboration and the company.
encouraged.
Technology More employers Expertise matter Due to loss of human
needed the employee more than the element, HR
resulting in remote
onsite. location. managers must guide
work 3 times as many the employees
companies offer regarding the rules
remote work in 2016 and etiquettes of in-
than in 1996.

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 person
communication.
Agile and Gig- Career ladderto Increase in number It is of concern that
climb of gig-workers due to how to motivate
focused career
increased demand of contractors and
development autonomy and manage intellectual
opportunity. property when a
Millennials yearn person works for
experiences and HR different employers.
managers must
adapt.
Analytics Few HR managers There is a demand of Predictive analytics
had experience in such HR managers may start as 32% of
data analytics. but still it is not the companies
common to find a HR ensure this (Milligan,
team strong in data 2017). All the HR
analytics. activities will be
guided by data and
AI will be used to
find relations.

Human resource practices are a reflection of the mindset of the masses of a particular time.
With rapid change in business environment, the HR practices are also evolving to cater to the
needs of the employees as well as the employer.

3. Human Resource Management in Engineering

HRM is not limited to a specific discipline. When people work in a group to achieve
something, it involves HRM. Like any organization, an engineering organization also involves
HR functions. Engineers work in groups to achieve tasks. Good engineers are hard to come by.
Therefore, there is a need of effective recruitment to get the best talent with interest in line with
the organizational goals. The candidates must be open to learning so they can be trained to fit
the needs of the organization.

a) Training and Retaining

Once the engineers join the organization, they must be trained to bring them up to the
industrial standards. This involves effective training. Once the organization has spent so much
resources on an engineer to train him/her, there needs to be a retention policy to ensure that the
investment is utilized. There is an urge in employees to develop themselves and HR must help
them in this regard. The world of technology is fast moving and engineers must keep abreast

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with the latest developments to prevent themselves from falling behind. HR must provide
opportunities to build their skills and widen their exposure so that the engineers have a future
outside the particular company afterwards. Keeping this in mind, Amazon trains its workers
for jobs outside Amazon.

b) Technical Knowledge Requirements for HR Managers

When dealing with engineers, it is important that the managers have technical
knowledge or experience so that they can better judge candidates for recruitment, offer training
courses to build expertise, empathize with the engineers and enable them to better contribute
towards organizational goals.

c) Human Resource Management in Tech Giants

Tech giants, who employ a lot of engineers, give immense importance to HRM.
Amazon offers effective training programs to enhance the skills of the workforce. Microsoft
is considered to be an excellent place for engineers owing to its vast resources. Engineers are
provided the latest tools and technology to achieve the best possible outcome. Employees are
recognized for their achievement by providing benefits. The employees are offered flexible
benefit and work-hour plans. The results are evident from the success of the company.

References

Brief HR Management History. (2019). HRM Handbook.

Budd, J. W. (2016). Evolution of Human Resource Management.

Dessler, G. (1994). Human Resource Management.

Good, T., & Farley, C. (2015). Accenture-Future-of-HR-Digital-Radically-Disrupts-HR.

Milligan, S. (2017). 6 Trends That Changed HR Over the Past Decade. SHRM.

Taylor, F. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management.

Ulrich, D. (2005). The HR Value Proposition.

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