From Personnel Management to Human Resource Management: What is New?

Abstract

This paper examines the evolution of personnel management into human resource management and goes ahead to discuss what is new about human resource management. In doing this, the paper relies solely on secondary method of data collection which it analyzes using descriptive method of qualitative analysis. The paper argues that despite the apparent similarities between personnel management and human resource management, human resource management is broader, diverse, strategic and commitment oriented, adopts a unitary rather than pluralist viewpoint, is founded on the belief that people should be treated as assets rather than variable cost and is a management-driven activity. Also, while personnel management responds to changes in organizations, human resource management is prescriptive and concerned with strategies and the initiation and development of new ideas. Thus, human resource management has a long-term perspective that seeks to integrate all the human aspects of the organization into a coherent whole and to establish a high level of organizational goals. The paper therefore, concludes that human resource management is a significant frontier which offers great opportunities to advance the study and understanding of the management of human resources
in the workplace today. Accordingly, the paper recommends, among other things, that public and private organizations should embrace human resource management to help them advance the management of human resources in their workplace.