HR - Final Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3500 words

HR - Final - Essay Example The role of HR is changing fast with leapfrogging technological and marketplace advancements. The HR department’s primitive objectives were to ensure a smooth personnel management system, administration, hiring process etc. It was considered as a administrative overhead. The present day HR role is more strategic. It is directly connected to business success, revenues and opportunities being seized for organisational benefits and accomplishment of long terms and short term goals. (PWC, 2012, p. 1) As the industrial revolution began, it took the entire world in its grasp, changing and transforming work, its definition and the way people approached them. New roles got created starting from financial accountants, lawyers, executives, sales personnel, managers, administrators etc. Divisions such as Finance, Sales, Marketing, Legal, Accounts etc got created, roles got assigned to such departments and several designations like specialists, senior specialist, intern, contractor, proba tioner, part timer, summer worker etc got created. Human Resource Management in the 1800s or earlier involved clearly defined tasks such as recruitment, appointment with roles and responsibilities, observation during probation period, confirmation, appraisals, compensation and promotion. The scope of the Human Resource Management was limited and there was nothing as Strategic human Resource Management, as strategy was not required. What was important during the pre-industrial revolution and the pre-20th century period was finding the people with necessary qualification to do a particular job. Monopoly existed, competition was unimaginably less, organisation processes were simpler, goals were easier to comprehend and tangible. Therefore the Human Resources Arm either did not exist as a specific department or even if it did exist, it had limited scope and function. Work mainly had to do with a lot of physical exertion and there were very few main stream disciplines like: teaching, des igning, building, carpentry, plumbing, construction, electrical work, research, practising medicine, surgery, law, policing, agriculture, army and civic operations. As a result of the limited scope of work, Human Resource Management had limited things to deal with and was relatively underdeveloped. The real shift came into the picture form the 1900s when the very definition of work and profession started changing. After the industrial revolution, thinkers, entrepreneurs and leaders around the globe identified a tremendous potential for their respective businesses to flourish. The scope for growth given the industrial boom and technological leap was found to be immense. This needed information management. Thus the gradual change in the nature of work, its perception and treatment started. Work changed from the simple paper and pen based design, hand tooling of machines, laborious exercises of packaging, unpacking, in short Assembly Line work to knowledge work. A change in the Human M anagement Strategy followed. Fundamentals were changes. How work is defined and how people fit in to their roles, how organisations create and handle work, how businesses are run with the help of knowledge forever changed the system of the Human Resource Management System. With time HR departments became important entities in organisations, its effectiveness affecting the organisation’s performance, general perception, market value and reputation to a great extent. (Rai, 2012, p. 1) As organisations