Personnel to Human Resource Management

1. "Human Resource Management (HRM) is the function within an organization that focuses on recruitment of, management of, and providing direction for the people who work in the organization."

Source: http://humanresources.about.com/od/glossaryh/f/hr_management.htm
Author: Susan M. Heathfield

The definition given by Ms. Heathfield is brief yet not concise. She failed to elaborate most of the important functions of HRM. Yet this definition clearly gives an overview of the role of HRM and that is to get human resource for the company or organization.


2. "The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices conform to various regulations."

Source: http://www.managementhelp.org/hr_mgmnt/hr_mgmnt.htm
Author:Carter McNamarA

Mr.McNamara gave a brief and concise description of human resource management functions in a company. HRM, as defined by Mr. McNamara is the sector that gets the needed human resource and makes sure that they function as expected.


3. "Human resource management (HRM) is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business.The terms "human resource management" and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. Human Resource management is evolving rapidly. Human resource management is both an academic theory and a business practice that addresses the theoretical and practical techniques of managing a workforce. "

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_resource_management
Author:Armstrong, Michael (2006). A Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice

Amongst all of the definitions I have gathered, I think that the statement above clearly states what human resource is (yet on a more general point of view). Also the confusion between the two terms personnel management and human resource management was enlightened. Here one can derive the idea that HRM/ personnel management is not only a business practice but also an academic theory that is widely used in a community to establish and manage a workforce or human resource.


4. "In any organization, there has to be someone concerned with the welfare and performance of persons who are a part of the operation. When an individual or a team of individuals takes on this task of seeing to programs and setting policies that impact everyone associated with the company, they are engaged in the process of personnel management, sometimes referred to as human resource management."

Source:http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-personnel-management.htm

In the statement above, it was mentioned that the terms human resource and personnel management are the same and thus can be used interchangeably. As defined above, in handling the affairs the needs of a company on its human resource and in facing the needs of the human resource itself it is called as human resource management.

5. "Personnel Management surmounts the aforesaid, with its latest thoughts, emphasizing and envisaging hardly on the feelings and emotions, catering to their needs personally and officially , encouraging the non potential to bridge the gap by training and motivating via the appliance of monetary benefit. It is interesting to note that human resource are the only assets which do not depreciate . "

Source:http://www.articlestree.com/management/personnel-management-to-hrm-maslow-s-theory-tx307537.html
Author: M. Felix C.

In this column written by M. Felix C., he tends to give the idea that personnel management, as mentioned in the other statements before it, that it deals with not only with catering the human resource needs of a company but it also gives importance to giving the needs of the workforce like giving them the benefits and salary they are entitled to receive, and making sure that they are all well and happpy in the environment they are in to produce the expected results for the company.


6. "Personnel management is concerned with the effective use of the skills of people. They may be salespeople in a store, clerks in an office, operators in a factory, or technicians in a research laboratory. In a business, personnel management starts with the recruiting and hiring of qualified people and continues with directing and encouraging their growth as they encounter problems and tensions that arise in working toward established goals."

Source:http://www.zeromillion.com/business/personnel/personnel-mangement.html
Author: Ryan Allis

Lastly, personnel management as explained by Mr. Allis is ensuring that people/ employees are placed in matched with jobs/tasks which they are good at, so as to use their skills to its maximum extent and reach the established goals of the environment they are in.