Employee voice on human resource management

Abstract

Empirical research on human resource management (HRM) practice has mainly assessed and evaluated the activity from an employer’s perspective. Concern has been expressed about the lack of empirical analysis conducted from the employees’ perspective. This exploratory study begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining the current views that 626 New Zealand employees have about HRM in their organisations. It identified those aspects of HRM that are important to an employee in the employment relationship today, and highlighted a number of shared concerns about practices in their organisations. This study found that, from an employee’s perspective, training and development is becoming an increasingly important issue. Employer investment in this area may have the greatest potential to contribute beneficially to organisational performance.These findings suggest that not all HRM practices are equally beneficial in terms of the outcomes they produce, and practitioners may need to identify and implement those practices that have the most usefulness. The results also provide insights for academics and practitioners to use as they seek to develop new policies and practices that are aimed at maximising the potential of people in the workplace.