How Does Human Resources Management Change The Personnel Function?

Abstract

The concept of human resources could be a significant development for the personnel function, with a change of emphasis with implications as far reaching as the evolution of sales into marketing or of works management into operations management. On the other hand, it could be a simple novelty with only minor ramifications. What seems quite clear at the moment is that there is little consensus about what human resources management (HRM) actually is among either practitioners or academics. A shift in emphasis within and around the personnel function of organisations is clear, with personnel management tending to decline and for human resources management to increase, but this is often no more than changes of labels, and few people have a clear view of what they are doing and of the way in which their situation is changing(p. 178). In the academic world, we now see university chairs in human resources management being established, although no British university ever had a chair in personnel management.