Banfield & Kay: An Introduction to Human

Resource Management

Chapter 1: The Management of

Human Resources
 Managing people in the twenty-first century

• Learning from the past is important in understanding the problems

for management today and in future

• Ever-growing knowledge base - but many managers find the

challenges in managing people difficult and frustrating
• Why?
- Rapidly changing environments
- Contradictions inherent in employing and managing people

• How do we manage people? – no easy answers!

• But, some managers seem to find it easier and are better at it –

therefore there must be something to learn
• Why variations in competence between managers?
- possession of inherent traits and abilities?
- result of reflection on personal experience as managers?
- sensitivity to the impact of their behaviour on others?
Managing people in the twenty-first century

So is people management a capability, or something in between?

It is not just about individual managers.

But also how organisations create a particular environment within

which both managers and employees work.

• What makes an organisation ‘better to work for’?

• Should managers learn from the past?

• Or is the nature of managing people changing too rapidly?
• In that case our knowledge quickly becomes redundant
• Need new answers and knowledge – or to make the best out of
what we already know
 Connecting the past to the present
• The past does not provide answers to problems today
• But it offers insights and reference points
• Think about the building of Pyramids
• Or, more recently, the construction of Britain’s rail roads and canals
- Where did the workers come from?
- Who determined what and how they were paid?
- How did they learn their skills?
- E.t.c.
• We can see that the challenges are not different from ones modern
managers face
• But economic, political and social conditions change
• Managing is a more complicated and problematic task
• Subject to more constraints and pressures
 Connecting the past to the present
Managers today have to ensure that:
• Interests and objectives of the organisation are met
• Legitimate interests and needs of employees are understood and met as far
as possible
• Are these 2 challenges equally important?
‘. . . the relationship between these is clear: if I don’t ensure that the company
remains competitive and survives, then my employees’ interests don’t matter—
there won’t be any employees, or managers for that matter, to worry about’.
(William Beckett, head of a Sheffield plastics manufacturing company)

• How can companies successfully combine these 2 challenges?

• Increased prominence and importance of ‘people dimension’ of

management in recent years
 Today’s challenges

• The rise of self employment and the independent worker

• Changes in the external regulation of employment
• The emergence of new ideas and ways of managing
associated with inward investment and ‘new knowledge’
• The challenge to, and replacement of, physical power
and manual skills by the power of knowledge, creativity
and intellectual capital
• A diversified labour force
 Fundamental management objectives

• Ensuring that the supply of labour is in line with demand

• Utilization
• Maintenance and development
• Order and control
• Generating commitment

Consider that these objectives are not wholly

compatible with each other!
 Employee objectives of being managed

What are employees looking for?

• To be treated as a human being: to be known and to be
part of something
• To be valued as an employee
• To be allowed to work in a secure and safe working
environment
• To be allowed to grow and develop as an employee
• To be paid and rewarded fairly
 The relationship between managerial
and employee objectives
Consider the following scenarios…
• The two sets of objectives are incompatible and mutually
exclusive.
• There is a considerable degree of overlap between the two sets
of objectives – opportunities for accommodation and compromise.
• Organizations can deliver both sets of objectives to the respective
parties – but not on a permanent basis and not in all
circumstances.
Managers and employees ‘working together’ is a normal and
preferred state for most stakeholders – not ‘working against
each other’.
 Deconstructing human resource
management

• We need to look carefully at the component parts of

human resource management

• We will consider each element separately

• So, what does “human resource management” actually

mean?
 Employees as human beings
• Assumptions about people
• Theory X and Y – 2 different views on
behaviour at work (McGregor)
• Emphasis on human side of work linked to
Human Relations movement
• Importance of social and psychological
dimensions of employee behaviour –
Hawthorne studies; Mayo
• Ouchi’s Theory Z
 People, pain and toxicity

• Frost – study of the emotional dimension of

work
• Concepts of organisational toxins and
emotional pain
• Their consequence – stress – can be
dysfunctional and damaging
 People as a resource
• People are seen as employees or workers, not
employees seen as people – economic and business
perspective
• People as a commodity?

• Current trend towards outsourcing

• Are some people more important than others?

• Value of our contribution as employees differs

• Human Resource Accounting

 People as assets
• Mayo – employees are intangible assets
• Consequences of organisations not valuing
their ‘human assets’
• ‘Expense model’ of HR accounting (Fitz-Enz;
Mayo)
• The paradox – employees are both:
• People
• Economic resources
 Management
Management – is it about:
• clarifying objectives;
• planning and organizing;
• directing and controlling?

• Functional and rational approach – Fayol, Taylor, Ford;

scientific management
• Modern approach - Cloke and Goldsmith:
• ‘managers are dinosaurs’;
• decline of hierarchy and bureaucracy,
• expansion
• of collaborative self-management and organizational democracy

• Findings of the Tomorrow Project (Moynagh and Worsley)

 A philosophy of management
• Is the existence of a coherent and sustained philosophy of management
correlated with effective and successful organizations?’
• What explains the success of certain organizations while not of others?

• O’Reilly and Pfeffer (2000) - importance of philosophy and the

assumptions managers make about people
• Collins - interested in the underlying reasons for sustained success
• Watson - success not only in the power of the organisations’ beliefs, but
also in the appeal of these beliefs to employees
• Buckingham and Elliott – philosophy of successful personnel
management is…

‘strongly rooted in clear perceptions about, and a real commitment

to, the value of good employees and of their contribution to the
company’.
 Summary
• Any area of HR needs to be carried out in ways that reflect the
interests of the organization and those of the people who
constitute its ‘human resources’.
• External forces influence the degree to which management can
act on this, but these forces do not determine how people are
managed.
• There are choices to be made about how people are managed.
• Getting the balance right, in the context of each organization’s
circumstances is a fundamental and enduring challenge that not
all managers seem capable of meeting.