Clase digital 5. Recursos humanos (human resources)

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Recursos humanos (human resources)

1. Fundamentación del tema

This topic is part of the Business Communication Learning Unit (UDA, for its acronym in Spanish). First of all, economic entities use different resources (which can be economic, financial, technical, human, and so on) to accomplish their activities. Each of them has an importance in relation to the object or the composition of the entity. Hence the relevance of this issue, since human resources are fundamental in an economic entity. Likewise, you must know the basics of human resources management as an accountant, because some functions performed in this area may either be assigned to you or should be covered at the time of your professional practice.

Both the globalized context of economic activities in Mexico and the foreign entities that carry out activities in national territory, as well as the possibility of practicing the profession outside Mexico, or even the mere contact with foreign people when practicing our profession, are enough reasons for you to know the different areas and terms in another language, in this case English.

2. Objetivo didáctico

Learn in English the terms and topics relevant to human resources management, in order to be able to perform any function related to this area when working as an accountant.

3. Contenido didáctico

Introducción

Welcome back, dear student! In this lesson, we will show you the basic terms and functions of human resource management (HRM for short). With this topic you will have enough knowledge to understand how this area works, so you will be able to perform one of its functions as an accountant.

In order to achieve the previous point, we will show you the concept of HRM, a little bit of its history, as well as its role over time. You will read about HRM models, its corresponding functions, and how it all works.

Let’s get down to work! 

Desarrollo del tema

1. What is human resource management?

Every organization, regardless of its size, uses a variety of resources to develop its economic activities. They can be cash, valuables, technology, goods, or human resources. We are going to focus on this last type of resource in this lesson, since it is about the generation of revenue through the use of people’s skills and abilities.

But first we need to understand the meaning of HRM. So, how do we define it? These are some definitions:

  • Planning, organizing, directing, controlling of procurement, development, compensation, integration, maintenance, and separation of human resources to the end that individual, organizational and social objectives are achieved (Flippo, 1976).
  • HRM is the people component of manage­ment. HR helps line managers with staffing (getting people) training and development (preparing people) motivation (stimulating them to put forth their greatest efforts); and maintenance (keeping good employees)

(Robbins, DeCenzo and Coulter, 2009).

The definition of HRM depends on the author’s point of view, but its core meaning deals with how to manage people or employees in the organization.

2. HRM Importance

Along with the definition of HRM, we need to consider its importance in various scopes:

2.1 Importance concerned with individual organization

HRM can help the organization in accomplish its mission and goals effectively in the following ways:

  • Strategy and Planning: In charge of identifying the current and future needs to achieve the organizational goals and mission.
  • Compliance: In charge of doing what is needed according to the federal, state and local government.
  • Performance management: Linking the organizational goals and mission with the goals of the employees about their work.
  • Safety and health: In charge of ensuring the health and welfare of people at work.
  • Employee and Labor Relations: Handling the relationship between the employee and the organization and with each other.
2.2 Professional importance:

Professional competency can be achieved with: 

  • Talent Management: Integrating processes to attract, motivate and retain the employees. 
  • Training and development: Handling the well-being and performance of the employees through information they will use.
  • Safety and health: In charge of ensuring the health and welfare of people at work.
2.3 Social Importance 

HRM is important from a social perspective also. It includes the following aspects: 

a) Human resource management enhances the dignity of labour. 
b) Provides suitable jobs to suitable people and it will help to satisfy the psychological and social satisfaction of employees.
c) Helps to provide reasonable compensation to workers, which leads them to have a good standard of living.
d) Helps to maintain a balance between jobs and job seekers in terms of numbers, qualification, aptitude etc.
e) Takes health and safety measures which ensure physical and mental health of the employees. 

University of Calicut (2014)

2.4 National Importance

Effective management of human resources helps the economic growth of a nation, decreases unemployment, provides better standards of living for the labor force.

After we have seen some definitions of HRM, we are going to show you a brief historical review. The objective is that you get familiar with it.

3. Evolution of human resource management

The eighties and nineties were tough times for businesses to adapt to the increase of globalized markets. The competitors of a good or service were not only in the country where they were from, but they could also be worldwide, as nowadays. American companies struggled with this because they could not compete with the prices and quality of some goods from the far east, Japan for example. This led to an analysis of the differences between their companies.

It appeared Japanese management practices focused on excellence and continual improvement, the provision of an element of autonomy and influence on decisions for employees, the creation of a culture within the organization of shared commitment to the success of the organization, and so on, all served to ensure that each individual’s potential to contribute as fully as possible to organizational success was realized. This, the argument ran, was what gave Japanese organizations a competitive advantage over their Western counterparts.

(Keenan, 2015).

As we saw, the contributions of employees and their search for their development makes the companies more competitive. This caused perceiving human resources not only in the operational way of reducing workers to some kind of machines, rather than an asset or an investment, rather than seeing them as humans.

This is just a brief comment on the evolution of HRM, but if you want to know more about it, you can access the link below to see a  short video about it: 

4. Evolution of HRM professionals role at companies

Before we read about its evolution, we will briefly explain the different roles that a HRM professional can have at a company:

  • Strategic: Links human resources work with the goals and mission of the company.
  • Operational: Performs HR functional activities and serves the employees.
  • Administrative: Recordkeeping, administration processing, and compliance efforts.

Over the years, the activities of the HRM professionals have been changing. They were more administrative in the past, for example in charge of payrolls and recruitment. Nowadays, the activities focus on being more strategic and less administrative.

Image source: Gregg Learning (2018)

If you are interested in how this role has changed, watch the next video:

5. Human Resource Management Model-Functions

An HRM model provides an analytic framework that establishes relationships among the HR key practices. There are plenty of models out there, we are going to show one of them and invite you to keep doing more research.

The model that is going to be shown is the pinwheel model, that establishes the HRM in 8 key practices:

  • Strategy and Planning: In charge of identifying the current and future needs to achieve the organizational goals and mission.
  • Compliance: In charge of doing what is needed according to the federal, state and local government.
  • Talent Management: Integrating processes to attract, motive and retain the employees. 
  • Training and development: Handling the well-being and performance of the employees through information they will use.
  • Performance management: Linking the organizational goals and mission with the ones goals of the employees about their work.
  • Total Rewards: “Financial and non-financial tools used to attract, motivate and retain employees” (Gregg Learning, 2017).
  • Safety and health: In charge of ensuring the health and welfare of people at work.
  • Employee and Labor Relations: Handling the relationship between the employee and the organization and with each other.
Image source: Gregg Learning (2017)

We have read about the functions that constitute the pinwheel model and what they are in charge of. Now, let’s talk about common activities for each area:

Image Source: Gregg Learning (2017) 

We have just explained a little bit of a HRM model, but there are plenty of them. We invite you to keep learning about them. If you are interested, you can watch the next videos to learn more about other HRM models:

6. Vocabulary

After we have seen the definition of HRM, its importance and history, as well as how the HRM roles and models have evolved, this and the following section will focus on you as an English learner. We invite you to see the following videos to familiarize yourself with the vocabulary. This will help you if you perform any HRM function, or even if you are a worker at a company.

Please click the links below:

7. Job Interview

The last thing we want to show you are some tips about a job interview in English. This will help if you perform as the interviewer (a function of HRM), but even more if you are the one who is getting interviewed. You can access the next presentation to learn more about it: 

Tema 5. Human Resources. Job interview. enlazar tema 5 ppt.

Resumen e ideas relevantes

It is important that you keep in mind:

  • HRM refers to the policies, practices, and systems that influence employees’ behavior, attitudes, and performance.
  • HRM is important at an individual, organizational, professional, social and national levels.
  • HRM has three different roles: strategic, operational and administrative. Nowadays it is focused on the strategic role.
  • The “HRM Model” refers to the functions and to how HRM works in an organization. There are plenty of them, but some common functions are:
    • Strategy and Planning: In charge of identifying the current and future needs to achieve the organizational goals and mission.
    • Compliance: In charge of doing what is needed according to the federal, state and local government.
    • Talent Management: Integrating processes to attract, motive and retain the employees. 
    • Training and development: Handling the well-being and performance of the employees through information they will use.
    • Performance management: Linking the organizational goals and mission with the ones goals of the employees about their work.
    • Total Rewards: “Financial and non-financial tools used to attract, motivate and retain employees” (Gregg Learning, 2017).
    • Safety and health: In charge of ensuring the health and welfare of people at work.
    • Employee and Labor Relations: Handling the relationship between the employee and the organization, and with each other.

Fuentes de consulta