The needs and desires of the employers and also of the employees have been rapidly changing over the decades and for various practical reasons the human resources have become the most important of all the resources used in industries and utilities of all types. In the light of this background, HRM’s objectives have been expanding all these decades. Let’s examine some of them as under:
1. Helping the organization reach its goals: HRM, like any other areas of management in an organization, exists to achieve the goals of the organization first and if it does not meet his purpose, HR department (or for that matter any other unit) will wither and die.
2. Developing and maintaining a quality of work life: It makes employment in the organization a desirable personal and social situation. Without improvement in the quality of work life, it is difficult to improve organizational performance.
3. Effective utilization human resources: The primary purpose of HRM is to make people’s strengths productive and to benefit customers, stockholders and employees.
4. Providing the organization with well-trained and well-motivated employees: HRM requires that employees be motivated to exert their maximum efforts, that their performance be evaluated properly for results and that they be rewarded on the basis of their contributions to the organization.
5. Increasing to the fullest the employee’s job satisfaction and self-actualization: It tries to prompt and stimulate every employee to realize his potential. To this end suitable programmes have to be designed aimed at improving the quality of work life (QWL).
6. Communicating HR policies to all employees: It is the responsibility of HRM to communicate in the fullest possible sense both in tapping ideas, opinions and feelings of customers, non-customers, regulators and other external public as well as in understanding the views of internal human resources.
7. To help maintain ethical policies and behavior: This is important to be ensured by the employers and the employed both. HRM helps to maintain it. The Chief of HR department in a large American Corporation put it thus: HRM’s purpose is to practice morality in management in preparing people for change, dealing with dissent and conflict, holding high standards of productivity, building acceptance of standards that determine progression and adhering to the spirit and letter of high professional conduct.
The above mentioned objectives should ultimately lead to employee satisfaction and fulfillment. This is however easier said than done. Unless HR people are thoroughly conversant with the social, legal and economic trends in the economy, managing people in today’s world of work would always prove to be a ticklish affair.
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