Dear Samvedan, Aby, Naina and Archna and all other friends who are watching this topic,
I was really happy to see the arguments in support of the view that HR Manager is managing the human resource.
But, my happiness drained quickly when I read the articles on 'Meaning of Human Resource' and 'Role of HR department in organizations' in the Related Articles Section that appeared in CiteHR in this posting.
I am requesting all of you to please read these articles. (I am also attaching the articles for your ready reference with some key words highlighted.)
Some of the statements in the articles that are so disheartening and against your views are -
Personnel management is a responsibility of all those who manage people
Personnel management is a responsibility of all line managers in an organization, viz., general manager, production manager, marketing manager, finance manager, etc.,
Thus, all managers in the organization are vitally concerned with personnel management as they must achieve organizational goals through other people’s efforts.
The personnel department is responsible for advising management from Managing Director to the lowest line supervisor on all area relating to the personnel management and industrial relations.
Personnel department generally acts in an advisory capacity; it provides information, offers suggestions and is not responsible for the end results.
PM executives exercise the monitoring and control function sparingly.
Friends, now please tell me whether I should stick to the view that HR Manager is not managing the Human Resource.
Again, are we all labouring under the impression that the HR manager is managing all the employees including other heads, the GM, the VP, and so on? Why did you leave the CEO out?
Again, let me tell you that the HR manager is handling people related issues and aspects of the organization. In the process, he cannot assume that he is handling a bigger role such as managing the human resource.
To give an example, if you have a Health department as a part of your company meant for helping employees to manage/maintain their health, then health being people related issue, the Health dept is helping for health maintenance. They are managing one aspect related to the people, that is, the human resource. They cannot assume that they are managing the human resurce, just because they are managing one aspect of people management.
Similarly, the HR dept. is handling certain people related issues of the organization. It does not mean HR dept. is managing the human resource.
HR manager is an internal consultant giving advice to the line managers.
HR manager is a specialist in handling people related issues - these could be people's performance problems, discipline issues, union issues etc. He is like a Doctor of Medicine sitting inside the company checking the people issues and giving prescriptions for solving those issues. But, he is not managing the people by doing this.
Just because the GM, VP, and other managers come to him (how many of them would like to come to him unless they are expected by the organization's norms and the CEO's direction is yet another question), if the HR manager thinks he is managing all of them, then he needs some psychiatric treatment, as someone said recently to me. :roll:
What is your view, please?
Jeevan