Dear Ms.Anitha Durai
The term HR has come into use about 20 or 25 years back. Before that the entire personnel function was looked after by the Personnel Department. This included the industrial relations function personnel functions and welfare function also. In course of time the term HR came to be used as the employees were regarded as assets and resources to be nurtured. This department was attending to the personnel, industrial relations, welfare and training and organizational development functions of the Company. The disciplinary action function is a sub-set of the major or main set called human resources development. The object of the disciplinary action is not merely to punish the erring employee but ultimately to find out what is wrong for the errant or deviant behaviour of the employee and try to correct the behaviour. Because, an employee of an organisation is a great asset as the company would have spent money on his recruitment,training etc. He would have gained experience and the loss of an experienced employee is a great loss to the company/organisation. In the area of maintenance of discipline, the HR function would be to properly/correctly advise the line managers in initiating and conducting disciplinary proceedings accprding to the law in force and also if need be advising them on the quantum of punishment. This is because all misconducts cannot be met with the punishment of dismissal, but at the same time the employees should know that the management will not compromise on discipline.