Difference between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management

 


Figure 1: HRM & PM; Source: MBA Knowledge Base (2021)


The fact that both human resource management and personnel management focus on hiring the best candidates for open positions while taking organizational objectives into account is a key area of overlap. Additionally, both strategies employ the same processes for hiring and selecting employees as well as paying them and managing their performance. Human resource management takes a more strategic approach, predicting the demands of the organization and constantly monitoring and optimizing all systems. Personnel management is concerned with maintaining all administrative and personnel systems.

When human resource management (HRM) was less common in earlier centuries, personnel management was responsible for handling employee staffing and payroll (PM). Popularly, it is referred to as traditional personnel management. A development above traditional personnel management is human resource management (Sampras, 2019).


What is Personnel Management?

Simply said, managing human connections inside an organization is the responsibility of personnel management, labour management, or staff management.

“Academically, the three aspects of Personnel Management are- (i) the welfare aspect concerned with working conditions and amenities such as canteens, creches, housing, personal problems of workers, schools, and recreation; (ii) the labour or personnel aspect concerned with recruitment, placement of employees, remuneration, promotion, incentives, productivity, etc. (iii) the industrial relations aspects concerned with trade union negotiation, settlement of industrial disputes, joint consultation and collective bargaining. All these aspects are concerned with the human element in the industry as distinct from the mechanical (The National Institute of Personnel Management, n.d.).


Figure 2: Function of personnel management; Source: Analysis Project


What is Human Resource Management?

Human resource management (HRM) is the process of hiring individuals, providing them with the necessary training and compensation, creating policies pertaining to them, and creating retention plans. Over the past 20 years, HRM has undergone a great deal of development as a field, making it even more crucial in today's enterprises. HRM used to be more of an administrative function than a strategic one that was essential to the organization's performance. It involved processing payroll, sending birthday gifts to employees, planning company outings, and ensuring certain forms were accurately filled out. The former General Electric CEO and management guru Jack Welch summarize the new function of HRM: “Get out of the parties and birthdays and enrollment forms.… Remember, HR is important in good times, HR is defined in hard times” (Frasch, et. al., 2010), (OpenLibrary, n.d.).


Figure 3: HRM Model; Source: HigherStudy.org


Conclusion

An improvement over personnel management developed by human resource management has all but eliminated the latter's flaws. It is very important in this era of fierce competition when every firm must prioritize its workforce and its requirements. Currently, it is quite difficult to keep good employees around for an extended period of time because they are completely conscious of their rights and any company cannot manage them like machines. Therefore, HRM has developed to bring together the organization and its employees in order to achieve a common goal.


Reference

OpenLibrary, n.d. Open Library. [Online]
Available at: https://ecampusontario.pressbooks.pub/busi1600/chapter/human-resources/#:~:text=Human%20resource%20management%20(HRM)%20is,important%20role%20in%20today's%20organizations.
[Accessed 3 12 2022].

Sampras, A., 2019. HRM Exam. [Online]
Available at: https://www.hrmexam.com/2019/05/17/difference-between-personnel-management-and-human-resource-management/
[Accessed 3 12 2022].

The National Institute of Personnel Management, n.d. Economics Discussion. [Online]
Available at: https://www.economicsdiscussion.net/personnel-management/personnel-management/31803
[Accessed 3 12 2022].



Comments

  1. What are the fundamental distinctions between human resource management and personnel management,Payroll, observing employment laws, and other administrative duties fall within the purview of personnel management. On the other side, HR is in charge of managing the workforce, which is one of the key resources that contributes to an organization's success.

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  2. Hi Rifky,

    Great article! It's really helpful to understand the key differences between Personnel Management and Human Resource Management. It's clear that HRM is a much more comprehensive approach that encompasses the entire employee cycle, while Personnel Management is more focused on administrative tasks such as hiring and payroll. Thanks for sharing!

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  3. While human resource management takes a more strategic approach and forecasts the needs of the organization while continuously monitoring and changing all systems, personnel management focuses on maintaining all administrative and personnel systems.

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  4. Good to have more comparison between two titles. Better its in table format.

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  5. Personnel management focuses on the maintenance of all personnel and administrative systems, whereas human resource management has a more strategic approach. A good read

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