Functions and operations of a personnel office

An organization is formed for the fulfillment of certain objectives like earning a desired rate of profit on investment, exploitation of certain natural resources, development of a given geographical area, and supplying to the public some essential goods or services. Machines, materials, money and all other non-human resources are the tools and aids that man uses to achieve his tasks. Thus, a proper selection of men is very much important for management of an organization. For example, Blinds Company who are sending their personnel for installation of roller shades and woven wood shades, need to be a proper person with technical knowledge as well as as individual too. 

 

However this is the most difficult of all the management tasks in an organization. Some people also say that ‘management’ means ‘managing managing men tactfully’. One often comes into contact with the personnel department of one’s office, for example, for selection, placement, training, discipline, grievance handling, wage administration, dismissal, etc. However, there are certain aspects of the work of a personnel department which may not be very obvious. When a company is doing term life insurance business online or when they have paperless officer, personal management may not be very obvious.

 

CHARACTERISTICS OF PERSONNEL MANAGEMENTPersonnel Management is known by various names. These are Personnel Administration, Labor Management, Industrial Relations, Employee Relations, Manpower Management, etc. The manager who performs this function is also, likewise, called by various names, like Personnel Manager, Employee Relations Manager, Industrial Relations Manager, Labour Relations Manager, Labour Officer, Labour Welfare Officer, Welfare Officer, Personnel Officer, Employee Relations Officer, and Industrial Relations Officer.

Formal Structure and Human Resource Systems

Organizations operate in an ever changing environment. Hence there is need for changing assumptions about organization structures also. Modern organizations involving high technology and educated workforce require relatively flat and not pyramidical structures. There is need for evolving new approaches and strategies in manpower and career planning systems and building them into organization planning. This is a major challenge and opportunity for personnel in the changing organizational context. Even online business companies dealing with blinds, roller shades, woven wood shades needs to have human resources systems.

 

Human Resource Systems

People are recruited and developed to do jobs defined by the organization’s formal structure; their performance must be monitored and rewards allocated to maintain productivity.

 

An analysis of the human resource system of large companies should yield information about what assumptions the designers of those systems hold about people. Are they people of McGregor’s Theory X type or Maslow’s self-motivators seeking self-actualization? There may be problems in articulating an individual manager’s beliefs, but one can deduce the real beliefs from the control systems they use. And since they are usually designed on an ad hoc piece-meal basis, one can find many incongruities and incompatibilities. For term life insurance agency also need to have human resource systems to manage their life insurance agents. If and organization has got systems to punish but not to reward people, the former too become defunct over a period of time because a manager who does not have the power to reward forfeits his right to punish, at least in course of time.

Formal Structure

People and tasks are organized to implement the organization’s strategy. The organization’s formal structure includes its systems of financial and operating control systems. The number of levels between the operator at the lowest rung and the chief executive at the highest rung in the hierarchy has increased from 5 to 15 in the last fifteen years or so. We have more people at the middle level to supervise and get work done than those who do the work. Mangers by themselves do not produce. Promotion policies designed to make individual aspirations are causing more problems in achieving organizational purposes.

 

Organizations need three levels: operating, managerial and strategic. At the operational level, the day-to-day management of the organization is carried out. The managerial level focuses on the processes by which the organization obtains and allocates the resources needed to carry out its strategy and objectives. The strategic level deals with policy formulation and overall goal setting; its objective is to position the organization in the best possible way to deal effectively with its environment. The three levels do not operate in a top-down system, but provide feedback loops for upward communication.

 

As mentioned above, in most Indian organizations the levels of managerial activity have been increased largely to accommodate the aspirations for promotions that individual employees have. In the process, employees are promoted, jobs are downgraded and responsibility is blurred.