Part1. Chpt 1.Foundations of Human Resources Mngt[1]

PART ONE

FOUNDATIONSOF

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Chapter 01: Evolution of Human Resources Management...........…. 2

Chapter 02: The Environment of Organisations..............................…. 49

Chapter 03: Organisational Issues of Human Resources Management 76

1

Chapter 01: Evolution of Human Resources Management 2

CHAPTER ONE

EVOLUTION OF HUMAN RESOURCESMANAGEMENT

1.00 Chapter Outline……………………………………….. 2

1.01 Learning Objectives.......................................................... 31.02 Introduction...................................................................... 41.03 Definition of Human Resources Management.................. 41.04 Human Resources or Personnel Management?................. 51.05 Development of Human Resources Management.............. 71.06 The Human Resources Management Profession?............ 111.7 The Status of HRM in Tanzania………………………… 151.8 Training and Career in Human Resources Management.. 171.09 Functions of Human Resources Management.................. 201.10 Functions of the Human Resources Manager................... 251.11 Organising the Human Resources Function..................... 271.12 Who Performs HR Functions?………………………….. 321.13 Place and Role of the Human Resources Department...... 321.14 Objectives of Human Resources Management................. 331.15 Challenges for HR Managers……………………………. 351.16 HRM in Future………………………………………….. 381.17 HRM in Practice………………………………………... 401.18 Progress Questions........................................................... 431.19 Notes and References....................................................... 45


1.01 Learning Objectives

After studying this chapter, you will be able to:

(1) Define human resources management.

(2) Differentiate human resources management from personnel management.

(3) Trace stages in the development of the field of human resources management.

(4) Scientifically defend the professionalism of the field of the human resources management occupation in your country.

(5) Discuss the design and operational tendencies which lead people to underrate the professionalism of human resources management practitioners in work organisations.

(6) Outline the core functions of human resources management.

(7) Explain the role of the human resources management function vis-à-vis other managerial functions in the work organisation.

(8) List the functions which a human resources manager performs in the work organisation.

(9) Discuss the alternative ways in which the human resources management function can be organised in an organisation.

(10)Discuss the major objectives of human resources management in the management of a work organisation.

(11)Discuss the major challenges which HRM pauses to the management of work organisations.


1.02 Introduction

Human resources management or HRM as it is commonly abbreviated, is concerned with the activities which are intended to facilitate the effective utilisation of people in the performance of organisations. The human resources of an organisation are not only its most important resources, they represent one of its largest investments. For example, the US government reports show that approximately 73% of the US national income is used to compensate employees in various organisations.1 But although developing countries do not maintain such statistics, the picture is more or less similar.

Not many work organisations recognise the real investment they make annually in their human resources mainly because, the accounting profession continues to offer excuses for not evolving an elaborate accounting system of recording and reporting the value status of human resources in the accounting system of work organisations. None-the-less, it remains a reality that every work organisation makes substantial investments in its human resources in terms of recruitment, training and development, compensation, motivation, and health and security. You will remember that the organisation's human resources keep on appreciating and depreciating. We maintain, that any time now the accounting professionals ought to work hard and come up with approaches of taking care of the accounting for the most important resource to organisational performance.

Human resources management is a modern terminology for what traditionally used to be known as personnel management or personnel administration. We will differentiate personnel management from human resources management shortly, but for purposes of this book, we will use the term human resources management only. In this chapter, we will explore the development of human resources management, discuss the professionalism of the human resources management occupation, outline the functions of human resources management, discuss the place and role of human resources management in the performance of work organisations, and present the main objectives of this profession in work organisations today.

1.03 Definition of Human Resources Management

Human resources management can be defined as a managerial philosophy, policies, procedures, and practices related to the effective management of people for purposes of facilitating the achievement of results within an organisation.2 It can also be defined as the set of management activities intended to influence the effective utilisation of human resources in the performance of organisations.3

As an illustration, the Zambia Institute of Personnel Management defines the profession as:

“That part of management which is concerned with continual adoption of an organisation structure appropriate to the objectives of the enterprise, ensuring the availability of an adequate and suitable manpower, resources, affording employees the opportunity for development, and creating an environment in which they can


participate in the efficient running of the enterprise, convinced that they have a stake in that enterprise.4

You will note from the above three definitions that the main purpose of human resources management is to ensure that people contribute their best towards their organisation's performance. Please note also the emphasis on managing people appropriately, which is not only essential to organisational effectiveness, but also accords human resources management a scientific status and distinct branch of management. The distinction between human resources management and personnel management in section 1.04 below, will enhance our understanding of the concept of human resources management.

1.04 Human Resources or Personnel Management?

Very often people ask, "What is the difference between human resources management and personnel management? Text books in this field also are equally confusingly titled: Personnel Management5, Personnel Management and Human Resources6, instead of being nicely titled, "Human Resources Management" which is not only the modern name for this field of management, but which adequately represents the contents in these books. Are these similar names of the subject and therefore interchangeable terms? We wish to answer these two questions in this section.

Traditionally the functions of managing people in work organisations used to be known as personnel management and involved largely three basic management functions namely: recruitment, training, and compensation. These functions were performed basically as clerical functions without much regard for their functional interrelationships with other managerial functions or even their contribution towards the achievement of organisational objectives.7 In this way, personnel management was not regarded a strategic management function. The author's consulting experience in Tanzania between 1985 and 1995 revealed that in many Asian-owned business organisations, personnel managers were managers in name only. They were just utilised as important clerks and were not meaningfully involved in their organisations' management decision making.8

In contrast, the functions of managing people in work organisations are nowadays known as human resources management. Human resources management differs from personnel management in the following major respects:

(1) HRM is a modern name of the occupation of managing people in places of work; personnel management is an outdated name of the occupation. In the literature, the profession of personnel management dates back to 1912, when the first professional personnel association, the Boston Manager’s Association was founded in USA. Human resources management as a distinct profession dates back in 1946 in USA, Germany, and South Africa.


(2) Human resources management encompasses many more functions of managing people than did personnel management. It encompasses seven core functions, namely: planning, recruiting (which will encompass interviewing, selection, and placement), training and development, performance evaluation, compensation, safety and health, and labour relations. It includes also the non-core functions of career planning and development, motivation, communication, disciplining, and human resources research, accounting, and auditing.

(3) Human resources management is organised as a strategic management function, at par with such functions as procurement, production, marketing, and finance due to the pivotal place and role of human resources in the performance processes of the organisation.

The human resources department is an autonomous department with component horizontal sections and hierarchical echelons with its head reporting to the chief executive officer like the heads of other key departments. The human resources department is a co-ordinating, consulting, and controlling expert department serving other departmental managers and all employees in all matters involving the effective deployment of human resources in the organisation.

In contrast, under personnel management, the personnel functions are organised as simple clerical functions subordinated to a department such as accounting, office management, or company secretary, and thus with limited autonomy and influence in the management of people to effectively contribute to the performance of the organisation.

(4) Human resources management as practised in work organisations today, is consistent with the systems idea.9 The systems approach of looking at the practice of human resources functions recognises the dynamic interaction among the human resources management functions on the one hand, and on the other hand, the dynamic interaction of human resources management functions with the other management functions in the performance processes of the organisation. As a consequence, human resources management functions are increasingly being directed towards providing greater support to the achievement of the organisation's objectives.10

Also in the same vein, the human resources body of knowledge can conveniently be perceived as a system within the business administration supra system. The human resources system is divisible into distinct and coherent areas of study, i.e. subsystems that obey the principles of the systems thinking.11

(5) Human resources management is not simple and straightforward; it is a complex field. It requires a rich understanding of the field of organisational behaviour and the skills to utilise it in order to get the organisation's human resources to work towards desired standards of organisational performance. It requires a good knowledge of organisational and environmental diagnosis as a basis understanding the relationships among people’s roles and for making correct and consistent decisions about people in a dynamic work environment.


(6) As a strategic management function, human resources management is proactive, while personnel management is reactive.

1.05 Development of Human Resources Management

Human resources management is not new in any society. However, no one society in the world can claim the right to be its sole originator, just as no society can deny knowledge about it. The fact that in developing countries there are many books on human resources management written by authors in the developed countries, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom should not be misconstrued as suggesting these countries to be the origin of the human resources management profession. It is rather an indication that people in these parts of the world are more motivated and have better facilities to write on human resources management than we, in developing countries, do.

Human resources management is as old as the human race. It may correctly be traced to the creation of mankind. When God contemplated the decision to create man in His own image, in order to “let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”, He was in fact planning for manpower and its duties, which today, we call human resources planning and job design.12 When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, He was in fact, staffing the world.13 And when God said to Adam “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the known edge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die”, God was issuing instructions and setting His expectations on the behaviour of Adam and Eve. This is what modern managers do with new members of a work organisation.14 Finally, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit, God moved in to discipline the couple by saying:

Because you …have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying ‘You shall not eat of it’: Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return. Therefore the LORD God sent him out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken.15

Also, in all ancient societies, some human resources management functions were known to be performed whenever people came together for a common purpose such as a clan meeting, a marriage ceremony, and a funeral in African societies. Such functions as the forecasting of the number and type of participants, designing the role of each participant, assigning of responsibilities for performing the relevant activities, rewarding the performers, supervision of performance processes, maintenance of discipline and the right interpersonal relations during the


events are by definition, human resources management activities of today. These activities were of course performed informally in those times. It is possible to assemble these experiences into coherent scientific bodies of learnable knowledge, relevant to our social environments.

During the course of this century, however, the process of managing people in work organisations has become formalised, specialised, and complex. As a result, an organised body of knowledge concerning the processes of managing people has been accumulated and documented by academicians and management practitioners. Let us in the following section discuss the global historical stages through which the field of human resources management evolved.

(1) The Guild System16

In the Middle Ages the guild system provided the beginning of initiatives to organise the training of apprentices and the employment of workers who possessed some skills. Craftsmen were able to organise and exercise control over their respective trades through their guilds.

People sharing the same skills such as masons, carpenters, and ironsmiths, set up small business organisations either as individuals or in co-operation. Production usually took place in small workshops in homes, by using primitive tools and simple methods of production. Very few products could be produced at a time and they were expensive due to high unit costs. Such production processes were able to create very few jobs for society. The guilds were the parents of today's advanced work organisations.

(2) The Factory System

During the nineteenth century, the discovery of mechanical power facilitated the development of the factory system of production. The invention of power-driven equipment and improved methods of production enabled products to be manufactured in greater quantities, and therefore more cheaply than in the small homes of the guild system. This process created many jobs, though the jobs were monotonous, unmeaningful, and hazardous as they were performed in unhealthy working environments.

The concentration of employees in factories helped to call public attention upon their poor employment conditions. It also helped employees to organise themselves into pressure groups and act collectively to demand better working conditions. As a result, in some western countries, governments passed laws to regulate such aspects as hours of work, minimum wages, and employee safety. These efforts paved way for the provision of indemnity payments for injuries sustained in industrial accidents. The employees’ demands for improved working conditions coupled with the enabling legal environment led to intensified efforts of organising labour and collective bargaining.

(3) The Mass Production System


The development of the factory system facilitated the designing of standard change parts that could be used in assembly-line production. The development of standard change parts, labour saving machines and equipment, together with improvements in production techniques made it possible for products to be mass-produced. The increase in scales of production however, resulted into increased overhead costs and higher wage bills which forced work organisations to start looking for ways of making a more efficient utilisation of their production facilities and human resources. To these efforts, various movements, research studies, and scientific fields made valuable contributions. The most notable of these are discussed below:

(a) Scientific Management

The method of scientific management, which involved an objective and systematic approach of improving worker efficiency basing upon the collection and analysis of data, evolved from the work of Frederick W. Taylor and his contemporaries i.e. Henry Gantt, Harry Kopf, Frank Gilbreth, Lillian Gilbreth and Harrington Emerson.17 Taylor believed that work could be systematically studied and analysed by using the same scientific methods and procedures used by researchers in a laboratory. In Taylor's own words, scientific management constituted a "substitution of exact scientific investigation and knowledge for the old individual judgement or opinion, either of the workman or the boss, in all matters relating to the work done in the establishment."18

Taylor maintained that accurate performance standards, based upon objective data should provide a basis for making financial rewards to superior employees and for eliminating unproductive employees. According to Taylor, scientific management was the best tool for increasing profits to employers, for lowering prices to customers, and for increasing employees’ productivity and remuneration in work organisations. Taylor’s movement came into sharp contrast with the employers’ practice of extracting more work from their employees through threatening to fire them. In any case, the views of scientific management differ sharply with today’s motivational and behavioural theories, which maintain that employees seek from their work, not only financial but psychological rewards as well.

Taylor's scientific management approach had two useful contributions it made to modern organisational theory. First, he recommended that employees should be carefully selected and trained for their jobs, and they must be helped to specialise so that in Taylor's own words, they become "first class" at least in some task. Second, Taylor believed that increasing employee salaries would increase their motivation and make them more productive. However, Taylor ought to be credited for evolving the ideas of first, careful employee selection, training and task specialisation; and secondly for laying the foundations of employee motivation as a function of higher performance.19 This credit is in addition to scientific management being the roots of the human relations movement, which we cherish today.

(b) Industrial Psychology

In the early 1900s some knowledge gained from researches from the field of psychology was beginning to be applied to the management of human resources. One of the famous pioneers


in the field of industrial psychology was Hugo Munsterberg. In his book, Psychology and Industrial Efficiency, Munsterberg pointed out the contributions that psychology could render to human resources management in areas such as training, employment testing, and efficiency improvement.20

The other psychologists who, following Munsterberg’s lead made valuable contributions to human resources management, included W.D. Scott for evolving a system of rating sales personnel and for his reputable book in personnel management.21 Another pioneer under this group, J. McKeen Cattell will be remembered for his test-development activities and his leadership in establishing the Psychological Corporation in 1921, which still provides various human resources services up to today. Another pioneer Walter Van Dyke Bingham, will be remembered for writing several books in employment interviewing and aptitude testing.22

(c) The Hawthorne Studies

The Hawthorne Studies which were conducted at Hawthorne's Western Electric plant in 1921 - 1932 under the leadership of two Harvard professors, Mayo and Roethlisberger made another remarkable contribution to modern human resources management. They attempted to determine the effect of hours of work, periods of rest, and lighting upon employee fatigue and productivity. They also revealed the influence of informal work groups upon the productivity of employees and upon their response to financial incentives.

These studies were conducted by Mayo, Roethlisberger, and Dickson and proved that scientific management alone could not yield the desired results unless it was balanced with considerations of human needs. They discovered that changes in the objective working conditions such as the psychological and social conditions, and business climate, led to increased levels of performance. The Hawthorne studies are recorded to have pioneered the endeavours, which culminated into the field which, is today called behavioural sciences. However, the depression and World War II diverted the attention of industry to the more burning issues of organisational and national survival.

(d) The Human Relations Movement

The human relations movement provided new insights concerning human behaviour in work organisations. This movement focused its attention on individual differences among employees as well as on the influence informal work groups can have upon the productivity and behaviour of employees. The movement emphasised the need for managers to use improved communication and be more sensitive to employee behaviour. It also emphasised the need for managers to use more participative and employee-centred supervision styles.

(e) The Behavioural Sciences

As the human relations movement developed, the understanding of human behaviour became increasingly important. Disciplines such as economics, political science, psychology, sociology, anthropology and education made valuable contributions towards the understanding of


human behaviour. The interrelationships among these disciplines became more widely recognised, such that they are today popularly referred to as the behavioural sciences.

The behavioural sciences recognise the promotion of employee efficiency, and reject the use of insincere and manipulative tactics in the employer-employee relations.

The major contribution of the behavioural sciences to human resources management is their application to the field of Organisational Behaviour. The focus of Organisational Behaviour is on the interrelationships involving organisations, individuals, and groups and their impact upon employee behaviour in the performance processes of work organisations.

Further efforts to establish an organisational environment, which can achieve the benefits of group work among employees, led to the growth of organisational development. The main focus of organisational development is to cause changes in the attitudes, values, and behaviour of individuals and the organisational environment in which they work. Organisational development seeks to increase trust in the employee-management relationship, enhance employee participation and productivity, and reduce the effects of destructive conflicts in work organisations.

(f) Development of High Technology

The last three decades have witnessed great technological advancements in the world of work. The invention of semiconductors has enabled a tremendous reduction in the size of, but increase in the efficiency of machines and equipment, which make life easier for the employee and society. Examples of such technological advancements include computers, facsimile machines, television, video, and the mobile telephone.

Computers have increased the capacity of storing, processing, and retrieving huge amounts of information while drastically reducing conventional storage room for information, and in that way greatly improved the accuracy of decision making. While the other inventions have greatly facilitated communication, in totality the inventions have greatly made work easier for the employee by eliminating manual operations. Contrary to the fears of many people in the beginning that the technological explosion would cause loss of jobs, they have in fact created an increased number of more challenging jobs.

1.06 The Human Resources Management Profession?

Debate continues in many countries in the world today, whether human resources management qualifies to be regarded a profession or not. By taking part in this useful debate, we should not be misinterpreted as co-operating with those who question the important role of human resources management in organisations and society. We should certainly be the last persons to do so.

So that we may be able to take a position with regard to the debate of whether in our own countries, human resources management is a profession or not, let us ask ourselves two basic


questions. What is a profession? What universal characteristics should an occupation possess in order to qualify for the status of a profession? From the answers to these questions, we should be in a position to determine whether the human resources function in our work organisation and generally in our country is a profession or not.

HRM as a formally recognised functional area in management is a fairly new discipline. Whereas the first professional personnel association, the Boston Manager’s Association was founded in USA in 1912, HRM can be said to have been first formally recognised in 1946. This is the year, when the School of Industrial and Labour Relations at the University of Cornell, USA awarded the first diploma in personnel management. Similarly, in Europe, the University of Stuttgart in Germany began to offer HRM as a course in 1946. In South Africa the Institute of Personnel Management of Southern Africa IPM (SA) was founded in 1946 as a professional body for human resources managers.23 The Institute of Personnel Management of Southern Africa, is still going strong, and is regarded today as the strongest HRM professional institute in eastern and southern Africa.

What then is a profession? A profession may be defined as a type of job that requires specialised training and that brings a fairly high status to the holder, for example work connected with medicine, law, or education.24 In order for an occupation to qualify to be regarded as a profession, it must demonstrate at least the following basic characteristics.25

(1) Skills must be acquirable through specialised training and education.

(2) The integrity of the profession must be maintained by the adherence of its members to a common and binding code of ethics. Please see in Fig. 1-01 the code of ethics of the American Society of Personnel Administration (ASPA) for example. Also, the South African Board for Personnel Practice states its mission as to establish, conduct, and maintain a high standard of professionalism and ethical behaviour in personnel practice.26

(3) Members must demonstrate competence by passing prescribed examinations. They should not base their competence on mere experience and rosy letters of reference from former employers. Practitioners must thoroughly understand the day-to-day problems brought to them, and must undertake whatever study and research are required to assure continuing competence and the best of professional attention.

(4) The services rendered by the occupation must be for the good of the public, and the practitioner must uphold the obligation to implement public objectives and protect public interests as more important than blind loyalty to an employer's preferences. In terms of this characteristic, stealing cannot be a profession. Please see in table 1-2 the objectives of the Zambia Institute of Personnel Management for example.

(5) The occupation should be organisable into a systematic body of knowledge in which people can follow specified programmes of training and areas of specialisation.


(6) The practitioners must maintain a high standard of personal honesty and integrity in every phase of daily practice.

(7) The practitioners must give thoughtful considerations to the personal interests, welfare, and dignity of all employees who are affected by his or her prescriptions, recommendations, and actions.

The foregoing characteristics are adequately demonstrated by such occupations as medicine, accountancy, law, and engineering in many African countries. Other occupations for instance nurses, social workers, and teachers demonstrate just a few of the above characteristics and are for this reason referred to as semi-professionals or even worse, quasi-professionals.27

In many African countries the human resources management occupation possesses the above-listed characteristics and therefore qualifies to be regarded as a profession. In these countries human resources management practitioners have formed professional associations, which have drawn professional codes of ethics and organised seminars, workshops, and symposia, to facilitate the development and exchange of knowledge in the field for their members.28 In addition to these structures, human resources practitioners in these countries are recognised and treated as professionals by their employers and they conduct themselves in a manner, which earns them professional respect from the employees and the public.

In other countries, however, the human resources management occupation does not possess enough of the above-listed characteristics. For instance, in these countries the occupation lacks characteristics numbers (2), (3), and (5). Again, even in countries which have formed professional associations, these associations are not sufficiently active: they do not organise sufficient fora for the professional development of their members; they do not have a code of ethics in place, and have not muscled up into pressure groups to their governments and employing sector to claim professional rights and privileges for their members; neither have they engineered the establishment of human resources training programmes in local training institutions. In these countries, it is obvious the occupation cannot claim the status of a profession and, surely human resources practitioners must work harder to build this field into a profession.

From our foregoing presentation, it is correct to conclude that the human resources management occupation can comfortably claim professional status globally, because going by the universal characteristics, it qualifies. But whether the human resources management occupation can be regarded a profession in an individual country should depend on merit analysis by using the above-outlined frame.

In some countries human resources practitioners have not formed a professional association to regulate and promote the interests of the human resources occupation. Such a body would administer a code of ethics to control and regulate the professional conduct of human resources practitioners, and organise professional fora where human resources practitioners can discuss issues of common interest in the advancement of the human resources profession.29 A


professional body for human resources practitioners would engineer the enactment of legal instruments that regulate the treatment of human resources practitioners by employers.

For purposes of illustration, let us take a look at the code of ethics of the American Society for Personnel Administration in Fig.1-01.

___________________________________________________________

AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR PERSONNEL ADMINISTRATION CODE OF ETHICS

Each member of the American Society for Personnel Administration shall acknowledge his or her personal responsibility to strive for growth in the field of human resources management, and will pledge to carry out the following Society objectives, to the best of his or her ability.

(1) Support the goals and objectives of the Society in order to reflect the highest standards of the human resource management profession.

(2) Support the personal and professional development programmes of the Society in Personnel Administration and Industrial Relations to help create an environment of recognition and support of human values in workplace.

(3) Support the self-enforcement provisions in the codes of other associations to achieve the overall goal of development of each person to his/her full human potential.

(4) Display a unity of spirit and cohesiveness of purpose in bringing fair and equitable treatment of all people to the forefront of employers' thought; transmit that cohesiveness to academia by actively co-operating to instil the PAIR ethic into the curricula of accredited institutions.

(5) Practice respect and regard for each other as a paramount personal commitment to a lifestyle exemplary in its motivation toward making business profitable in both human and monetary values.

(6) Express in the workplace through corporate codes the basic rules governing moral conduct of the members of the organisation in order to provide employees and the public with a sense of confidence about the conduct and intentions of management.


(7) Personally refrain from using their official positions (regular or volunteer) to secure special privilege, gain or benefit for themselves, their employers or the Society.

__________________________________________________________

Fig. 1-01: Code of Ethics of the American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA)

1.07 The Status of HRM in Tanzania

The debate on whether in Tanzania human resources management is a profession or not is justified by the following tendencies in our work organisations. These are the tendencies, which cause people to ask whether really human resources management is a profession or not. You will note from our presentation below, that these tendencies refer either to how the human resources functions are designed in our organisations, how our work organisations treat human resources functions or simply how human resources practitioners allow themselves to be treated. Whatever the case, these tendencies appear to succeed to underrate the professionalism of the human resources occupation. Let us now proceed to discuss the tendencies.

(1) Pairing of human resources functions with administrative support services.

In many organisations, administrative support services are lumped together with human resources functions in one department called the human resources and administration department, personnel and administration department, or simply, administration department. But what are these administrative support services, and how related are they to human resources management such that designers tend to pair them with human resources functions?

In an organisation such as a university, the administrative support services include a very wide range of support services. They include such services as responsibility for such services as servicing meetings and official parties, cutting grass in lawns, sweeping the compound, disposal of refuse, cleaning of toilets and offices, tea and coffee-making and provision, canteen services, transport services, and any flimsy services that cannot neatly be allocated to any specialised department. All these services are dumped together with human resources functions in a department known as the Registrar's Office or Deputy Vice Chancellor’s Office, or Chief Administrative Officer’s Office.30 Yet universities have the most complex concentrations of qualified personnel any organisation in any country can have.

Apart from the facts that the providers and consumers of these services are human beings, there is no technical congruence between administrative support services and human resources functions that can justify the positioning of these services under human resources management. Moreover, in some organisations such as universities, government ministries, and large business organisations, the volume and monetary value of such administrative services per annum justifies the possibility of organising them under an autonomous department for efficiency and control, a


measure that would achieve the treatment of administrative support services and human resources functions each by a separate and specialised department.

The tendency of pairing administrative support services with human resources functions tends to make the human resources department a junk of pile of heterogeneous services, which are spared of other professional departments.

(2) Absence of an autonomous department for human resources functions.

In some organisations, the human resources functions are deliberately organised not as an autonomous department, but as a component section in a department such as Office Management, Accounting, Administrative Services, or even Company Secretary. Under these circumstances, a person should be pardoned if he interprets human resources management to be a component part of the accounting profession if the human resources functions are designed as a section under the accounting department.

(3) Department is given limited status and role.

In some organisations, the human resources manager has a big title but he or she is given little recognition by top management. In this way, the human resources manager is used to merely implement predetermined management decisions and processes of a clerical nature, such as processing of leave and recruitment documents. In such work organisations, the human resources manager is not incorporated in key organisational planning and decision making processes.

(4) Tendency to recruit officers of irrelevant and questionable qualifications.

There are many organisations in Tanzania and Zambia which recruit graduates in law, teaching, economics, sociology, psychology, political science, public administration, insurance, and even mathematics as human resources managers. Some organisations even go for high school generalists, "..........with credit in English. A certificate in personnel management will be an added advantage." For staff in the human resources department, such organisations have yet to learn from hard lessons, that human resources management is a distinct field of specialisation that lawyers, teachers, economists, sociologists, psychologists, politicians and mathematicians cannot automatically master!

(5) In some work organisations, the human resources department is used as a dumping ground for officers who fail in other departments. So, if a sales manager or a purchasing officer proves a poor performer in his or her department, they are transferred to the human resources department, if the organisation does not want to terminate their services. Torrington and Hall describing the incident of an effective detective Harry Callaghan, who because of shooting slightly too many criminals had become a political embarrassment was called by the Chief of Police and told the news that he had been transferred to the human resources department note as follows:


Harry ... left the room slamming the door with sufficient vigour to splinter the woodwork ... did not explain further, but we can interpret his view as being the common one that personnel work is not for the people who can and do, but for the people who can’t and don’t. It is regarded as the easy option for those who shirk the hard, competitive world of marketing, the precision of finance, or the long hours and hard knocks of manufacturing. It is soft, ineffectual and unimportant.31

(6) In some work organisations, the calibre of people who get promoted or transferred to the human resources department leads observers to question the occupation’s professional status. In some organisations, personal secretaries, security guards, purchasing clerks who have worked for many years and have hit the ceilings of their career ladders get transferred to the human resources department in order to open up their ladders. In no cases are such people transferred to the accounting department, audit, legal, or engineering department.

(7) Absence of a professional body for the regulation and advancement of human resources management.

In conclusion, HRM is an occupation, whose professional contribution is direly required in Tanzania’s efforts of economic rehabilitation. Unfortunately HRM still occupies clerical status. It is still poorly understood both to Tanzanian employers and employees. In this position none of its stakeholders make full use of its valuable contribution. After the fall of the Ujamaa experiment in 1985, the Tanzanian society is openly speaking of increased efficiency, effectiveness, awareness of employee rights and responsibility in the workplace, better management of work organisations, increased motivation, better remuneration schemes, better planning of human resources acquisition and utilisation, etc. These objectives will be difficult to achieve without a more professional human resources management function. Tanzania will have to learn from the experiences of such professionalised occupations as the legal profession, accounting and auditing, teaching, and engineering, as they strive to professionalise HRM.

The occupations listed above adopted a legal approach to their pursuing their status with separate acts of parliament protecting the professional integrity of their occupations. The legal approach is not the only alternative. An occupation can take a voluntary approach to pursuing its professional status. The voluntary approach requires a pressure group of committed practitioners, who publicise and lobby practitioners and employers. Eventually, which approach to be adopted, will be up to HRM practitioners to decide.

1.08 Training and Career in Human Resources Management

During the colonial era and during the first ten years after independence, human resources managers in Tanzanian work organisations did not have to demonstrate accredited professional competence to get a job in the human resources department.32 They simply needed to be academicians in any field of study usually law, but also mathematics, political science,


economics and even teacher education, with some experience in administration and strong letters of recommendation from previous employers.33 By interpretation, work organisations in Tanzania did not regard human resources management a distinct profession, which could be earned through specialised training, programmes.

(1) Training in Human Resources Management

Today, there exist many programmes of training in human resources management at certificate, ordinary diploma, advanced diploma, first degree, and advanced degree levels in various institutions in Tanzania and many other countries in the world.34 Currently in Tanzania, certificate, ordinary diploma, advanced diploma courses are available at the Institute of Development Management Mzumbe in Morogoro, the College of Business Education in Dar es Salaam and Dodoma, and other private training institutions located in the big cities and towns. In addition, students have opportunities to specialise in human resources management at first and second degree levels at the Institute of development Management Mzumbe, University of Dar Es Salaam, Open University of Tanzania, Tumaini University College, Iringa, St. Augustine University College, Nyegezi, International Medical and Technical University, Dar es Salaam, as well as other private universities located in various towns and cities in Tanzania. In addition to academic training opportunities, there exist in many countries professional associations that conduct distant training and professional examinations for human resources specialists at various levels i.e. technician, professional and senior professional levels.35 The oldest and by far the strongest professional Association in Africa is the Institute of Personnel Management of Southern Africa, which was founded in 1946.

It must be clarified however, that the academic training in human resources management referred to in the foregoing paragraph, is in each case normally a general programme in business administration plus a core course in human resources management, and a couple of electives e.g. human resources planning, labour law, and labour relations towards the end of the programme. In many of the above-named training institutions, human resources management courses are still being taught by graduates in general business administration, and law. The essence of the above remarks is to place the reader in the context that human resources management is still given as general a treatment in the training institutions as it is in the work organisations.36

However, opportunities are in sight for training institutions to offer heavier and better taught programmes in human resources management with increased control of what is taught by human resources professional associations. In addition it is hoped that as the professional associations grow they will be able to gather human resources practitioners to form a strong force with the capability of laying an attractive environment that attract people to seek professional status in human resources occupations. It is hoped that such professional associations will establish professional training programmes which people can then aspire for after the academic programmes discussed in the foregoing paragraph.

(2) Career in Human Resources Management


This section is intended for persons who have interest in or for other reasons seek to understand closely, the career opportunities available in the field of human resources management. It will enrich those interested in taking up career opportunities in human resources management with knowledge of the available opportunities and how to prepare for them plus an appreciation of the environment in which human resources management jobs operate.

We will throughout this book consistently state that human resources management jobs are staff roles in organisational performance. In terms of Mintzberg’s model of classifying human resources in organisations, which we use in this book, human resources jobs are expert or technocrat jobs whose primary role is to design programmes which facilitate the proper management of human resources so that they may contribute their best and most to organisational performance.37 In this position, the human resources professionals often find themselves in the roles of experts, consultants, co-ordinators, controllers, trainers, and links between managers and employees, management and unions, as well as the government and the work organisation.

The human resources manager is the expert in the proper management of people though the people themselves cannot conceivably all be placed in the human resources department, by the nature of organisational design. This complication notwithstanding, the human resources department still has to maintain consistency and fairness in the implementation of the human resources programmes throughout the work organisation.

(a) Types of human resources jobs

In our discussion of the functions of human resources management in the following section, we will make an implication of the following jobs. All these are staff jobs and are typically found in large work organisations with fully-grown up human resources departments. In smaller organisations there are fewer jobs in the human resources department though this should not imply that the full range of human resources services are not being provided. It actually means that staff employees in the department of a small firm are asked to be responsible for performing a wider variety of functions than their colleagues in large work organisations perform. In Fig. 1-02 we present a list of jobs normally found in the human resources department, indicating against each job the number of the chapter in this book where the role of the job has been discussed in detail.

Job Title ChapterSystems analyst threeProcedures analyst three & twenty-oneJob analyst fourHR planning officer fiveRegistry clerks fiveHR recruitment officer sixHR orientation & placement officer sevenHR training officer eight & nineCareer development officer nine


Compensation officer fourteenEmployees welfare officer fifteen, & elevenHealth officer fifteenHealth and safety inspector fifteenSafety/Security officer fifteenWelfare officer fifteenCounselling officer fifteenLabour relations officer sixteen, seventeen & eighteenLegal officer sixteen, seventeen, nineteenHR research officer twentyHR audit officer twentyHR Manager/Director all chapters

Fig.1-02: Types of human resources jobs38

Readers will note that the list excludes jobs for administrative services, which although popularly placed under human resources departments in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia are strictly speaking, not human resources jobs. We take the position throughout this book that administrative services are not human resources jobs. The placement of administrative services jobs under the human resources department even in work organisations which should separate the two into autonomous departments is a misleading design tradition in our countries. This tradition needs to be reviewed because it has been used to undermine the professional status of human resources occupations in these countries.39

(b) Working conditions

Most work organisations accept the reality that human resources departments have interactions with new employees as well as officers from government and labour unions. For this reason they locate their human resources departments conspicuously and maintain them as neat and well-furnished offices. For the same reason, they also require human resources department staff to be neatly dressed and pleasant. Most of the employees in the human resources department usually work a standard forty-hour week or longer particularly those on labour relations tasks when strikes are on, plus meetings for preparation and negotiation of labour agreements, disciplinary procedure meetings, workers council meetings and staff welfare functions.

Most human resources management specialists spend their time in the office, but some of them e.g. recruitment officers, labour relations officers, career development officers, regularly travel on duty linking other organisations to their work organisation. In companies which have branches and or divisions many human resources specialists are expected to travel very often in order to co-ordinate, audit, and run meetings to strengthen human resources programmes in the organisation’s branches or divisions.


1.09 Functions of Human Resources Management

In this section, we shall present briefly the core and non-core functions of human resources management. Under the core, we mention seven core functions namely: planning, recruiting, training and development, performance appraisal, compensation, safety and health, and labour relations. Under the non-core functions, we outline career planning, motivation, communication, disciplining, maintenance of quality of working life, and human resources accounting, research, and auditing. In each case, we make indicative reference to chapters of this book where the functions have been discussed in detail. It must be admitted however, that there exist no scientific criteria in the literature so far to guide the distinction of core from non-core programmes. The approach taken throughout this text is thus purely the author’s preference.

(1) Human Resources Planning

Human resources planning will be defined as the process of anticipating and making provision for three types of movements of people in work organisations:

(a) Into the organisation

This task involves a realistic determination of the numbers and quality of employees needed to fill the available job positions in the organisation.

(b) Within the organisation

This task involves the anticipation of the placement, transferring, promoting, and demoting of employees in order to match their performance capabilities with the organisation's performance demands, at all times.

(c) Out of the organisation

This task involves the anticipation of programmes that enable employees to move systematically from their current employment life in the organisation to their post-employment life.

We will discuss the human resources planning function in detail in chapter five.

(2) Human Resources Recruitment

Human resources recruitment or human resources procurement can be defined as the process of identifying and encouraging potential applicants to apply for vacant job positions in the organisation. The function involves the tasks of job advertising, processing of applications interviewing, selection, and placement.

We will discuss the human resources recruitment function in detail in chapter six.


(3) Human Resources Training and Development

Human resources training and development is the process of equipping employees with the right knowledge, skills, experience, and attitudes to match their performance capabilities with the organisation's performance demands. It also involves designing and implementing management and organisational development programmes, as well as building effective work teams within the organisation’s structure.

We will discuss the human resources training and development function in detail in chapter eight.

(4) Human Resources Performance Appraisal

Human resources performance appraisal or performance evaluation is the process of evaluating employee performance against the stipulated requirements of their jobs. It involves designing systems of appraising the performance of individual employees, as well as assisting employees to develop and realise their career plans.

We will discuss the human resources performance appraisal function in detail in chapter ten.

(5) Human Resources Compensation

Human resources compensation will be defined as the process of determining and administration of the rewards of employees for their labour inputs in the performance processes of the organisation. It involves designing and implementing compensation and benefit systems for all employees, as well as ensuring that compensation and benefits are fair and consistent.

We will discuss the human resources compensation function in detail in chapter fourteen.

(6) Human Resources Safety, and Health

This function seeks to safeguard the safety, and health of employees. It involves designing and implementing programmes to ensure employee health and safety, as well as providing welfare and assistance to employees with personal problems that may influence their work performance.

We will discuss this often-controversial function in chapter fifteen.

(7) Human Resources Labour Relations

Human resources labour relations is the process of managing appropriate relations between employees and the organisation's management on the one side, and between the organisation and the unions, government, and society on the other side. The desired intra- and


inter-organisational labour relations environment is usually regulated by the employees' trade unions and government legislation.

The labour relations function involves the human resources department serving as an intermediary between the organisation and the employees’ labour unions, as well as designing discipline and grievance handling machinery and procedures.

We will discuss the labour relations function in detail in chapters sixteen and seventeen.

In Fig. 1-03 below, we have summarised the activities that are performed by the human resources department under each core function and included under (8) other human resources activities, which cannot be conveniently ordered under the core functions.

_________________________________________________________

(1) Human Resources Planning

• Forecasting the human resources requirements in terms of quantity and quality necessary for the organisation to achieve its objectives.

• Conducting job analysis in order to establish human resources requirements of each job in the organisation.

• Developing and implementing a plan to meet human resources requirements.• Designing plans to ensure smooth transfers, promotions and demotions, in order to

ensure career advancement and the maintenance of an appropriate match between employee capabilities and organisational performance demands.

• Designing employee exit programmes.• Designing employee succession programmes.• Maintaining an up-to-date data bank and supplying information to user departments for

decision-making.

(2) Human resources recruitment• Recruiting the human resources required by the organisation to enable it achieve its

objectives.• Advertising for human resources requirements.• Processing of applications in co-ordination with the user department.• Interviewing of job candidates• Testing the candidates where appropriate• Selection of suitable candidates for jobs

(3) Human Resources Training and Development• Training of Employees• Development of Employees• Designing and implementing organisational development programmes.• Designing career plans.


• Assisting employees develop their career.

(4) Human Resources Performance Appraisal• Designing performance standards for each job.• Designing methods of appraising employee performance.• Training of appraisers in order to ensure the successful implementation of the

performance appraisal programme.• Implementing the performance appraisal programme.

(5) Human Resources Compensation• Designing of the organisation's compensation programme• Supervising the organisation's compensation programme.• Ensuring that salaries and wages, benefits, and incentives are fairly and consistently

administered throughout the organisation.

(6) Human Resources Labour Relations• Εensuring the maintenance of relations between employees and management, conducive

for effective and efficient organisational performance.• Ensuring the maintenance of suitable relations between the organisation and trade

unions and government.

(7) Human Resources Security, Safety, and Health• Designing and implementing employee safety programmes.• Designing and implementing employee health programmes.• Designing and implementing employee welfare programmes• Helping employees cope with stress

(8) Others• Maintenance of a human resources information base for the organisation.• Designing and implementing employee communication systems.• Formulation and supervision of human resources policies.• Human resources audit and research• Designing and implementing suitable motivation packages.• Ensuring job satisfaction and quality of working life.• Designing and overseeing employee disciplinary policies and procedures.• Employee orientation.• Employee placement.• Job design and analysis.• Co-ordination of human resources programmes in the organisation.• Designing and anlaysing jobs.• Managing termination of contracts of employment• Managing employee supervision programmes

___________________________________________________________


Fig. 1-03: Activities of human resources management functions

1.10 Functions of the Human Resources Manager

As we shall note in chapter three, the tasks of a human resources manager in of work organisations are not mainstream tasks. That is to say that no work organisation is established for the primary mission of managing employees. The work of a human resources manager therefore is a staff role of the same kind as that of an accountant and an auditor, whose essence arises because of the inception of people in organisations. In a fully grown up work organisation, the human resources manager is however a member of top management, as the Zambia Institute of Personnel Management correctly stress in the following quote:

The Personnel Department is part and parcel of the management set-up and its head must be directly responsible to the chief executive. His relationships with other heads of departments should be on the basis of equal membership of the management team, but being the specialist on personnel matters, he must have the final say in matters which fall within the sphere of his department.40

It must be emphasised that whereas an organisation's human resources manager is known by this title, not all the organisation's employees are found in the human resources manager's department. They are scattered in the various departments of the organisation. The human resources manager is therefore an expert, a co-ordinator and consultant to all other managers on matters related to human resources management in the organisation.

All managers in an organisation ought to have a working knowledge of the management of human resources to enable them to implement human resources policies, fairly independently in their departments, so that they only need to make occasional reference to the human resources department for specific guidance on particular issues. It is therefore correct to say that since human resources management functions are functions which all managers in the organisation must perform, there is need for the human resources department to maintain its constant satisfaction that human resources policies and procedures are consistently implemented by all managers: this is usually done through a human resources audit programme which we discuss in detail in chapter twenty. For precisely the same reason, we have recommended in various areas of this book that the human resources department should organise occasional training seminars and workshops for training departmental managers to administer particular human resources programmes.

The following are the specific functions of a human resources manager:

(1) Advise and counsel line managers on the correct approaches of implementing human resources policies and procedures and solving specific human resources problems.

(2) Maintain a healthy organisation by using various indices such as absenteeism, production efficiency, accident indices, labour turnover, complaints and grievances.


(3) Design human resources procedures and services that ensure standardised humane treatment for all employees in the whole organisation. Such procedures and services include schemes of service, recruitment procedures, interviewing, and testing of new employees, induction or orientation programmes, designing training programmes, wage and salary surveys, wages and salaries administration, change management, health and safety engineering, safety services, and employee benefit programmes.

(4) Co-ordination and control of the implementation of personnel policies. This task involves discussions with managers, inspection, interviewing, and research both in the organisation and outside.

(5) Design and analyse jobs for purposes of redesign.

(6) Plan for the recruitment, transfers, recategorisations, promotions, demotions, and exit of employees.

(7) Co-ordinate the management of employee performance.

(8) Manage the training and development of employees in order to ensure the right match between job demands and employees’ performance capabilities.

(9) Manage employee relations in the workplace i.e. industrial relations, employee participation and communication.

(10) Manage employee health and safety programmes.

According to the Zambia Institute of Personnel Management, the head of a human resources department should perform the following tasks:41

(1) Formulating of personnel policies.

(2) Formulation of effective and efficient recruitment and selection procedures.

(3) Taking a leading part in selection and placement of personnel.

(4) Advising management on proper practices of employment, promotion, transfer and separation of personnel.

(5) Ensuring suitable terms and conditions of service.

(6) Maintaining appropriate remuneration policies and stable salary and job grading structures.

(7) Providing appropriate health, safety and welfare amenities.


(8) Establishing and promoting good industrial relations and effective communication systems.

(9) Maintaining effective forward manpower plans and development programmes.

(10) Advising management on statutory rules and regulations affecting employment.

(11) Liaising with Government departments, the Zambia Federation of Employers, the ZCTU and other recognised bodies.

(12) Undertaking constant review of organisational structure and maintaining up-to-date personnel records and statistics.

(13) Ensuring that the overall personnel policy, as formulated from time to time, is properly interpreted and strictly adhered to by both management, staff and employees.

(14) Ensuring effective participation of individual employees in the activities of the undertaking.

(15) Sensitising Management’s and Worker’s attitudes towards the need for practical Humanism in Industry.

(16) Contributing, by way of suggestions to the Government, to the formulation of progressive labour legislation in accordance with the National Philosophy of Humanism and also in the promotion of manpower planning and development at National level.

1.11 Organising the Human Resources Management Function

The human resources function of a work organisation can be designed in three main approaches. These approaches are presented in accordance with the growth stages of work organisations, in order to enhance their understandability..

(1) No Human Resources Unit

Small and young organisations usually do not start with a fully-fledged human resources department or section. This organising practice is common with many other staff functions in small and young work organisations with a small workforce and limited number of activities.42

At this stage, usually human resources management tasks are handled by the office of the chief executive officer, very often with the assistance of his personal secretary and staff officers. Under such conditions, human resources activities are marginalised. There is a limited number and growth of the specialised activities and programmes of human resources management mainly due to shortage or complete lack of qualified personnel, and shortage of influence in the


decision-making machinery mainly due to lack of a qualified leader for HRM functions. Employees do not receive qualitative and uniform human resources management services from their managers in different departments. There usually exists a high incidence of employee complaints and dissatisfaction against the quality of human resources services in the organisation.

(2) Small Human Resources Unit

As the employees and activities of the young organisation increase however, human resources functions gradually become a burden to the office of the chief executive and other managers. At this point the organisation recognises the need for establishing a separate organisational unit to handle human resources department matters.

Initially, the unit emerges in the form of a section under a department such as Chief Accountant, Office Manager or even Company Secretary. Under such an arrangement, the head of the human resources management functions, even if a qualified specialist, cannot make decisions independent of his or her boss's preferences. His or her boss who is not a specialist in human resources management, has apart from human resources management, his main professional functions to take care of. These receive fairer and more preferential treatment over human resources functions. The head of the human resources management functions does not sit in management meetings and it is thus correct to say that human resources management matters are in addition to being marginalised from the strategic decisions of the organisation also suppressed.

At this stage, there is a marked increase in the activities of the section and a few programmes may be initiated within the constraints of shortage of resources, a reasonable budget, and specialists. In Fig 1-04 we illustrate the placement of the human resources unit when it is first formed in a young and growing work organisation. In its infancy, the unit still performs a limited number of functions, usually recruitment, performance appraisal, and maintaining of employee records.

_____________________________________________________________

GENERAL MANAGER

CHIEF ACCOUNTANT PRODUCTION MANAGERSALES MANAGER

PERSONNEL OFFICER ACCOUNTANT-LEDGERS ACCOUNTANT-CASH


______________________________________________________________

Fig. 1-04: The Human Resources Section in a Young Organisation

(3) A Human Resources Department

As the work force and activities of the young organisation grow in size and complexity, the human resources section increases in size and importance. In response, the human resources department is created as an autonomous department and its manager becomes a member of top management and thus reports directly to the chief executive officer. Inside the department, the increase of human resources tasks in both magnitude and complexity compels horizontal and vertical growth i.e. specialisation and stratification of the functions as illustrated in Fig. 1-05. At this stage, the department has its own budget, a larger staff, and a substantial amount of influence in the decision-making machinery of the organisation. So, the department initiates more human resources programmes, and has the ability to ensure greater uniformity in the treatment of employees throughout the organisation.

_____________________________________________________________

CLERKCLERK

GENERAL MANAGER

H. RESOURCES MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGERMARKETING MANAGER

ASST. MANAGERLABOUR RELATIONS

ASST. MANAGERRECRUITMENT

SPECIALISTSPECIALIST

ASST. MANAGERTRAINING & DEVPT.

ASST. MANAGERCOMPENSATION

SPECIALISTSPECIALIST SPECIALIST


___________________________________________________________

Fig. 1-05: The Human Resources Department in a Large Organisation.

A fully-grown up organisation seeking to set up a fully-fledged department should involve its current human resources specialists in providing the needed information for designing the department.43 The information that must be collected for this purpose is that required to address the following key organisational issues. These are the issues that will determine the actual size and complexity of the new department.

(1) The number of roles that the department is expected to play. The numbers of roles, which the new department plays, often depends on the number, top management views and is willing to allow the new department to play at any one time.

(2) The necessity for locating human resources staff in geographical organisational units in order to place human resources services within convenient reach of user units.

(3) The need for a fair and consistent application of personnel policies throughout the organisation regardless of its size.

(4) The importance of permitting the human resources department to make expert contributions into the organisation's human resources policy.

(5) The need for the human resources department to carry sufficient influence to make sure that the organisation will implement human resources policies legally, affirmatively, and without discrimination.

(6) The necessity for the human resources department to be proactive and innovative by designing programmes that prevent rather than wait to correct human resources problems.

It is important that a fully-grown up work organisation allows its human resources department to function at all of the three levels i.e. strategic, managerial, and operational, so that it can demonstrate its effectiveness throughout the organisation.

Human resources management functions can be either centralised or decentralised. A centralised human resources management approach means that all the essential decisions are made, and the policies are formulated at headquarters. A centralised human resources management approach distances key advice, decision making, and other human resources services from places where the relevant actions take place, thus resulting in remote controlling of human resources services.

A decentralised human resources management approach however, means that the essential decision making and policy implementation are performed in several locations in the organisation thus resulting in increased quality of decisions i.e. more accurate decision making


and more efficient delivery of human resources services. Here, organisational units e.g. divisions, and departments are allowed to set up their own human resources units which make most key human resources decisions and refer just a few to the headquarters. Usually routine tasks are decentralised, while non-routine human resources tasks are retained in the headquarters.

Again, with the increase of regulatory requirements over human resources management and the complexity of human resources functions, many organisations are moving away from using human resources generalists toward human resources specialists. Thus large, divisionalised organisations e.g. large financial organisations and industrial organisations, maintain a corporate human resources department staffed largely with specialists and divisional human resources departments staffed largely with generalists. The corporate or headquarters human resources department then develops and co-ordinates human resources policies for all employees in all the locations of the organisation, and executes the human resources functions for employees at the headquarters.44 However, as the divisions grow, they are given powers to hire their own specialists and to administer nearly all of their human resources functions fairly independently.

There is a feature in the design of human resources functions which is common to many organisations in Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and probably many more African countries, which we would like to highlight in this section. We have already stated this as a tendency used by work organisations to underrate the professionalism of human resources management, earlier in this chapter. In many organisations in these countries, notably the civil service and public organisations, human resources functions are combined with administrative services to form one department known variably as Personnel and Administration, or Human Resources Development and Administration. This is a design tradition which people have merely taken for granted and maintained, but which is not backed up by any technical justification.

Administrative services usually include a large panoply of items such as the provision of tea, transport services, cleaning of work surroundings, cutting grass, planting and maintenance of flowers, cleaning of offices and toilets, cafeteria services, organisational security, organisation of parties, travel services, writing minutes of meetings, etc. As an instructor in human resources management, the author has had to try to satisfy his students often without success, when they ask: but sir, what is human resources in these other services? Or even more subtly: under what human resources functions do these tasks fall? Let us take this opportunity to clarify that there is no scientific design principle which explains why such services should always be organised in the same department with human resources functions. As a matter of fact, the design pairing of administrative services with human resources functions is one of the reasons why people doubt the professionalism of human resources management as we have argued in section 1.06

Administrative services can be organised under autonomous departments in large organisations where their volume and annual value warrant the treatment.45 A positive consideration for organisational performance would favour separation where possible so that human resources departments concentrate more sharply on their primary role, while administrative services are more efficiently dealt with by an exclusive department. Where administrative services cannot because of volume and value, be organised under an autonomous


department, they can conveniently be organised under the Accounting, Supplies, or the Office Management departments.

1.12 Who Performs HR Functions?

Basically all managers are periodically involved to some extent in human resources management functions. This statement is supported by the basic definition of management, as well as the primacy of human resources in organisational performance. This reality underscores the reason why all managers need a working knowledge of managing people in organisational performance.

For instance, at one time or another, almost all managers are involved in some aspects of employee planning, recruitment, orientation, training and development, appraisal, supervision, compensation, team building, and disciplining. In most small organisations, most human resources functions are performed by the owner or by operating managers. An operating manager or line manager is a person who manages people directly involved with the production of an organisation’s products or services, e.g., a production manager in a manufacturing plant, or loan manager in a bank.

On the contrary, many medium-size and some large organisations use human resources generalists for their human resources roles. A human resources generalist is an officer who devotes a majority of working time to human resources issues, but does not specialise in any specific areas of human resources management. Large organisations usually have a human resources department that is responsible for directing the human resources functions. In addition to a few human resources generalists, a human resources department is normally staffed by one or more human resources specialists. A human resources specialist is normally trained in one or more specific areas of human resources management. However, even in large organisations that have a human resources department with many human resources generalists and specialists most operating or line managers must regularly perform and be involved with may of the human resources management functions.

1.13 Place and Role of the Human Resources Department

The human resources department is a service department to the different performance processes of the work organisation. It exists in order to assist ordinary employees, managers and the organisation in all matters related to the effective management of people so that they can willingly make maximum contributions to the organisation's performance processes. The human resources department does not have a line authority over other departments; instead it has staff authority over them in relation to human resources management programmes. In this capacity, it largely operates as a co-ordinator, consultant, and advisor to management, unions, and employees on all human resources management activities.


Line authority in this case refers to the ability of the human resources department to command or require other departments to carry out instructions related to the mainstream tasks of the organisation.46 Staff authority in this case refers to the ability of the human resources department to advise, not to direct, other departments as to how best they may implement the organisation's policies and procedures of managing human resources.

Though advisory, the staff authority of the human resources department is powerful. A line manager is in principle not obligated to take the advice given to him or her by the human resources department. But in rejecting the advice, the line manager stands to carry full responsibility for the outcomes, such as employee relations problems, and strikes. So, in order to avoid such consequences, line managers usually readily accept the advice given to them by the human resources department. As a result the human resources department exercises considerable influence on the decisions of line managers and is highly respected in modern and successful work organisations.

Because of the pivotal role occupied by human resources in comparison with technical resources, the human resources department occupies a central service role to the goal-achievement efforts of every work organisation.

1.14 Objectives of Human Resources Management

In conclusion of this chapter, let us discuss the four objectives which a well designed and managed human resources function should seek to achieve.

The objectives of human resources management can be defined as the benchmarks against which the effectiveness of human resources functions are evaluated. These are the goals which can help us answer the questions, "have our human resources programmes been successful? Has the human resources department been making the correct decisions?" Let us conclude our discussion in this chapter by outlining the benchmarks against which the effectiveness of human resources programmes can be evaluated. On objectives, the Zambia Institute of Personnel Management states:

To ensure at all times the availability to the organisation of adequate and suitable manpower resources, to provide progressive ways of organising and treating people at work so that they get satisfaction in their jobs and gain the greatest possible realisation of their abilities, thereby keeping them motivated and therefore maximising their performance so that they willingly make optimum contribution to the organisation in which they have a stake.47

Human resources management, like all other programmes achieves its purposes by meeting its pre-set objectives. In some work organisations, objectives are carefully thought out and expressed in writing in an approach known as management by objectives which we discuss in chapter ten. There are many organisations, however, in which the objectives are not formally


documented. In both cases, the objectives do exist and they guide the human resources management programmes in practice. What are these objectives?

(1) Social responsibility

Human resources management aims to enable the organisation to fulfil its responsibility to the society in which it exists. As we shall see in chapter three, organisations do not simply exist in society: they are formed in order to render to society specific goods and or services to enable society satisfy its day-to-day needs. The continued existence of organisations can only be justified by their continued ability to produce the goods and or services they were designed to produce, or simply stated, their continued ability to fulfil their social responsibility. The fulfilment of the organisations' social responsibility is a result of human labour. So it is correct to state that one important objective of the human resources department is to help the organisation fulfil its responsibility to society. It does this by designing and implementing suitable human resources programmes that enable employees to contribute effectively towards the achievement of their organisation's goals. Please vend to chapter three for a more detailed discussion of the concept of social responsibility of work organisations.

(2) Employee service

Human resources management aims to help employees to achieve their personal objectives, insofar as their personal objectives enhance the employees' contribution towards the achievement of the objectives of their organisation. Again as we explain in chapter three, employees have personal objectives which they seek to satisfy through working for the organisation. When the organisation meets these objectives the employees can be motivated and retained. Therefore, another important objective of the human resources department is to design and implement suitable human resources programmes which enable employees to satisfy their personal objectives through performing their duties well in the organisation.

(3) Organisational effectiveness

The third objective of human resources management is to enable the employees contribute the best and most of their labour input towards the achievement of their organisation's objectives. Human resources management is not an end in itself, it should be a means of assisting the work organisation to attain results. Simply stated, human resources management exists in order to serve the work organisation: to make it succeed.

(4) Economic level of service

The last objective of human resources management is to perform its functions at an economic level appropriate to the needs of the organisation. This can be done if the services of the human resources department are maintained at a level which is not more or less costly or sophisticated than the organisation requires.


In practice, it is not possible for all human resources programmes to meet the above four objectives all the time. The more human resources management decisions are able to meet these objectives, the better the human resources department’s contribution to the organisation's effectiveness. As we stated at the beginning of this section, these four objectives are benchmarks, and so the purpose is for the human resources department to achieve as many as it can.

1.15 Challenges for HR Managers

The field of human resources management has grown and moved beyond mere administration of the functions of recruitment, training and compensation. Today, HRM is much more integrated into both the management and the strategic planning processes of work organisations.48 The growth in the role of human resources management pauses important challenges to all human resources practitioners in all kinds of social organisations. HR practitioners need to master the sources of these challenges and prepare to deal with them. Let us discuss these challenges.

(a) Diversity in the work force

A close examination of recent national and global initiatives to provide increased opportunities for women to access higher education, to participate in economic and political activities suggests that the future will see a rising percentage of female employees in work organisations of a private and public type. This particular dimension of workforce diversity will have such significant ramifications for organisations as considerations for child care, spouse relocation, pregnancy leave, and flexible hours for breast feeding and child clinic appointments, and stay-at-home assignments and jobs.

A second dimension is increase in the number of employees above the age of 55 years after Parliament increased voluntary retirement age from 50 to 55 and compulsory retirement age from 55 to 60 years for all employees in Tanzania.49 The older employees will likely be more experienced, reliable, and stable, but possibly less adaptable to change and less responsive to retraining.

The third dimension of diversity is related to the increasing globalisation of economies in the world today. The whole world will see a greater diversity of both suppliers and customers of a yet greater diversity of goods and services. The ramifications of this dimension to work organisations in Countries of the South will include a change in the attitude of HR practitioners towards people. The increasing globalisation of Northern companies will bring to Southern work organisations employees of varying races, and cultures. HR practitioners will to perceive employees and everything that makes them as different from one another, as well as the things that make them similar.

Specifically, what challenges and contributions will increasing diversity in the work force present to HR practitioners?


First, HR practitioners must start to genuinely recognise diversity among employees i.e. getting away from the tradition of fitting all employees into a single straight jacket. People are diverse: they will not look and act the same. Organisations must create new HR policies to guide managers in decision-making so as to enable them to respond better to the unique needs of employees as individuals.

Increasing diversity will create certain specific challenges but also make significant contributions. Globalisation for instance will likely create communication problems e.g. misunderstandings among employees and managers, as well as creating the necessity for organisations to translate verbal and written materials into several new languages. In order to respond to these problems, organisations will have to conduct training programmes to equip employees with such basic skills as writing and problem solving.

Increasing diversity will present organisations with new opportunities e.g. a culture of greater tolerance of different behavioural styles and views. Such an opportunity will lead to better business decisions and certainly enhance the capability of employees to respond to diverse groups of customers.

(b) Technological Changes

New technologies pause another challenge to human resources managers. In general, technological changes affecting human resources management are widespread, but probably none are more dramatic than those related to computers. In addition to using computers in performing the traditional functions of accounting and payroll calculations, computers today can be used to maintain and facilitate access to employee data that are valuable in job placement and human resources deployment. Computers can also be used in employee training, manpower planning, management of employee exit programmes, as well as compensation management. Cyberspace and the Internet are changing the way human resources managers are used to operating. Today, it is possible for a human resources manager to conduct research using electronic databases, recruit personnel, and disseminate information to various departments and employees, networking, as well as conducting useful group meetings at minimum cost.

(c) Speed

During the 1980’s business organisations in developed countries developed a culture for increased product and service quality in terms of speed. Due to dependence of African economies on external loans and aid, this development has had a significant impact on work culture in African work organisations. Although quality will still be important, the distinguishing competitive issue in the 2000’s will be how fast products and services can be delivered to customers.

Customers in African economies today, are more conscious of time than before. They want things fast, and work organisations everywhere, will have to be designed and managed to encourage quick collaboration and instant response, all the time keeping quality high.50 The


challenge for human resources managers is to cultivate the “speed culture” in their organisations, so that payment processes take shorter, bank loan processes take shorter, etc. The saying by Europeans “Africans have all the time in the world” is no longer true.

(d) Structural Changes

Modern work organisations are undergoing may structural changes that present another challenge for human resources managers. The most common of these changes are usually those caused by re-engineering, downsizing of the workforce, rightsizing, as well as outsourcing.

(i) Re-engineering refers to a fundamental rethinking and radical re-designing of business processes in order to achieve dramatic improvements in cost control, quality re-assurance, service, and speed.51

In essence, re-engineering processes usually involve changes in management approaches, as well as changes in organisational structures.

(ii) Downsizing is the process of laying off of large numbers of employees in order to strike a balance between the desired size of the workforce in relation to the available quantity of work. Due to poor human resources planning, the workforce in most organisations being privatised by the Public Service Reform Programme in post-socialist Tanzania had to be downsized. Downsizing the workforce is a process that the non-HRM specialists commonly refer to as “manpower rationalisation”.

(iii) Rightsizing is closely related to downsizing. Rightsizing is the continuous and proactive assessment of mission-critical activities of the organisation and its staffing requirements with the objective of ensuring that staffing levels remain meaningfully relevant to current and foreseen mission-critical activities. The real difference between rightsizing and downsizing is that the former is an ongoing planning process to determine the optimal number of employees in every area of the organisation.

(iv) Outsourcing is the decision to subcontract work to an outside organisation that specialises in a particular type of work. Examples of work that is normally contracted out to outside organisations include consultancy services to formulate HR policies and procedures, review of staffing levels, review of organisational structures, design of training programmes etc.

(e) Managerial Changes

New changes in management approaches to recruiting, organising, design of work processes are pausing a challenge to human resources managers today. In post-socialist Tanzania, many organisations are approaching the recruitment function more professionally than before, in order to curb the problems of recruiting vihiyo and persons with the wrong


qualifications.52 In the same spirit, most organisations are opting for contract rather than permanent terms of employment, in order to induce their employees to earn their stay in the organisations rather than merely “remaining around and being careful not to rock the boat”.

Also many organisations are avoiding the build-up of fleets of pool vehicles, and opting for hiring transport services when they require them, or encouraging their managers to own private vehicles and chauffeur themselves for an allowance. Similarly many organisations are opting for the hiring of services for their support functions e.g. cleaning services, and grounds maintenance services.

(f) Government Regulations

Due to the rapid changes in the economies of African countries since the 1980’s governments have been making a number of regulations and laws such as in the areas of employee participation in multi-party politics, health and safety, equal employment opportunities for men and women as well as disadvantaged groups, pension reforms, labour unions, and the environment. Such regulations and laws introduce a significant increase in paperwork, negotiations, networking initiatives, handling of cases, and implementing court decisions.

(g) South-Africanisation of African Economies

Following the fall of apartheid in 1995 South Africa has entered the markets of many African countries by buying off companies, or entering into joint-venture arrangements with local owners in many African countries. This development has been further facilitated by economic liberalisation policies of the 1980’s as well as the fall of the socialist experiment in many African countries. In Tanzania for instance, South African investors bought off the National Bank of Commerce, acquired majority shares in Tanzania Breweries Limited, Coca Cola Kwanza Limited, Dar Brew Limited, and Tanzania Distilleries Limited etc.

The resulting challenges are that the affected companies have had to swiftly adjust themselves to new marketing techniques, higher standards of efficiency, cleanliness, speed of service delivery, higher levels of quality, as well as greater concern for a professionalised human resources management function.

(h) Empowerment of Employees

Most of the challenges discussed above have caused changes in organisational designs, as well as corresponding changes in ways of motivating employees. In many enlightened work organisations, employees are considered associates or partners. The challenge here is to make managers reject the by-the-numbers approach to management, recognising that an increasingly important part of their role is to show others that they really care. Human resources managers are redesigning jobs, in order to make them more human and flexible, designing better career ladders, paying people better, improving working environments and tools.


1.16 HRM in the Future

In order to meet the challenges of the future, tomorrow’s human resources departments will have to be much more sophisticated than their predecessors. In almost all African countries today, the role of human resources management is expanding faster than ever before. It is essential that human resources managers be integrally involved in their organisation’s strategic and policy making activities. Quite clearly, there are signs that this is beginning to happen in many organisations. For example in the majority of companies that have been privatised during turn of the 20th century in Tanzania e.g. Tanzania Cigarette Company, Tanzania Breweries Limited, National Bank of Commerce, Coca Cola Kwanza Limited, Dar Brew Limited, there is a an autonomous department of human resources management and its head reports to the chief executive officer. He or she sits on the board of directors, the planning committee and other key participatory organs.

But if the future’s human resources managers are to earn the respect of their colleagues and of top management, they are going to have to work hard to overcome certain negative impressions that ill-wishers often associate with the human resources management profession.53

This could be accomplished in a number of ways. We suggest four way sand discuss them briefly below.

First, organisations should shift from conducting the human resources function with “common-sense personnel”. This means that work organisations should staff human resources departments with persons qualified in the human resources management profession. In future, the demands on the human resources function will make it clear to management, that it will be unserious and absurd to staff human resources departments with mathematicians, engineers, biologists and similar non-professional personnel.

Secondly, human resources managers will need to become well-rounded businesspeople. This means, that in addition to being well-grounded in the basic disciplines of the HRM profession, human resources managers should strive to increase their conversance in the complexities that face their work organisations. This initiative will help to overcome the misguided feeling among people that HRM people do not understand the operating problems and issues facing their organisation.

Thirdly, human resources managers should strive to become generally knowledgeable about current and future trends and issues in their organisation’s operating environment. In so doing, human resources managers can effectively guard themselves against becoming enamoured with passing fads or using outdated and ineffective techniques.

Fourthly, human resources managers will have to promote the effective deployment of human resources in their organisations. They should stress the importance of increasing profits through effectively using the organisation’s human resources. In the minimum, this is what makes direct sense to operating managers. In this way, human resources managers should learn to be proactive and seize opportunities to demonstrate how they can positively affect the bottom


line. Below we outline eleven specific ways, how human resources managers can have direct impact on company profits.

(a) Reduce unnecessary overtime expenses by increasing productivity during a normal working day.

(b) Stay on top of absenteeism and institute programs designed to reduce money spent for time not worked.

(c) Get rid of time wastage by employees through sound job design.

(d) Minimise employee turnover and unemployment benefit costs by practising sound human relations and creating a work atmosphere that promotes job satisfaction.

(e) Install and monitor effective health and safety programmes to reduce lost-time accidents and keep medical and workers compensation costs low.

(f) Train and develop all employees so that they can improve their value to the organisation and do a better job of producing and selling high-quality products and services at the lowest possible cost.

(g) Decrease costly material wastage by eliminating bad work habits and attitudes and poor working conditions that lead to carelessness and mistakes.

(h) Recruit the best people available on the market for all job positions and keep an eye on overstaffing.

(i) Maintain competitive pay practices and benefit programmes to foster a motivational climate for all employees.

(j) Encourage employees to contribute ideas for increasing productivity and cost reduction.

(k) Encourage management practices that focus the organisation’s performance more on mainstream than support activities. Wherever possible, procure support services from outside rather than getting the organisation to provide them.54

1.17 HRM in Practice

Incident 1-1: Need for a HRM Department in a Professional Organisation

You Juma Temu are a senior accountant of a large private accounting and audit company in Mwanza city, Tanzania. The managing director of the company has appointed you branch director of the company’s branch in Dar es Salaam, and you are required to report to your work


station with immediate effect. This branch is 1 out of 8 branches located in Moshi, Arusha, Dodoma, Mbeya, Tanga, Zanzibar, and Iringa, under the head office located in Mwanza. The company has 122 employees 85% of whom are certified accountants with full accounting qualifications from reputable accounting associations such as National Board of Accountants and Auditors (CPA (T)), and the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants (ACCA).

Generally, the company has been doing successful business since its establishment in 1994. But in the past five years, many of the younger professional staff have been leaving the company and joining its competitors, an issue that has been disturbing the board of directors. The managing director is convinced the problem is not pay, because a recent survey has indicated that the company’s pay structure is one of the best among those of major companies in the professional accounting industry.

After getting settled in Dar es Salaam, one of your first projects is to meet with your four senior managers to determine why the branch has had such a high attrition rate among the younger professionals. At the meeting, one of your managers Ibrahim Sabuni, age 42, states that the younger staff is unaware of the career opportunities provided by the company, lacks commitment to their work, and fails to appreciate the company’s heavy investment in training them. Another manager Erasmus Kaijage, age 52 says the younger staff have been complaining about the lack of meaningful feedback on their performance due to the secretive nature in which staff performance appraisal is conducted. He further explains that the last branch director’s managerial style could be a cause of the problem. The younger staff had complained that the work environment was becoming a bit too mechanistic, with problems such as little information dissemination to staff, low task flexibility, unusually high reliance on hierarchical control of organisational life, too close supervision, over-emphasis of the top-to-bottom communication style, high emphasis on loyalty and obedience demands from young accountants, an open-door communication and reporting policy, etc.

Bernard Kijiko, age 40, believes the problem is absence of team work and joint responsibility, as well as limited opportunities for staff participation in the management of the company’s affairs. Amina Baruti aged 35, the only female manager in the branch, believes the root of the problem is the absence of a human resources department in the company, though she cautions, when she mentioned the idea to the managing director in Mwanza, it was totally rejected.

Questions:

1. What do you think about Amina’s idea of establishing a human resources department in the company?

2. Prepare a paper to sell the idea of establishing a human resources department to the managing director at the joint management meeting in Mwanza next month. In the paper, clearly show the advantages which the company and the staff will reap from establishing the department.


3. Propose an organisational structure for the human resources department showing how it would fit in the company’s structure.

Incident 1-2: Selecting HRM as a Specialisation

Rose Ngeve is a first-year student on the B. Com. programme, a 3 year degree programme in the Faculty of Commerce & Management at the University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. According to the programme, students start specialising in Accounting & Finance, Marketing, Management Sciences, and Human Resources Management in the second year. Rose has not fully decided what her specialisation should be. The human resources specialisation started only last year with the personal efforts of Professor Mbwette, an Organisational and HRM expert, a consultant much sought after by government and leading local as well as foreign organisations.

Last week, Professor Mbwette, who is also the first head of the HRM Department, made an impressive presentation to first-year B Com. students, praising HRM as the specialisation that the employers badly need today, after Tanzania’s economic liberalisation moves of the 1990’s. According to Professor Mbwette, B. Com. graduates in HRM “will experience the ‘fortunate problem’ of having to choose which jobs to accept among numerous offers by employers. All other B. Com. graduates in the other specialisations will continue to apply for jobs, and be prepared to wait at home for many years. Join the only specialisation with an employment guarantee. Besides, employers have expressed interest to provide B. Com. second-year and third-year HRM students with vocational employment during the short as well as long holidays.”

Rose’s first year course in management did not impress her. She thinks this was due to the lecturer, Dr. Katunda. He was a boring instructor, who read his notes word-after-word, spent a lot of his lecture time writing notes on the chalkboard, and disliked being asked questions. At the end of the first year, students had not learnt much in Management. They memorised their notes in order to pass the examinations, and clearly no student would have majored in management if it were one of the faculty’s specialisations. But unlike this instructor in the first year, most of the instructors of other management courses in the second and third years were reported to be lively and very impressive. Rose decided to visit Prof. Mbwette and talk to him about her dilemma. The following conversation ensued:

Rose: Good morning Professor Mbwette. My name is Rose Ngeve. I have just completed my first-year B. Com. studies, and have passed all my annual examinations. I would like your advice on selecting a field of specialisation in my second year. Right now, I just do not know what to do.

Professor: Good morning Rose. Please sit down. Just let me say that you are currently making an important decision and your concern is justified. If you make a mistake in a decision of this kind, you normally make a life-long mistake. Can you please tell me the management courses you took in our faculty during the year?


Rose: Only “Principles of Management” conducted by Dr. Katunda, plus two basic courses i.e. Marketing and Statistics. I must confess that although I passed all of them well, I did not like the management course.

Professor: How about majoring in Human Resources Management? Tell me Rose, did you attend my address to first year students at the end of the last academic year?

Rose: Yes Professor I was present and must admit most students were very impressed by the address. But what we learnt from Dr. Katunda is a sharp contrast to your presentation, and has driven us into a choice dilemma. If I am not mistaken you will be receiving many other colleagues for advice. We were given to understand that HRM jobs are basically staff jobs that cannot really lead us to any responsible positions in our career.

Professor: Hold on Rose. First of all I must apologise for causing this unfortunate confusion. I think I’d better tell you a little more about Human Resources Management.

Questions:

1. Imagine you were Professor Mbwette, what would you tell Rose Ngeve?

2. What real future trends in your country do you see that might help persuade B. Com. students to major in Human Resources Management?

1.18 Progress Questions

(1) Briefly discuss the differences between human resources management and personnel management.

(2) Outline the contributions to the development of human resources management made by three out of the following movements, research studies, and scientific fields:

(a) Scientific Management(b) Industrial Psychology(c) Hawthorne Studies(d) Human Relations Movement (e) Behavioural Sciences

(3) Outline the main functions of human resources management in the performance of a work organisation.

(4) (a) What do you understand by a profession? Use universal characteristic features to back up your answer.


(b) Basing on your answer in (a) above, would you consider human resources management a profession in your country? Explain reasons for your answer.

(5) Briefly assess the professional status of HRM in your country. What do you suggest should be done to accelerate the process?

(6) Discuss the tendencies which cause people to underrate the professionalism of the human resources management occupation in your country.

(7) Briefly outline the specific tasks that a human resources manager performs in an organisation.

(8) Describe the position of, and operational relationship between the human resources department and other departments in a work organisation.

(9) With the aid of an organigramme, critically discuss the alternative approaches of organising the human resources function in work organisations in this country.

(10) What are the major objectives of human resources management in the management of a work organisation?

(11) With the help of examples, discuss the major challenges facing HR managers in your country today. Suggest how HR managers may respond to these challenges.


1.19 Notes and References

1

see US Department of Commerce, "Statistical Abstract of the United States", 111th edition, US Government Printing Office, Washington D.C., 1991, 445.

2 compare with FRENCH W.L., "Human Resources Management", Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1990, p.8. We disagree however, with French's following statements: "The term personnel management or perhaps modern personnel management - means the same thing. Sometimes the terms personnel and industrial relations, personnel and labour relations, and employee relations are used to designate the same concept."

3 Adapted from GLUECK W.F., "Personnel, a diagnostic approach", Business Publications Inc. Plano, Texas 1982, p.11

4 Zambia Institute of Personnel Management Publication No. 3, “A Guide to Personnel Practice in Zambia, Lusaka”, 1985 p.1.

5 TORRINGTON D. and HALL L., "Personnel Management: A New Approach" Prentice Hall, New York, 1991.

6 WERTHER W.B. and DAVIS K., "Personnel Management and Human Resources", McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1985.

7

see also CHRUDEN H.J. and SHERMAN A.W., "Managing Human Resources", South-Western Publishing Co. Cincinnati, 1984 p.4.

8 In all organisations observed, the author noted that personnel managers were indigenous Tanzanians, and not recruited on the basis of their academic or professional qualifications. Their major leverage appeared to be their indigenous citizenship and therefore appropriateness to bargain with the indigenous Tanzanian employees, government, political organs, and trade unions in the undesired event of a labour unrest.

9refer to chapter 3.04 for a detailed discussion of the systems theory.

10 compare with CORNWALL D.J., "Human Resource Programmes: Blue Sky or Operating Priority?" Business Horizons, Vol.23, No. 1, April, 1980, p. 49.

11 refer to chapter 3.04 for a detailed discussion of the systems theory.

12Genesis 1:26 The Holy Bible.

13Genesis 1:27 The Holy Bible.Genesis 2:15, 21-22 The Holy Bible.

14Genesis 2:16-17 The Holy Bible.

15Genesis 3:17-19, 23 The Holy Bible.

16 A guild is an organisation of people who possess the same skills and perform the same job.

17 EMERSON H. "The Twelve Principles of Efficiency", in The Engineering Magazine Co., New York, 1913.

18 TAYLOR F.W., "What is Scientific Management?" reprinted in MERRILL H.F. (ed.), "Classics in Management", American Management Associations, New York, 1960 p. 80.

19 GREENBERG J. and BARON R.A., “Behaviour in Organisations: Understanding and Managing the Human Side of Work", Prentice-Hall International, Inc., 1995 pp.17-19.

20 MUNSTERBERG H., "Psychology and Industrial Efficiency", Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1913.

21 SCOTT W.D. and CLOTHIER R.C., “Personnel Management: Practices and Point of View”, A.W. Shaw and Co., New York, 1923.

22 INGHAM W. Van D. and MOORE .V., “How to Interview", Harper and Brothers, New York, 1931.

see also INGHAM W. Van D., "Aptitudes and Aptitude Testing", Harper and Brothers, New York, 1931.

23 GERBER P.D., NEL P.S., VAN DYK P.S. “International Thompson Publishing (SA) (Pty) Ltd., Johannesburg 1998 pp.29 – 20

24Collins Cobuild English Language Dictionary, Collins Publishers, London, 1987.

25See also CHRUDEN H. J. and SHERMAN A.W. Op. Cit. pp. 13 - 19.

see also TORRINGTON D. and HALL L., Op. Cit. pp. 19 - 20.

see also SCHULER R.S. and HUBER V.L., "Personnel and Human Resource Management, West Publishing Company, New York, 1987, p.30 - 31

26 GERBER P.D., NEL P.S., VAN DYK P.S. Op. Cit. p.31

27TORRINGTON D. and HALL L., Op. Cit. p.19.

28See also CHRUDEN H.J. and SHERMAN A.W. Op Cit., pp. 13 - 14.

29 The South African Board for Personnel Practice states its mission as to establish. Conduct and maintain a high standard of professionalism and ethical behaviour in personnel practice.

30This is the most common design practice in Eastern and Southern African Universities.

31TORRINGTON D. and HALL L., Op. Cit. p..3.

32

33 WILEY B. "Accreditation: What Do We Need That For?" The Personnel Administrator, November, 1975, p.39.

34 Up-to-date details of Training Institutions that offer courses in Human Resources Management, organised under country names is available in a yearly publication called, "The World of Learning". This publication is available in all good libraries.

35See for example the Zimbabwe Institute of Personnel Management.

36 Please refer to our discussion later in this chapter, on the professionalism of human resources management.

37 Please refer to chapter three for a detailed presentation of Henry Mintzberg’s model of classifying human resources in organisations.

38See also CHRUDEN H. J. and SHERMAN A.W. Op. Cit. p. 550.

39 Please refer to our disducssion on the professionalism of human resources management later in this chapter.

40 Zambia Institute of Personnel Management Publication No. 3, “A Guide to Personnel Practice in Zambia, Lusaka”, 1985 p.4.

41 Zambia Institute of Personnel Management Publication No. 3, “A Guide to Personnel Practice in Zambia, Lusaka”, 1985 pp.1-2.

42 e.g. accounting. It is not unusual for a small firm to start without a full fledged accounting department. The accounting function is normally performed as part of the duties of the chief executive.

43 Please note that the existing human resources department staff should not be left alone to design their department, they should only provide the information needed for this purpose. This restriction is a safeguard against existing staff building their personal interests into the design of the new department.

44 An example of a divisionalised industrial organisation whose human resources function is organised like this is the Aluminium Africa Limited in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

45 Certainly, in large organisations such as the National Insurance Corporation of Tanzania Ltd., and Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd., and large government ministries, administrative services can efficiently be organised under an autonomous department instead of being combined with the human resources department.

46 refer to chapter three for a detailed discussion of the categorisation of organisational tasks.

47 Zambia Institute of Personnel Management Publication No. 3, “A Guide to Personnel Practice in Zambia”, Lusaka, 1985 p.3.

48 CAUDROS S. “HR Leaders Brainstorm the Profession’s Future” Personnel Journal, August 1994, pp.54-61. See also our earlier section on HRM versus Personnel Management.

49Quote Act No…….of 1999.

50 PETERS T. “Time-Obsessed Competition” Management Review, September, 11990, p. 16-20.

51 HAMMER M. and CHAMPY, “Reengineering the Corporation” Harper Collins, New York, 1993.

52 Vihiyo is a Swahili term for employees with fake or forged qualifications.53These negative impressions were discussed in detail in Section 1.06 in this chapter.

54 See also: GOW J.F. “Human Resources Managers Must Remember the Bottom Line” Personnel Journal, April 1985 p. 32.

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