HRM is an Optimistic but Ambiguous Concept It is all Hype and Hope - Management Assignment Help

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RESERVATIONS ABOUT HRM

For some time, HRM was a controversial topic, especially in academic circles. The main reservations have been that HRM promises more than it delivers and that its morality is suspect. HRM promises more than it can deliver Comment Noon (1992) has commented that HRM has serious deficiencies as a theory: ‘It is built with concepts and propositions, but the associated variables and hypotheses are not made explicit. It is too comprehensive… If HRM is labelled a “theory” it raises expectations about its ability to describe and predict.’ Guest (1991) believes that HRM is an ‘optimistic but ambiguous concept’; it is all hype and hope. Mabey et al (1998) follow this up by asserting that ‘the heralded outcomes (of HRM) are almost without exception unrealistically high’. To put the concept of HRM into practice involves strategic integration, developing a coherent and consistent set of employment policies, and gaining commitment. This requires high levels of determination and competence at all levels of management and a strong and effective HR function staffed by business-orientated people. It may be difficult to meet these criteria, especially when the proposed HRM culture conflicts with the established corporate culture and traditional managerial attitudes and behaviour. Gratton et al (1999) are convinced on the basis of their research that there is ‘a disjunction between rhetoric and reality in the area of human resource management between HRM theory and HRM practice, between what the HR function says it is doing and that practice as perceived by employers, and between what senior management believes to be the role of the HR function, and the role it actually plays’. In their conclusions they refer to the ‘hyperbole and rhetoric of human resource management’. Response There is no doubt that many organizations that think they are practising HRM are doing nothing of the kind. It is difficult, and it is best not to expect Human resource management l 13 too much. Most of the managements who hurriedly adopted performancerelated pay as an HRM device that would act as a lever for change have been sorely disappointed. But the research conducted by Guest and Conway (1997) covering a stratified random sample of 1,000 workers established that a notably high level of HRM was found to be in place. This contradicts the view that management has tended to ‘talk up’ the adoption of HRM practices. The HRM characteristics covered by the survey included the opportunity to express grievances and raise personal concerns on such matters as opportunities for training and development, communications about business issues, single status, effective systems for dealing with bullying and harassment at work, making jobs interesting and varied, promotion from within, involvement programmes, no compulsory redundancies, performancerelated pay, profit sharing and the use of attitude surveys. The philosophy of HRM is indeed aspirational, but what is wrong with trying to do better, even if success is hard to obtain? The incessant reference to the rhetoric/reality gap by academics suggests that there is a deeply held and cynical belief amongst them that managements never mean what they say or, if they do mean it, don’t do anything about it. This may be so in some cases but it is not a universal characteristic. Academics often refer to the ‘rhetoric’ of HR practitioners, but should more accurately have referred to the rhetoric of the HR academics who have been debating what HRM means, how different it is, whether or not it is a good thing and indeed whether or not it exists, endlessly and unproductively. Practitioners have pressed on regardless, in the justified belief that what the academics were writing about had little relevance to their day-today lives as they wrestle with the realities of organizational life. They did not suddenly see the light in the 1980s and change their ways, for better or for worse. The true personnel or HR professionals just kept on doing what they had always done but tried to do it better. They took note of the much wider range of publications about HR practices and the information on socalled ‘best practice’ provided by management consultants and conference organizers, and they learnt from the case studies emanating from the research conducted by the burgeoning academic institutions. They also recognized that to succeed in an increasingly competitive world they had to become more professional, and they are encouraged to do so by bodies such as the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. They took account of new ideas and implemented new practices because they were persuaded that they were appropriate, not because they fitted into any sort of HRM philosophy.

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