Our Story
History of HRM.
Human Resources is a business function, which manages, leads, facilitates and provides tools for the human capital management in the organization. HR sets strategic processes and procedures, runs difficult and complex communication campaigns as the organization attracts the best talents from the job market, retains them with the attractive compensation packages or it develops them in talent development programs. HR runs many processes, which are crucial for the modern organization. We cannot believe that the successful business could exist without the Recruitment and Staffing, Compensation and Benefits, Training and Development or the Leadership Development. However, in the past the companies did not use any of the HR value added processes. The story of Human Resources started as evidence of all employees. It dealt with issues and requests. Nothing more was expected to be delivered. The HR Management history is fascinating. The wars usually change the path of Human Resources in organizations and society.
HR Management HistoryThe history of Human Resources starts to be interesting with the evolution of the large factories. It was in the 18th century. The rapid development of new industrial approach to work changed the world dramatically. The quick and cheap production became a priority for many industries. The factories hired thousands of workers, who worked up to 16 hours a day. Soon, many entrepreneurs discovered that satisfied employees are more effective and can produce more than depressed employees. Many factories started to introduce voluntary programs for employees to increase their comfort and satisfaction. On the other hand, the government started to intervene to introduce some basic human rights and the work safety legislation.
The second rapid development of Human Resources started in the beginning of 20th century. Most organizations introduced the Personnel Management. The personnel department had large responsibilities. It was dealing with issues, introducing the new law requirements. It had the responsibility for the implementation of different social and work place safety programs. Everything was focused on the productivity of employees. The regular productivity increments were the key measure for the management of employees. The significant change was introduced after the 2nd World War because the military developed many training programs for new soldiers. After the war, the training became a respected process in personnel department.
During this period, the trade unions evolved. The trade unions changed the rules of the game. The employer got a strong partner to discuss with. Trade unions introduced many improvements at no significant costs for the employer. Today, trade unions are not as strong as they were used to be, but many organizations still benefit or suffer from a strong presence of trade unions in their factories.
The real HR Revolution began in 70’s of the 20th century (see Early HR Management). The technology and the globalization have changed the rules of the game. Most HR Functions are running complex HRIS solutions, which make information about employees available anywhere and anytime to managers and HR Professionals.
The economy of the wealthy western countries shifted towards the services economy. The quality of services became the crucial competitive advantage. HR became necessary because the structure of the workforce changed. The leadership development was the right answer.
Managers and leaders have to think global today; they have to understand to different cultural backgrounds. The corporate culture cannot be country specific; it has to reflect many nations working for the organization. This is a fantastic opportunity for Human Resources. Human Resources Management is global today. The global HR policies drive processes in different countries, but the processes produce comparable results. The employees relocate from country to country.
The future of Human Resources is bright. The globalization cannot be stopped because nations collaborate. The organizations become less country specific, and they cannot identify themselves with one country.
New technologies will bring other revolutions to offices. The commute working is standard today, but it will become a norm. The technology will connect employees as they would sit in the next cubicle.
iPads will allow quick and instant access to information about employees and managers will be able to make all decisions and approvals online.
However, the future of Human Resources will be about new networking methods and how to make employees know each other.
The future of HR Management
The future of Human Resources is backed by the advanced technology and the return of the human approach to our management practices. The small and nimble start-up companies show the future of HR. They do not implement robust HR processes; their approach is agile. The agile HR is the right approach for the near future. Most upcoming trends require HR that is flexible, and that will shape the HR Organization of tomorrow.
The simplification is a trend that cannot Human Resources ignore in the near future. Running a complex organization is expensive; the sophisticated HR processes and procedures are expensive; the long decision-making process makes organization uncompetitive. The company can become quick, lean and competitive if it simplifies its processes. HR has to focus on the simplification of its complex processes. It has to return the decision making rights back to employees and managers. HR has to oversight processes; it should not make all tactical decisions. Simplification hurts, but it is a part of the future of Human Resources Management. Moreover, the simplification is closely linked to another future issue of Human Resources - the globalization.
The globalization is a genuine challenge for Human Resources. The real global team is not just about one centralized Head Quarter which sends out global policies. It is about the ability of the company to manage the rest of the team from any place in the world. Most globally present companies miss the "global picture" as they try to manage all countries using the same matrix and approach. HR has to develop new leaders who will act globally. They can operate from any place on the Earth, and they can lead and manage global cross-cultural teams. They have to find the cost effective way to manage the organization globally as the company does not grow in number of global management layers which do not add value and make the decision making process long and painful.
Our leadership development practices will be a significant imperative for us. Most organizations run their operation at risk because they have no successors for the leader. Many organizations do not survive when the founder of the company leaves. The future of HR is about making sure that the new leader grows and develops inside the organization. The company has to be ready to shift the leadership within days because it saves its future.
One of the trends to build a sustainable competitive advantage are innovations and the innovations management. However, most HR Organizations do not understand how they should support changes in the organization. HR has to be able to connect innovations with the traditional change management to design a true powerful weapon against competitors on the market. Supporting innovations is not easy because the organization has to empower employees to elaborate ideas. It has to accept not to control employees. It has to provide them with the freedom to be creative. This is the moment where HR should step in and design essential principles and training courses for managers. HR has to learn managers how to provide employees with freedom to be innovative and creative. It is a task for the future of Human Resources.
In the future, we can expect a new era of agile HRIS solutions. Today, we use the robust and full scope HRIS solution which fits all our requirements and needs. However, in the near future our requirements will start to change rapidly. The complex and expensive HRIS solution will not be able to keep up with requirements and the maintenance of such a system will be a nightmare. The new agile HRIS solution will be simple, small, and it will support just the necessary administration of personnel files. However, it will offer a rich connectivity to other systems around which will deliver HR services with high frequency of changes. Times of old and complex HRIS solutions are over.
Social media change Human Resources (even today). HR of the future will have to utilize social media as the best communication channel. However, it will have to define rules for discussions that go beyond pure internal conversations. HR will have to show employees what confidentiality and the business secret means and how they should act. Organizations will be extremely vulnerable to exposing its business secrets to public audiences. HR of the future will be the master of social media, and it will teach other business functions how to communicate internally and externally without taking excessive risks.
Last trend of the future will be HR in the cloud. HR Data will be present online and most HR processes will be fully paperless. We dream about the paperless HR office for many years, but HR cloud solutions will enable such a future.
Yes, the history of Human Resources is not a finished book yet. Many new HR approaches and processes will evolve as organizations will look for new ways how to be competitive on the market.
