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Wednesday, 23 August 2023

Quick HRM map

The field of human resource is complex, today forming a broad system which supports line managers with the tools they need to first develop and support their employees, and through those employees, to secondly drive - or facilitate - organisational performance (Grimard & Cossette, 2017). The difficulty is that often when we teach HRM, we tend to teach it as fragmented elements: legal aspects; taxation; conflict management; training... instead of providing an HRM overview showing how the elements fit together. We also tend also in courses to not relate HR functions to small businesses. We seem to 'assume' a corporate cloak when we talk about HR.

That can be more like an 'invisibility' cloak at times. Small businesses need HR too, but so often in Aotearoa do not have it.

The old adage is that HR is "having the right people in the right place at the right time", but HR today is far more complex than that. Two Canadian professors / researchers thought about this, and created the Quick HRM 'map' to show how HR is in fact "a coherent system of functions all integrally linked to each other" (Grimard & Cossette, 2017, p. 52). Each of the varied HR functions "consists of multiple steps, and each of these steps involves several tools" (p. 53), including: job analysis; planning; staffing; development; and maintenance (see below, p. 56). 

I particularly like this map as it shows the development elements - those which grow staff - separately to those of maintenance. Development aligns well with motivators or areas of satisfaction from Herzberg's Two Factor Theory (1959); while maintenance aligns well with dissatisfaction or demotivators. It is a nice division which helps clarify that HRD should have a developmental approach, which I feel may get lost in larger organisations, or be sacrificed during times of hardship in small organisations.

The authors have managed to locate the five HR areas on the map - job analysis, planning, staffing, development, maintenance - by repeating planning between the HRD and maintenance tasks; implying that it lies between all these tasks (Grimard & Cossette, 2017, p. 56). I was thinking that they could also have simply included a box behind all these elements to show that they all sit in 'a sea' of planning. 

For my part, in the Quick HRM map, I colour-coded the blocks to show which function they belonged to, but did not include an yellow planning box behind all. Perhaps I should have done. And perhaps I should have coloured the task of job analysis yellow as well. And interestingly I did not colour the staffing elements as a different colour because I see these two elements as much more part of planning, and less of the separate function of 'staffing'. Interesting how biases come out when we work with a model! Further, I felt that the job analysis box did not quite fit the model. This is such a 'task' - or output - of the planning process, that it just didn't seem to fit. I totally get why the authors include it in the model, but there is something odd about it needing to be included that just doesn't quite gel. 

How does this model - and my interpretation - fit with your existing knowledge and understanding of HR practices?


Sam

References:

Grimard, C. M., & Cossette, M. (2017). Quick HRM: Using a brief case study to introduce students to HRM. In Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, Proceedings of the Annual ABSEL conference, 44(1), 52-58. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/5813/322a84a0da865a64aa1d8cf0677e0bf8a205.pdf

Herzberg, F. (1959). The Motivation to Work. John Wiley & Sons.

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