HR Working Practices & Patterns Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

HR Working Practices & Patterns - Essay Example Industrial Revolution: Industrial revolution brought in picture big organizations and factories first in England and later in North America. The concept of Economies of Scale also came in the picture according to which large people were required to work to achieve cost benefits. The involvement of large number of people in work areas brought complexities. In the initial days, however, the emphasis was more on machines than people. The working conditions favored machines and their efficiency rather than people and their capabilities. As a result, working conditions were dismal for people. Welfare/Social Secretaries: The growing issues associated with the work force, made them raise their voices against human problems. Employees started forming Unions to make their voices heard. In order to deal with such issues the post of welfare secretaries or social secretaries was created. This can be considered as the most primitive form of HR function after the industrial revolution. The initial task of such secretaries was to keep workers from directly reaching managers for their grievances. Secondly, they were required to discourage employees from dealing with unions or forming unions for their problems. The creation of the post of secretaries can be considered a move to give a specialized status of dealing with the issues related to employees. Before such posts were created operating managers were also dealing with the issues of employees. The creation of these new posts relieved operation managers of this extra burden. Birth of Scientific Management: Frederick Taylor was the person who put forward the concept of scientific management. He emphasized on the inclusion of scientific study in the management arena. He suggested improvement in management practices i.e. study of different situation be carried out to bring about improvements. He basically worked on A steel plant called Bethlehem Steel Plant and studied the typical procedures and made his recommendation to improve the whole process. He also introduced an incentive system to improve the whole process and so human capital management made an important component of his study. "He worked out an incentive system that paid each man $1.85 a day for meeting the new standard, an increase from the previous rate of $1.15. Productivity at Bethlehem Steel shot up over night" (Daft 1997). Primitive HR: 1900 brought primitive HR departments within large organizations like AT&T. So welfare secretaries were replaced by these new departments that were called personnel department. This change started from the period ending World War I. "While historians disagree on the specific date assigned to the appearance of the first personnel department, most agree that, between 1900 and 1920, more organizations were employing specialists to assist with personnel matters" (Jamrog & Overholt 2004). Their tasks generally included compensation handling, dealings with unions and other employee concerns. Though a separate department was dealing with the needs of employees, but production, finance and to some extent marketing was considered important functions or departments. However, with the passage of time the personnel department started getting more attention from top management. Hawthorne Studies: Hawthorne studies conducted at Western Electric's Hawthorne plant can be considered instrumental in bringing changes in the HR function.