What do you mean by human resource management?

Definition of human resource management (HRM)

Human resource management is organising, coordinating, and managing employees within an
organisation to accomplish its mission, vision, and goals. This includes recruiting, hiring,
training, compensating, retaining, and motivating employees.

HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

Dr. Gurmanjit Kaur
1. INTRODUCTION
Human resource management is the process that deals with utilizing people to perform duties
and function in an organization or an institution. Human resource management in education is
a set of practices and methods of integrating and maintaining the teaching and other staff in
the institution or school so that the institution or school can achieve their purpose as well as
meet the goals for which they were established. Human resource management is the
planning, organising, directing and controlling of the procurement, development,
compensation, integration, maintenance, and separation of human resources to the end that
individual, organisational and social objectives are accomplished. Human resource
management in education essentially is concerned with three major issues: assessing the
need of staff, satisfying the need of staff and maintaining and improving the staff services.
Human resource management has some specific roles to play like strategic roles and
operational ones.

2. LEARNING OUTCOMES
After going through this topic, you will be able to:
● Tell the meaning of human resource management
● Identify the constituents of human resource management
● Enlist the objectives of human resource management
● Describe the role of human resource management in education
● Analyse the functions of human resource management
● Interpret the challenges of human resource management
● Rationalise the need of human resource management in education
● Sensitize about the need of human resource management at different levels
3. WHAT CONSTITUTES HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT?
Human resource management consists of following aspects shown through Figure 1:
4. HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION
Human resource refers to the personnel, staff or workers in an organization. Management
means the methods by which the leader utilizes material and human resources to achieve
predetermined organizational or educational institution goals. Thus, human resource
management is the process that deals with utilizing people to perform duties and function in
an organization or institution. Human resource management deals with the establishment of
procedures for the employment and payment of workers or staff. It is the arrangement of
conditions which make possible greater self-direction by staff in the performance of their
duties. It is, therefore, an important function in the general context of all administrative
responsibility of managing staff and consists of following aspects as depicted by Figure 2:

Figure 2: Aspects of human resource management

Human resource management in education is a set of practices and methods of integrating
and maintaining the teaching and other staff in the institution or school so that the institution
or school can achieve its purpose as well as meet the goals for which they were established. It
is the motivation and coordination of the activities and efforts of teachers and other
employees in school in order to obtain maximum output from them and consequently achieve
the goals of education optimally. In other words human resource management is the process
of motivating workers in the organization so as to obtain maximum output from them.

In simple words, HRM is a process of making the efficient and effective use of human
resources in an educational institution so that the set goals of education are achieved.
5. OBJECTIVES
The primary objective of HRM is to ensure the availability of right people for right jobs so as
the educational goals of an educational organization are achieved effectively.
This primary objective can further be divided into the following sub-objectives:
1. To help the educational organization to attain its goals effectively and efficiently by
providing competent and motivated teachers.
2. To utilize the efficiency of each teacher available in school effectively.
3. To increase the job satisfaction of each employee and teacher to the level of self-
actualisation.
4. To develop and maintain the quality of work life (QWL) which makes employment in the
educational organization a desirable personal and social situation.
5. To help maintain ethical behaviour and policies inside and outside the educational
organisation.
 6. To establish and maintain cordial relations among employees and management.
7. To reconcile each individual teacher/ employee or group of teacher/employee with
organizational goals.
The educational system at every level depends heavily on the human resources for
execution of its programme. It is the teacher who ultimately interprets and implements policy
as represented in the school curriculum, which is designed to actualize educational goals.
Maintaining and improving educational standards is only possible through teachers. Teachers
therefore are the most indispensable entity in the school. They are the greatest aid to
learning. On the one hand the teachers are the critical resources for effective implementation
and realization of the educational policies and objectives at the practical level of classroom
and on the other hand they could be identified as mentors to improve the entire institutional
system.

It should be noted that the major premise of human resources management in education is
that the end results of the educative process will be determined by the effectiveness of the
teachers who facilitate learning for self-actualization and national development. Human
resource management in education essentially is concerned with three major issues namely:
1. Assessing the need for staff: The school needs to assess areas of need and recruit
the staff to exhibit capable governance and leadership at various levels, both of which
will promote student performance and school effectiveness. Every institute needs to
develop assessment tool to; identify available services and gaps in it and assess the
level of knowledge, perceptions, and attitudes of its employees/teachers. The
assessment will help a school or consortia of schools collect information about existing
policies, prevention and intervention; student’s knowledge and perceptions of abuse;
and resources and service available to students in schools and in the community. This
information will assist the school or consortium in identifying strengths, gaps in
resources and services, and highlight successes in order to leverage resources to
achieve desired outcomes.
2. Satisfying the need for staff: There is need to identify internal factors that
motivates the behaviour of an individual. Physiological needs include things such as
food, water, shelter and clothing, all of which can be satisfied with a reliable income.
Disbursing competitive financial compensation will satisfy employees’ physiological
needs. Organisation must provide comprehensive benefits to your employees to satisfy
their safety needs. Safety needs include physical health, job security and protection for
private property. Let your words and actions ensure them well that they have job
security to reinforce their safety needs. Create a welcoming company culture based on
mutual respect to satisfy employees’ need for belonging. Need for belonging includes
need for friendship, social integration, family and romantic relationships. Giving
employees the freedom to socialize can be a double-edged sword; while some
employees may become loyal due to their workplace relationships, others may become
dissatisfied if they do not fit into social circles. Reward high performers publicly and
provide employees with personally rewarding challenges to satisfy their esteem needs.
Esteem needs include respect from others, a sense of achievement and confidence in
one’s abilities. Set the tone in your organization by speaking personally with as many of
your employees as possible. Encourage employees and recognize rising stars in your
company for their outstanding achievements. Institute should organise comprehensive
employee development programs and provide ample opportunity for career growth in
your company to satisfy employees’ self-actualization needs.
3. Maintaining and improving the staff services: These ideas are intended only to
illustrate some of the measures service organizations may take. In practice there is
often overlap between actions and practices in each category and a number of other
 possibilities may be considered. Achieving consistency of human effort is an important
goal of many service organizations. Clearly it is important for service organizations to
establish set procedures for some of their services to ensure they are performed in a
consistent way. This should be a major feature of the campaign and ranges from a
supervisor saying “well done”, to a special Customer Service Awards Scheme.
Therefore we have to establish a policy among all section heads towards the
recognition of individual performance. A method of reward scheme, possibly in the form
of free tickets, should be considered, with a committee appointed to consider
nominations.
6. ROLE OF HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION
The goals of human resource management in education are to enhance the development of
the employees or teachers so that they can contribute to goal achievement. Human resource
management has some specific roles to play like strategic roles and operational roles.

Strategic Role: Operational Human Resource management professionals typically handle

the day-to-day, tactical operations. Human resources are critical for effective educational
functioning. Human resources were once relegated to second-class status in business, but its
importance has grown dramatically in the last two decade. Again, its new importance stem
from adequately recruited, selected , supervised, inducted and adequately rewarded,
provided for, properly developed, employee appraised and promoted on the job. They will be
committed to the job, remain dedicated and productive in the education system. It also
represents a significant investment of the educational efforts. If managed well, human
resources can be a source of competitive strength for the education. Strategically, human
resources must be viewed in the same context as the financial, technological and other
resources that are managed in an organization.

Ope rational Role: The strategic HR management staff performs a planning role that
focuses on the long-term interests of the education. Operational HR functions for relations of
employee and employer and encompasses maintaining policies and records, ensuring
compliance to local, state and national regulations, and managing disciplinary disputes and
complaints. Operational HR tasks are associated with recruiting and training of employees. No
doubt, the institutions need both functions to ensure that they have the right staff, with the
right skills and knowledge, at the right time to complete work for the quality in education. This
allows the educational institutions to achieve their goals and objectives. Human resources
management is interested in compliance with equal employment opportunities and
observation of laws in educational sector; like employees or teachers must be oriented to the
educational institutions, supervisors must be trained, safety problems must be resolved;
wages and salaries must be administered. A wide range of activities typically associated with
the day-to-day management of people as provided by laws and regulations must be
performed efficiently. It is this collection of activities that has often been referred to as the
personnel function, and the newer strategic focus of human resource management that has
not been eliminated. In summary, it is difficult to produce one general interpretation of what
human resource management means today.

7. FUNCTIONS OF HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT IN EDUCATION

Human resource management works in various areas of staff development .It takes care of all
the concerns of staff and its major functions could be studied under following headings as:
i. Staff maintenance: In Educational organizations teachers/ employee should be
encouraged to participate in planning and decision making in the school. They should be
encouraged by recognizing the staff as human beings with feelings, interest, emotions and
treating them as such with fairness and respect.

ii. Staff Development: This is the process of appraising staff performances and identifying
their key skills and competence that need development or training to improve their skills for
better performance. It involves providing development programme and training courses that
are suitable for the programme. The success of educational organization hinges on the
strength and quality of its staff members. There is need to change, improve and grow in
competence through training. This can be done through in-service training, conference,
workshop and seminars.

iii. Procurement of Staff: Human resource management initiates with the process of staff
maintenance This concerns for making the work environment conducive for workers,
employing pertinent practices like; promotion and transfer, motivation, staff safety, security
and health services. It is pertinent that educational establishments have sound policies in
respect of transfer and promotion of staff to ensure that justice and fairness prevail in dealing.
As work to be performed in the school is important, the mood of the man to perform the job is
equally important. For maximum and productive goal attainment, the head of educational
organization must ensure the comfort and happiness of the teachers/ employee. This can be
done through prompt payment of salaries , and providing a safe and healthy working
environment.

iv. Staff Relations: There must be a good communication network in the institute to enable
teachers/employee to be constantly informed of the progress being made in the recruitment
and selection. This will ensure that educational institutions get the best personnel to interpret
and implement the curriculum programmes. Staffing of schools is a job performed by the
ministry of education through its agencies in the federal and state government. Procurement
of staff in education encompasses recruiting people with appropriate skills, abilities,
knowledge and experience to fill the vacant teaching posts in schools.

v. Job Performance Rewards: This involves the design and administration of rewards for
jobs performed. It is very important that management, ministry of education and its agencies
take the issue of reward system very seriously. Staff performance would increase
substantially if they are adequately compensated according to the quality and quantity of
work done.

8. NEED FOR HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Human resources management is the backbone of every organization. The triumph of every
education organization depends upon the worth of persons it employs.

Since an organisation is a body of people, their development, acquisition of skills, motivation

for higher levels of attainments, as well as ensuring their level of commitment are all
significant activities. These activities fall in the domain of HRM. Human Resource
Management is responsible for maintaining good human relations in the organisation. It is
also concerned with development of individuals and achieving integration of goals of the
organisation and those of the individuals. We often observe that management of human
resource occupies a central sub system of an organization. Being the central sub system,
human resource management interacts closely and continuously with all other subsystems.
Human resource management helps in spotting the exact individual for the precise job.
Suitability for the job and quality of work go hand in hand in determining the quality of any
work force.

1. Human Resource Management helps in creating better rapport between the

management and the subordinates. It helps subordinates to realize individual and
organizational goals.
2. Since employees are constantly trained, they are ready to meet the job requirements.
The institution is also able to identify potential employees who can be promoted in the
future for the top level jobs. Thus one of the advantages of HRM is preparing people for
the future.
3. If proper recruitment and selection methods are followed, the institution will be able to
select the right people for the right job. When this happens the number of people
leaving the education organization will be reduced as they will be satisfied with their
job leading to decrease in staff turnover.
4. Due to proper Human Resource policies, employees are trained well and this makes
them ready for future promotions. Their talent can be utilized not only in the
educational organization in which they are currently working but also in other
institutions.
5. Political philosophy has undergone change all over the world. The new approach is to
develop human resource properly for ensuring its better use.
The technological changes have necessitated the use of sophisticated machines.

9. HOW TO MANAGE HUMAN RESOURCES AT FOUR LEVELS National Level:

a) To create conducive conditions for development of nation.
b) To provide suitable means for exploitation and utilization of a nation’s natural, physical and
financial resources required for efficient and committed manpower.
c) To facilitate human resource in generating high standard of living by inculcating such skill,
attitudes and values which are required for speeding up the process of economic and
educational growth.

Organizational Level:
Human Resource Management (HRM) is a relatively new approach to manage people in any
organisation. People are considered the key resource in this approach. It is concerned with
the people dimension in management of an all other sub-system of an organization. The
functional ability and efficiency of people in all subsystems of an organization heavily rely on
the policies, programmes and practices of the HRM.

Professional level:
Effective management of human resource will help to improve the quality of work life. It will
promote teamwork among employees by providing a healthy working environment. It can
contribute for professional growth in the following ways:
a) Providing maximum opportunities for personal development of each employee.
b) Maintaining healthy relationships among individuals, and different work groups.
c) Allocating work properly.

Social Level:
Sound human resource management will have a great significance for the society. It can help
to enhance the dignity of labor in the following ways:

a) Providing suitable employment that provides social and psychological satisfaction to

people.
b) Maintaining a balance between the jobs available and the jobseekers in terms of numbers,
qualifications, needs and aptitudes.
c) Eliminating waste of human resources through conservation of physical and mental health.

SUMMARY
Human Resource Management is the qualitative improvement of human beings who are
considered the most valuable assets of an organization – the sources, resources and end –
users of all products and services. It is a scientific process of continuously enabling the
employees to improve and update their present and future expected roles. So that goals of
the organization are achieved in cost effective manner as well as needs of the employees and
teachers are also met to an adequate extent.

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References
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