History of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

History of HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

Antecedent theoretical developments

HR spawned from the human relations movement, which began in the early 20th century due to work by Frederick Taylor in lean manufacturing. Taylor explored what he termed "scientific management" (later referred to by others as "Taylorism"), striving to improve economic efficiency in manufacturing jobs. He eventually keyed in on one of the principal inputs into the manufacturing process—labor—sparking inquiry into workforce productivity.
The movement was formalized following the research of Elton Mayo, whose Hawthorne studies serendipitously documented how stimuli unrelated to financial compensation and working conditions—attention and engagement—yielded more productive workers. Contemporaneous work by Abraham Maslow, Kurt Lewin, Max Weber, Frederick Herzberg, and David McClelland formed the basis for studies in organizational behavior and organizational theory, giving room for an applied discipline.

Birth and evolution of the discipline

By the time enough theoretical evidence existed to make a business case for strategic workforce management, changes in the business landscape (a là Andrew Carnegie, John Rockefeller) and in public policy (a là Sidney and Beatrice Webb, Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal) had transformed the employer-employee relationship, and the discipline was formalized as "industrial and labor relations". In 1913, one of the oldest known professional HR associations—the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development—was founded in England as the Welfare Workers' Association, then changed its name a decade later to the Institute of Industrial Welfare Workers, and again the next decade to Institute of Labour Management before settling upon its current name. Likewise in the United States, the world's first institution of higher education dedicated to workplace studies—the School of Industrial and Labor Relations—was formed at Cornell University in 1945
During the latter half of the 20th century, union membership declined significantly, while workforce management continued to expand its influence within organizations. "Industrial and labor relations" began being used to refer specifically to issues concerning collective representation, and many companies began referring to the profession as "personnel administration". In 1948, what would later become the largest professional HR association—the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)—was founded as the American Society for Personnel Administration (ASPA).
Nearing the 21st century, advances in transportation and communications greatly facilitated workforce mobility and collaboration. Corporations began viewing employees as assets rather than as cogs in machine. "Human resources management", consequently, became the dominant term for the function—the ASPA even changing its name to SHRM in 1998."Human capital management" is sometimes used synonymously with HR, although human capital typically refers to a more narrow view of human resources; i.e., the knowledge the individuals embody and can contribute to an organization. Likewise, other terms sometimes used to describe the field include "organizational management", "manpower management", "talent management", "personnel management", and simply "people management".