Human Resource Managment - Essay Example

The main function of personnel managers is to recruit talented and suitable people for various positions. Apart from that some other functions include classification of jobs and determining pay scale, provide employees required counseling, to handle problems at work including disciplinary problems, to negotiate terms and conditions with unions, to ensure that firm has safe working environment, to review performance and to help employees in their professional growth. Personnel management has three important phases.

The first phase is gathering correct information about employees and the organization. The second phase includes regular updating of this data so all information remains accurate and current. The third phase includes dissemination of information. There are subtle but important differences between human resource management and personnel management. HR management is much wider in scope than Personnel management and while it incorporates some of the tasks of personnel management, it also covers much more than that.

Its job is to ensure that employees at working at their peak. Personnel management on the other hand is more administrative in nature dealing with employee laws, payrolls and policies. Strategic human resource management refers to the impact of strategies developed by HRM on organizational growth and performance. . important in a macro sense since it takes the longer-term view and plans on developing employees in a way that would prepare them for longer-term growth of the company. In other words SHRM keeps an eye on the future direction of the firm and prepares employees likewise.

Ithaca's OwnIthaca's Own (IO) is a big name in the health food and natural products industry. Its personnel management department is fairly new which means that we have yet to know how it would impact the firm in the long run. It is clear from the information available that Ithaca is not interested in hiring from too many sources. Its main hiring hub consists of local sources and finding people at lower jobs has never been a problem. However more qualified people or specialists are hard to locate.

The firm thus needs to work on this area. It is also clear from the information that union negotiation is not a problem for personnel managers. However since it is a possibility, they must be trained in handling such issues. So far employees are not part of any labor union but it can happen anytime since attempts have already been made.From breakdown of budget, it is clear that firm is investing heavily on Research & development and Operations. Too little is being spent on managers in R&D when this department is playing such a major role in the performance of the firm.

The firm also needs to spend more on career planning. 'Operations' is also a vital department but staff shortage in this area can create trouble in the long run. When analyzing the data we realize that budget breakdown does reflect CEO's policy of research and development being important. However as we noticed in the breakdown, company is not investing as much in employee development as it should considering R&D is its major strength.