What Concerns Might Be Raised About Endorsing Human Resource Management (hrm as the “best-Practice” Approach to Managing Employment Relations?

...

But if Human Resource Management is not the “best practice “ approach to managing employment relations, then what other alternatives is there?

A good example of an alternative to Human Resource Management is a Trade Union. Trade Unions are organizations which consist of workers and the union leaders. The main aim of a trade union is to defend the rights of employees and to promote their demands and needs. Trade unions are in charge of negotiating worker’s wages and working conditions. They also aim to adjust the relationship between an employee and the employer, which is beneficial for both sides as it helps to avoid conflicts. Trade unions have union leaders who represent all of the members of these, and talk on the behalf of the union members by demanding what they desire . Basically, trade unions protect the interest of their members.

However there are some concerns about trade unions as they can cause unemployment through their strike threats if their working conditions and demands are not met, as they make wages go above equilibrium. Another problem with trade unions is that they only look at the interest of those who are members of the union, as they could make companies go out of business through strikes (companies would have big losses) , which would mean that the company would not be able to employ the already unemployed, reducing their options of finding a job. If a trade union was to became powerful, it could demand higher wages, above the inflation rate. This could lead to a general inflation, a good example being trade unions in the UK who were one of the main causes of the 27 % inflation rate in the UK in 1979. Also, in an organization in which there is a union representation, money is taken out of member’s and ,in some cases, non-member’s wages.

In conclusion, after having analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of Human Resource Management, and having offered an alternative way to approach managing employment relations (Trade Unions ) it can be said that it is difficult to decide if Human Resource Management is the best approach, as it would depend on it being applied strictly and appropriately, in a way in which both employee and company are benefited. Trade Unions have proved to be effective when it comes to employee’s interests but they also cause big problems for companies, in some cases taking them to the verge of running out of business. Obviously Human Resource Management has its negative points, like everything, and it may not be the “ best practice” approach to employment relations, but it is definitely effective and very rarely causes major problems. Any company without a well functioning Human Management Resources department is bound to struggle to succeed in the future, so many companies these days put a lot of work into having a well set up HMR department , which goes on to show that HRM is indeed a very good way of managing employment relations.

Bibliography :

Bidisha Mukherjee , Buzzle, 2012, “Benefits of Human Resource Management” http://www.buzzle.com/articles/benefits-of-human-resource-management.html

Jesse Lanclos, EHow, 2012 , “Disadvantages of Labour Unions” , http://www.ehow.com/about_5333683_disadvantages-labor-unions.html

Prof. Debasish Dutta, 2009, Human Resource Management, Slideshare , http://www.slideshare.net/soumyashree85/human-resource-management-2179947

Reference for Business, 2006, “Human Resource Management”, http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/small/Eq-Inc/Human-Resource-Management.html#b

Oxbridge Writers , “The advantages and disadvantages” ,http://www.oxbridgewriters.com/essays/management/the-advantages-and-disadvantages.php

---------------------------------------------------------------