Personnel vs. Human Resource Management

Personnel management was traditionally viewed as a responsibility of mainly recruiting and paying company employees. Their role was limited to the employees of the organisation and was hence denied other managerial responsibilities. They could not fully participate in other company activities rather than dealing with that which concerned employees. However, it was later realised that there is a lot of potential in personnel managers that can be well utilised if they were allowed to participate in other company activities.

The name was hence changed from personnel managers to HR managers. They were able to intensify the responsibilities of the organisation and show more participation in company management. This realised some impacts on the organisations that applied the same, subsequently intensifying its application in other companies.

Personnel managers did not have as many responsibilities as the ones endowed on the human resource managers. Personnel managers had minimum powers that could not enable them effectively meet some of the obligations of the company. They were to mainly assist in the recruitment process and had no powers like to award employees through salary increments or promotions. However, as changes started being experienced in the field of management, it was realised that by empowering personnel managers, the company would grow to even higher levels. The change was facilitated by giving them a more comprehensive name of human resource management. This was also due to the need of making company employees feel part of the organisation by recognising the resources that they brought into the organisation.