What is Personnel Management?
Personnel management is defined as an administrative specialization that focuses on hiring and developing employees to become more valuable to the company. It is sometimes considered to be a sub-category of human resources that only focuses on administration.
Personnel Management Areas of Interest
Managing personnel concentrates on certain administrative human resource categories. It includes job analyses, strategic personnel planning, performance appraisals and benefit coordination. It also involves recruitment, screening and new employee orientation and training. Lastly, it involves wages, dispute resolution and other record keeping duties.
Personnel Duties Defined
Personnel managers will be in charge of various job analyses. This will involve evaluating job positions to ensure that the wage rate is adequate. It will also involve collective assessments of all positions that are used to determine the company’s current and future labor needs. One of the biggest responsibilities of a personnel manager will be to recruit the right employees. However, this is an ongoing, complex process that will require the personnel manager to intimately understand every position and corresponding duties.
Posting job ads, reviewing resumes, conducting interviews and making a final decision with management is a very time consuming process. However, it must be carefully performed in order to avoid hiring the wrong person. HR experts estimate that it can cost between two to five thousand dollars to re-hire and train a new employee for an open position. Finally, personnel managers must ensure compliance with applicable state and federal employment laws and occupational health and safety regulations. As the industry becomes more manual labor driven, the health and safety rules become stricter and more specific.
Personnel Manager Job Description
A personnel manager will direct and coordinate select human resources activities, such as benefits, training, hiring, compensation, labor relations and employee services. They will analyze salary data and reports to determine competitive compensation rates. They will write policies designed to guide department managers regarding compensation, employee benefits and equal employment opportunities. Personnel managers will act as legal counsel to ensure that company policies comply with state and federal laws.
They must develop and maintain a human resources system that meets the company’s information needs. Thus, personnel managers must oversee the maintenance of required records. They must also maintain benefit records such as insurance, retirement and workers’ compensation plans. This will include personnel activities regarding hires, promotions and transfers. Personnel managers must ensure that adequate labor relation policies and procedures are in place. Thus, they must continually monitor changing laws, legislation movements, arbitration decisions and collective bargaining contracts. Personnel managers must continually deliver presentations to management and executives regarding current and future human resources policies and practices.
How is HR Different?
The biggest difference between personnel and human resource management is that the latter is a comprehensive, modern approach to managing people and organizations. Personnel managers have a limited job scope and thus primarily perform record-keeping duties and functions designed to maintain proper employment conditions. On the other hand, human resource management integrates personnel functions, as well as various activities designed to enhance employee and organizational efficiency and productivity. Thus, HR managers are often in charge of running safety programs, publicly representing the company and ensuring legal compliance with applicable state and federal laws.
In the end, personnel management is an HR specialization that is limited to compliance, administrative and record keeping duties.
