*Every manager is a human resource manager*: a comment

What the statement means

Human resource management is the practice of finding people, assessing them and building a working relationship with them for a purpose, and staffing is an inherent part of it. The statement claims that this work is not confined to the human resource (HR) department: anyone who gets work done through others is, in part, managing human resources.

Why every manager manages people

1. Staffing is a generic function. Once the structure and positions of an organisation are settled, people must be placed in them, trained and motivated to work towards its goals; staffing is therefore a function every manager has to perform. Filling the positions in their part of the organisation, and keeping them filled with qualified people, is the managers' own job.
2. Managers deal with their people directly. Every manager is responsible for dealing with the people who work for the organisation. In doing so a manager puts the right person in the right job, introduces newcomers to the organisation, trains them and improves their performance, develops their abilities, keeps their morale up and looks after their health and physical conditions.
3. Results depend on people. How far an organisation reaches its goals turns largely on the competence, motivation and performance of its people. Human resources are its most important asset, and while the right people can carry a business to the top, the wrong ones can ruin it. No manager can deliver results while ignoring this.
4. In small firms the manager is the HR department. Where there is no separate department, managers may themselves handle everything about employees' pay, welfare and working conditions.

Think of the branch head of a bank in Lucknow. She decides which officer handles loans, coaches a new cashier, settles a quarrel over leave and keeps the team motivated before the year-end rush. None of this is passed to the HR office at the regional centre.

The place of the specialist HR department

As an organisation grows and employs more people, a separate HR department with specialists in managing people is set up. Its specialised duties include recruitment, job analysis, pay and incentive plans, training and development, labour and union relations, grievance handling, social security and welfare, and defending the company in legal disputes. Staffing is thus both a line activity, an essential function of every manager, and a staff activity, in which the HR department plays an advisory role.

Comment

The statement is broadly correct. Each manager plans, guides and develops the people in his or her own unit, and that part of human resource management cannot be handed to anyone else. It needs one qualification: the specialised systems, such as pay structures, labour relations and legal compliance, call for experts, which is why a separate department exists in larger firms. The two roles complement each other. The department designs the methods and advises; the line manager applies them every day. In that sense every manager is a human resource manager, though not every manager is an HR specialist.