Both words refer to the same role of management, which is to manage people at work. Human Resource Management, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with making the greatest use of manpower by identifying their strengths and limitations and including them in various vocations in order to enhance their output. As a result, it includes training and development as well as staff involvement.
Personnel Management, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the maintenance of a positive employee-employer relationship and the actions that go along with it. As a result, Personnel Management is primarily concerned with Industrial/ Employee/ Labor Relations and activities such as grievance resolution, negotiations, labour law enforcement, employee welfare, and so on.
At the operational level, personnel management is essentially an administrative record-keeping job. Personnel Management aims to ensure equitable terms and conditions of employment while also effectively managing personnel operations for individual departments, among other things.
In terms of scope, strategy, nature and application, personnel management and human resource management are vastly different.
Differences in Scope
Human Resource Management has a larger range of responsibilities than Personnel Management. Manpower planning, recruiting, job analysis, job assessment, payment processing, performance evaluations, labour law compliance, training administration, and associated duties are all part of the scope of personnel management. All of these tasks, as well as organisational developmental activities including leadership, motivation, building corporate culture, communicating shared values, and so on, are included in human resources management.
Human resource management is linked with the company's fundamental strategy and vision, and it aims to maximise the utilisation of human resources to achieve organisational objectives. In comparison to the personnel management method, human resource management has a more strategic and philosophical framework, making it more meaningful, relevant, and successful.
Difference in Strategy
Human resource management emphasises values and mission, whereas personnel management emphasises conventions, customs, and established procedures.
The personnel management method also focuses on developing rules, policies, procedures, and contracts, as well as monitoring and enforcing compliance with such restrictions, with precise written contract demarcation. The human resource management method is impatient with laws and regulations, and it tends to loosen them based on the business requirements and exigencies, with the goal of following the contract's spirit rather than its word.
The handling of employee motivation is an example of this variation in approach. Employee happiness is a significant component of the personnel management strategy, which includes salary, incentives, awards, and job simplification efforts as potential motivators. Employee happiness is driven by better performance, according to the human resource philosophy, which employs tactics such as job challenges, teamwork, and innovation to boost motivation.
Difference in Nature
The proactive character of human resource management against the reactive nature of personnel management is another facet of the contrast in approach between human resources and personnel management.
Personnel management operates autonomously, remains detached from essential organisational operations, and reacts to changes in company goals or strategy. Human resource management is linked with the business strategy and takes a proactive approach to aligning the personnel with the company's objectives.
For example, whereas the personnel management approach is based on a reactive performance evaluation, the human resource management method has a much more comprehensive and proactive performance management that focuses on correcting performance rather than producing a report card of previous performance.
Difference in Application
Personnel management is a stand-alone staff activity with limited engagement from line managers and little connection to the organization's fundamental process. On the other hand, Human resource management, is tightly linked to the organization's overall strategy and functions. Despite the fact that much of the human resource management work is done by a separate human resource department, human resource initiatives extensively engage line management and operations employees.
Through institutional mechanisms like as collective bargaining, trade union-based discussions, and the like, personnel management tries to balance the ambitions and perspectives of the workers with management interests. As a result, work conditions are fixed for everyone, even if they aren't always aligned with the company's ultimate aims.
Rather of bargaining or negotiating with trade unions, Human Resource Management places a higher emphasis on interacting with each employee individually and places a stronger emphasis on customer-focused developmental activities and assisting individual employees.
Finally, in our examination of personnel management vs. human resource management, we discovered that personnel management establishes rigorous job descriptions with numerous grades, as well as a set promotion procedure based on seniority and performance assessment ratings. On the other hand, Human resource management has lesser grades and ranks, with commonly understood job responsibilities that allow for plenty of room for creativity and initiative, as well as a variety of career paths, with skills, talent, and commitment serving as the primary drivers of career advancement.