Personnel: Changes Disguising Decline?

Published date01 May 1987
Date01 May 1987
DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1108/eb055574
Pages3-11
AuthorLesley Mackay
Subject MatterHR & organizational behaviour
Personnel: Changes Disguising
Decline?
by Lesley Mackay, Department of Sociology, University of Lancaster
Introduction
Although in most organisations the personnel function is
now an accepted part of the management team, that
acceptance may have been achieved at a substantial cost. It
will be argued here that in moving towards an unequivocally
managerial position, much of the distinctive contribution
of the personnel function has been lost. This move can be
interpreted as a natural and realistic appreciation of the
position of personnel practitioners. Yet, at the same time,
it may have undermined the value and potential contribution
that personnel specialists have to offer organisations.
There currently appears to be an almost universal belief
that things are "getting better for personnel", with graduate
recruitment to personnel posts buoyant and the number of
students registering for Institute of Personnel Management
courses twice as high as last year. However, it will be argued
here that there are significant changes of emphasis within
the ranks of personnel management which have implications
for the future of personnel. These changes give rise to
questions about the need for a personnel function at all and
come at a time when a critical appraisal of
all
managers and
management in Britain is taking place.
The Research
As part of the research into "the changing nature of
personnel management" financed by the Leverhulme
Trust[1],
a questionnaire survey of
350
establishments[2] was
carried out in Spring 1984. The sample (see Appendix) was
obtained by approaching over 50 colleges and polytechnics
in which Institute of Personnel Management (IPM) courses
are run. The college tutors, who had agreed to participate
in the research, asked their students
mainly IPM, but some
Diploma in Management Studies (DMS) students to
administer a questionnaire to the most senior personnel
person at the establishment where the student worked. The
response rate was around 30 per cent given the way the
questionnaire was distributed, a more accurate figure cannot
be given.
Nine months after the questionnaire survey was carried
out, interviews with 62 of the respondents, drawn from 56
organisations, were conducted. The interview sample
reflected the questionnaire sample both in composition and
in seeking to interview the most senior personnel specialist
at each establishment. Because the investigation
was
confined
to organisations where an employee was studying to become
a member of the IPM or to obtain a DMS, the sample may
give a rosier picture of personnel management practice than
a random sample.
Some Changes within the Personnel Function
From the research, some of the changes taking place within
the personnel function in the respondents' organisations can
be shown. None of these changes, in
itself,
is likely to affect
the personnel function substantially. However, when taken
together, these changes can be seen as warning signs to
members of the personnel function which ought, perhaps,
to be heeded.
Consultants
There is, first of all, the use of consultants. Of the
respondents whose organisations had used consultants,
nearly half said that the use of consultants had increased
in the last three years and 20 per cent said that the use of
consultants would be increasing in the next three years (see
Table I).
Table I. "Has the Use of Consultants Changed,
or will it Change?"
In the last 3 years? %
Increased
Decreased
Stayed the same
48.5
10.9
40.6
100.0
N
80
18
67
165
(Difference due to rounding)
In the next 3 years? %
Will increase 20.5
Will decrease 16.9
Will stay the same 62.7
100.1
N
34
28
104
166
Consultants are most often used in areas which are central
to the majority of personnel functions: training,
recruitment/selection, and management development. It is
a need for outside expertise which is the most often given
reason for using consultants. In other words, for whatever
reasons, many personnel functions do not have the range of
skills necessary to carry out all aspects of "core" personnel
work.
Of
course,
many areas such as management development
have mushroomed and become highly specialised. Many of
the small and medium-sized organisations cannot hope to
maintain a personnel function with sufficient expertise to
cover the ever-increasing number of refined techniques and
exotic programmes offered by consultants. (There was,
incidentally, little difference in the use of consultants
according to size of establishment. But greater use was made
of consultants in organisations with
100-199
and
1,000-4,999
employees significant at the 0.01 level.)
PR 16,5 1987 3

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