Human Resource Management - Patterns of HRM practice

Patterns of HRM practice

As stated previously, the definition of HRM adopted in this book is rather broader than a narrow 'high-commitment' approach. This is because for many employees this vision of people as a 'top agenda item' and a highly valued organisational asset might not ring true in their everyday working lives. The high-commitment rhetoric - that employees should be positively nurtured by an organisation in order for them to become more 'engaged' in their activities and, therefore, more productive - does not necessarily match the reality of HRM practice in many firms. 

Despite many firms re-labelling their personnel departments as HR departments, this often represents 'old wine in new bottles': a re-labelling rather than a fundamental reinvention of the function (Legge, 1995a). Storey (2007) suggests that whilst there is an extensive evidence of the adoption of individual practices associated with HRM, evidence for the widespread integration of these practices is more limited. Successive surveys of HR practice in the UK have shown that the strategic role and function of HRM continue to be limited. For instance, the Workplace Employee Relations Survey (WERS) 2004 (Kersley et al, 2006) reported that, despite firms often having claimed to have adopted a strategic approach to HRM this often amounted to little more than the 'pick and mix' adoption of specific HRM practices that were…