HRM 386 Lecture Notes: Introduction to Human Resource Management
2026 Athabasca University
HRM 386
Unit 1 : Introduction to HRM
Objectives :
1. Explain why organizations and individuals enter into employment
relationships
2. Explain what the word resource in the term human resource
management suggest about the nature of the employment
relationship
3. Explain in what ways women are typically disadvantaged in
employment relationships and the factors that explain this
disadvantage
Key words:
Capacity to work
Capital
Capitalist economy
Employment relationship
Gender-based analysis
Human resource management
Labour
Labour market
Labour process
Male norm
Non-standard employment
Pluralism
Precarious employment
Production
Profit impretaive
Remuneration
Social reproduction
Unitarism
,Wage gap
Wage-effort bargain
Wage-rate bargain
Chapter 1: The World of Human Resources Management
Human resources management (HRM): involves a wide variety of
activities, including analyzing a company’s competitive environment
and designing jobs so that a firm’s strategy can be successfully
implemented to beat the competition
Human capital: economic value of employees’ knowledge, skills, and
capabilities
- Intangible and cannot be managed the way organizations
manage jobs, products, and technologies (employees, not the
organization, own their own human capital)
HRM practices such as selection and training can develop
replacements for these people, so the real strategic advantage for
organizations is high-quality HRM systems
To build human capital in organizations, managers must continue to
develop superior knowledge, skills and experience within their
workforces and retain and promote top performers
,Competitive issues and human resources management
Issue 1: Responding strategically to changes and disruptions in the
local and global marketplace
In today’s highly competitive environments, in which competition is
global and innovation is continuous, the ability to adapt has become
the key to capturing opportunities and overcoming obstacles, as well
as the very survival of organizations
Six Sigma: set of principles and practices whose core ideas include
understanding customer needs, doing things right the first time, and
striving for continuous improvement
Reengineering: “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of
business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality,
service, and speed”
Downsizing: planned elimination of jobs
Outsourcing: hiring someone outside the company to perform
business processes that were previously done within the firm
Change management: systematic way of bringing about and
managing both organizational changes and changes on the individual
level
- According to a survey by the research institute Roffey Park, 2/3 of
firms believe that managing change is their biggest challenge
o To manage change, executives and managers, including
those in HR, have to envision the future, communicate this
vision to employees, set clear expectations for
performance, and develop the capability to execute by
reorganizing people and reallocating assets: organizations
that have been successful in engineering change :
▪ Link the change to the business strategy
▪ Show how the change creates quantifiable benefits
▪ Engage key employees, customers, and their
suppliers early when making a change
, ▪ Make an investment in implementing and sustaining
change
o Some of the strategic changes companies pursue are
reactive changes that result when external forces, such as
the competition, a recession, a law change, or an ethical
crisis have already affected an organization’s performance
o Other strategies are proactive change, initiated by
managers to take advantage of targeted opportunities,
particularly in fast-changing industries in which followers
are not successful
Globalization: trend to opening up foreign markets to international
trade and investment
Free-trade:
Numerous free-trade agreements forged among nations in the last half-
century have helped quicken the pace of globalization. The first major
trade agreement of the twentieth century was made in 1948, following
World War II. Called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
it established rules and guidelines for global commerce among nations
and groups of nations. Although the Great Recession temporarily
caused a sharp drop in the amount of world trade, since GATT began,
world trade has exploded, increasing nearly 30 times the dollar volume
of what it once was. This is three times faster than the world’s overall
output has grown during the same period. GATT paved the way for the
formation of many major trade agreements and institutions, including
the European Union (EU) in 1986 and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, encompassing the United States, Canada,
and Mexico. The World Trade Organization (WTO), headquartered in
Lausanne, Switzerland, now has more than 153-member countries, and
new free-trade agreements seem to be forged annually
2026 Athabasca University
HRM 386
Unit 1 : Introduction to HRM
Objectives :
1. Explain why organizations and individuals enter into employment
relationships
2. Explain what the word resource in the term human resource
management suggest about the nature of the employment
relationship
3. Explain in what ways women are typically disadvantaged in
employment relationships and the factors that explain this
disadvantage
Key words:
Capacity to work
Capital
Capitalist economy
Employment relationship
Gender-based analysis
Human resource management
Labour
Labour market
Labour process
Male norm
Non-standard employment
Pluralism
Precarious employment
Production
Profit impretaive
Remuneration
Social reproduction
Unitarism
,Wage gap
Wage-effort bargain
Wage-rate bargain
Chapter 1: The World of Human Resources Management
Human resources management (HRM): involves a wide variety of
activities, including analyzing a company’s competitive environment
and designing jobs so that a firm’s strategy can be successfully
implemented to beat the competition
Human capital: economic value of employees’ knowledge, skills, and
capabilities
- Intangible and cannot be managed the way organizations
manage jobs, products, and technologies (employees, not the
organization, own their own human capital)
HRM practices such as selection and training can develop
replacements for these people, so the real strategic advantage for
organizations is high-quality HRM systems
To build human capital in organizations, managers must continue to
develop superior knowledge, skills and experience within their
workforces and retain and promote top performers
,Competitive issues and human resources management
Issue 1: Responding strategically to changes and disruptions in the
local and global marketplace
In today’s highly competitive environments, in which competition is
global and innovation is continuous, the ability to adapt has become
the key to capturing opportunities and overcoming obstacles, as well
as the very survival of organizations
Six Sigma: set of principles and practices whose core ideas include
understanding customer needs, doing things right the first time, and
striving for continuous improvement
Reengineering: “the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of
business processes to achieve dramatic improvements in cost, quality,
service, and speed”
Downsizing: planned elimination of jobs
Outsourcing: hiring someone outside the company to perform
business processes that were previously done within the firm
Change management: systematic way of bringing about and
managing both organizational changes and changes on the individual
level
- According to a survey by the research institute Roffey Park, 2/3 of
firms believe that managing change is their biggest challenge
o To manage change, executives and managers, including
those in HR, have to envision the future, communicate this
vision to employees, set clear expectations for
performance, and develop the capability to execute by
reorganizing people and reallocating assets: organizations
that have been successful in engineering change :
▪ Link the change to the business strategy
▪ Show how the change creates quantifiable benefits
▪ Engage key employees, customers, and their
suppliers early when making a change
, ▪ Make an investment in implementing and sustaining
change
o Some of the strategic changes companies pursue are
reactive changes that result when external forces, such as
the competition, a recession, a law change, or an ethical
crisis have already affected an organization’s performance
o Other strategies are proactive change, initiated by
managers to take advantage of targeted opportunities,
particularly in fast-changing industries in which followers
are not successful
Globalization: trend to opening up foreign markets to international
trade and investment
Free-trade:
Numerous free-trade agreements forged among nations in the last half-
century have helped quicken the pace of globalization. The first major
trade agreement of the twentieth century was made in 1948, following
World War II. Called the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
it established rules and guidelines for global commerce among nations
and groups of nations. Although the Great Recession temporarily
caused a sharp drop in the amount of world trade, since GATT began,
world trade has exploded, increasing nearly 30 times the dollar volume
of what it once was. This is three times faster than the world’s overall
output has grown during the same period. GATT paved the way for the
formation of many major trade agreements and institutions, including
the European Union (EU) in 1986 and the North American Free Trade
Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994, encompassing the United States, Canada,
and Mexico. The World Trade Organization (WTO), headquartered in
Lausanne, Switzerland, now has more than 153-member countries, and
new free-trade agreements seem to be forged annually
