SAMENVATTING HRM IN PUBLIC
ORGANISATIONS 2024-2025
1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
HOW TO STUDY FOR THE EXAM
• MATERIAL:
o Slides at Ufora
• TO KNOW:
o These slides gave a short overview of the history of HRM and also a
concise insight in trends and challenges => to study for the exam: only slides 33
until 40
HRM IS ABOUT?
• Well-being
• Leadership
• Training
• Justice
• Recruitment and selection
• Feedback and evaluation
• Reward
• Development
• Career management
• Burn-out and stress
Study:
• 1 second seemed enough to predict the elections
• Campaigns are biased by information we get from facial expressions
• Bias in thinking… supervisors!
APPROACH
1) Acquiring and integrating basic HRM knowledge => through theoretical lectures (mix of real life
and digital lectures + guest speakers both practitioners and academics).
2) Acquiring practical HRM skills
through different types of cooperative learning (real-life cases, developing a training,…)
Goal: alternative forms of teaching in this course will help you to develop HRM skills, but also other
practical and interpersonal skills
1
,EVALUATION
• Project: HRM portfolio (8/20) => see detailed information in inspiration booklet => contains all
practical information and guidelines
• Written exam (12/20) Open questions
HISTORY OF HRM
• First there was mass production with abuse of the workers
o There were very bad working conditions.
o HRM really focused on control
• People had to do 1 part of a whole project; they had to do the same thing all the time
• There was done a time and motion study (Hawthorne fabric):
o Very focused on efficiency.
o Scientific management.
o How can we make our employees more productive?
▪ In one room they gave more light, in another one they gave less light
▪ But productivity rose in both rooms.
▪ So, they saw that giving attention to the employees will grow productivity.
• Now human relations were formed
• Then there were the golden sixties with revisionism
o There became empathy for the well-being of the employees
• Strategic HRM
EVOLUTION
HR => strategic partner: Supports to reach the organizational goals
The role of HRM is still changing and growing…
WORLDWIDE RAPID CHANGES
• Technological developments
• Benefits (environment, accidents,…), but in terms of HRM also… many other new things
• AI, robots, …
THE ROLE OF AI IN HR
How do neural networks work?
AI bot asked to make distinction between huskies and wolves.
Several mistakes (despite training)
Presence of snow in the background of the picture instead of attributes of the animal
2
,AI does not think for us but looks for patterns in enormous amounts of data.
AI potential for HR, but also risk for bias!
DIGITALIZATION ENORMOUS IMPACT ON JOBS AND HR
• HR: smartphone at work
• Problems and opportunities
o Nomophobia
▪ Nomophobia is a psychological condition in which a person experiences
anxiety and fear when they do not have connectivity to their phone.
o → Dopamine
HR CYCLE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
3
, 1.2 PECULARITIES FOR PUBLIC SECTOR
• MATERIAL:
o Chapter + slides at Ufora (this part is self-study; it will not be explained
during the classes)
• TO KNOW:
o all slides + the chapter “a brief history of HRM in public sector”
DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS
Rainey (2009): three criteria that discerns organizations into varying degrees of ‘publicness’:
1. Ownership: Who owns the organization? Public organizations are more likely to be government-
owned or owned by the public community, while private organizations are often privately owned
(by one or more stakeholders).
2. Funding: What is the (main) source of financial resources for this organization? Public
organizations are more likely to be publicly or government-funded, while private organizations
often rely on customers and/or shareholders.
3. Authority: Is the organization controlled by political authority and, if so, to what extent? Public
organizations are almost always subject to political control, while private organizations are
controlled by market forces.
Organizations may vary in their ‘publicness’ depending on the answers to these three criteria. e.g. Some
organizations fully meet all criteria and can thus be classified as public versus hospitals or schools, that
are semi-public (Knies et al., 2022).
IN DE TEKST:
1. Traditional HRM: Focuses on operational tasks such as recruitment, selection, training, and
evaluation, primarily carried out by the personnel department.
2. Strategic HRM: After the economic crisis of the 1970s, HRM became more strategic to support
organizational goals. This led to three theoretical approaches:
o Universalistic approach: Believes in a single set of "best practices" that work in every
organization.
o Contingency approach: Advocates adapting HRM practices to the specific business
strategy.
o Configurational approach: Focuses on the coherence between various HRM practices
within an organization.
3. Sustainable HRM: This more recent approach extends strategic HRM by considering not only
economic but also social and environmental aspects. It emphasizes the impact of HR policies on
both internal and external stakeholders and integrates long-term sustainability into people
management.
The central message is that effective HRM can not only improve organizational performance but also
contribute to well-being and sustainability, both within and outside the organization.
4
ORGANISATIONS 2024-2025
1.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION
HOW TO STUDY FOR THE EXAM
• MATERIAL:
o Slides at Ufora
• TO KNOW:
o These slides gave a short overview of the history of HRM and also a
concise insight in trends and challenges => to study for the exam: only slides 33
until 40
HRM IS ABOUT?
• Well-being
• Leadership
• Training
• Justice
• Recruitment and selection
• Feedback and evaluation
• Reward
• Development
• Career management
• Burn-out and stress
Study:
• 1 second seemed enough to predict the elections
• Campaigns are biased by information we get from facial expressions
• Bias in thinking… supervisors!
APPROACH
1) Acquiring and integrating basic HRM knowledge => through theoretical lectures (mix of real life
and digital lectures + guest speakers both practitioners and academics).
2) Acquiring practical HRM skills
through different types of cooperative learning (real-life cases, developing a training,…)
Goal: alternative forms of teaching in this course will help you to develop HRM skills, but also other
practical and interpersonal skills
1
,EVALUATION
• Project: HRM portfolio (8/20) => see detailed information in inspiration booklet => contains all
practical information and guidelines
• Written exam (12/20) Open questions
HISTORY OF HRM
• First there was mass production with abuse of the workers
o There were very bad working conditions.
o HRM really focused on control
• People had to do 1 part of a whole project; they had to do the same thing all the time
• There was done a time and motion study (Hawthorne fabric):
o Very focused on efficiency.
o Scientific management.
o How can we make our employees more productive?
▪ In one room they gave more light, in another one they gave less light
▪ But productivity rose in both rooms.
▪ So, they saw that giving attention to the employees will grow productivity.
• Now human relations were formed
• Then there were the golden sixties with revisionism
o There became empathy for the well-being of the employees
• Strategic HRM
EVOLUTION
HR => strategic partner: Supports to reach the organizational goals
The role of HRM is still changing and growing…
WORLDWIDE RAPID CHANGES
• Technological developments
• Benefits (environment, accidents,…), but in terms of HRM also… many other new things
• AI, robots, …
THE ROLE OF AI IN HR
How do neural networks work?
AI bot asked to make distinction between huskies and wolves.
Several mistakes (despite training)
Presence of snow in the background of the picture instead of attributes of the animal
2
,AI does not think for us but looks for patterns in enormous amounts of data.
AI potential for HR, but also risk for bias!
DIGITALIZATION ENORMOUS IMPACT ON JOBS AND HR
• HR: smartphone at work
• Problems and opportunities
o Nomophobia
▪ Nomophobia is a psychological condition in which a person experiences
anxiety and fear when they do not have connectivity to their phone.
o → Dopamine
HR CYCLE IN THE PUBLIC SECTOR
3
, 1.2 PECULARITIES FOR PUBLIC SECTOR
• MATERIAL:
o Chapter + slides at Ufora (this part is self-study; it will not be explained
during the classes)
• TO KNOW:
o all slides + the chapter “a brief history of HRM in public sector”
DEGREE OF PUBLICNESS
Rainey (2009): three criteria that discerns organizations into varying degrees of ‘publicness’:
1. Ownership: Who owns the organization? Public organizations are more likely to be government-
owned or owned by the public community, while private organizations are often privately owned
(by one or more stakeholders).
2. Funding: What is the (main) source of financial resources for this organization? Public
organizations are more likely to be publicly or government-funded, while private organizations
often rely on customers and/or shareholders.
3. Authority: Is the organization controlled by political authority and, if so, to what extent? Public
organizations are almost always subject to political control, while private organizations are
controlled by market forces.
Organizations may vary in their ‘publicness’ depending on the answers to these three criteria. e.g. Some
organizations fully meet all criteria and can thus be classified as public versus hospitals or schools, that
are semi-public (Knies et al., 2022).
IN DE TEKST:
1. Traditional HRM: Focuses on operational tasks such as recruitment, selection, training, and
evaluation, primarily carried out by the personnel department.
2. Strategic HRM: After the economic crisis of the 1970s, HRM became more strategic to support
organizational goals. This led to three theoretical approaches:
o Universalistic approach: Believes in a single set of "best practices" that work in every
organization.
o Contingency approach: Advocates adapting HRM practices to the specific business
strategy.
o Configurational approach: Focuses on the coherence between various HRM practices
within an organization.
3. Sustainable HRM: This more recent approach extends strategic HRM by considering not only
economic but also social and environmental aspects. It emphasizes the impact of HR policies on
both internal and external stakeholders and integrates long-term sustainability into people
management.
The central message is that effective HRM can not only improve organizational performance but also
contribute to well-being and sustainability, both within and outside the organization.
4
