Human resource management

Human resource management (HRM is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human resource management" and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" as a description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. In simple words, HRM means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and organizational requirement.

Human resource management (HRM is the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an

organization's most valued assets - the people working there who individually and collectively

contribute to the achievement of the objectives of the business. The terms "human resource

management" and "human resources" (HR) have largely replaced the term "personnel management" as a

description of the processes involved in managing people in organizations. In simple words, HRM

means employing people, developing their capacities, utilizing, maintaining and compensating

their services in tune with the job and organizational requirement.


* Organizational management

* Personnel administration

* Manpower management

* Industrial management


But these traditional expressions are becoming less common for the theoretical discipline.


Sometimes even employee and industrial relations are confusingly listed as synonyms, although

these normally refer to the relationship between management and workers and the behavior of

workers in companies.


The theoretical discipline is based primarily on the assumption that employees are individuals

with varying goals and needs, and as such should not be thought of as basic business resources,

such as trucks and filing cabinets. The field takes a positive view of workers, assuming that

virtually all wish to contribute to the enterprise productively, and that the main obstacles to

their endeavors are lack of knowledge, insufficient training, and failures of process.


Human Resource Management(HRM) is seen by practitioners in the field as a more innovative view of

workplace management than the traditional approach. Its techniques force the managers of an

enterprise to express their goals with specificity so that they can be understood and undertaken

by the workforce, and to provide the resources needed for them to successfully accomplish their

assignments. As such, HRM techniques, when properly practiced, are expressive of the goals and

operating practices of the enterprise overall. HRM is also seen by many to have a key role in

risk reduction within organisations.


Synonyms such as personnel management are often used in a more restricted sense to describe

activities that are necessary in the recruiting of a workforce, providing its members with

payroll and benefits, and administrating their work-life needs. So if we move to actual

definitions, Torrington and Hall (1987) define personnel management as being:



“a series of activities which: first enable working people and their employing organisations to

agree about the objectives and nature of their working relationship and, secondly, ensures that

the agreement is fulfilled" (p. 49).


While Miller (1987) suggests that HRM relates to:


".......those decisions and actions which concern the management of employees at all levels in

the business and which are related to the implementation of strategies directed towards creating

and sustaining competitive advantage" (p. 352).

[edit] Academic theory


Research in the area of HRM has much to contribute to the organisational practice of HRM. For the

last 20 years, empirical work has paid particular attention to the link between the practice of

HRM and organisational performance, evident in improved employee commitment, lower levels of

absenteeism and turnover, higher levels of skills and therefore higher productivity, enhanced

quality and efficiency . This area of work is sometimes referred to as 'Strategic HRM' or SHRM (.


Within SHRM three strands of work can be observed: Best practice, Best Fit and the Resource Based

View (RBV).


The notion of best practice - sometimes called 'high commitment' HRM - proposes that the adoption

of certain best practices in HRM will result in better organisational performance. Perhaps the

most popular work in this area is that of Pfeffer who argued that there were seven best

practices for achieving competitive advantage through people and 'building profits by putting

people first'. These practices included: providing employment security, selective hiring,

extensive training, sharing information, self-managed teams, high pay based on company

performance and the reduction of status differentials. However, there is a huge number of studies

which provide evidence of best practices, usually implemented in coherent bundles, and therefore

it is difficult to draw generalised conclusions about which is the 'best' way (For a comparison

of different sets of best practices see Becker and Gerhart, 1996


Best fit, or the contingency approach to HRM, argues that HRM improves performance where there is

a close vertical fit between the HRM practices and the company's strategy. This link ensures

close coherence between the HR people processes and policies and the external market or business

strategy. There are a range of theories about the nature of this vertical integration. For

example, a set of 'lifecycle' models argue that HR policies and practices can be mapped onto the

stage of an organisation's development or lifecycle. Competitive advantage models take Porter's

(1985) ideas about strategic choice and map a range of HR practices onto the organisation's

choice of competitive strategy. Finally 'configurational models' provide a more sophisticated

approach which advocates a close examination of the organisation's strategy in order to determine

the appropriate HR policies and practices. However, this approach assumes that the strategy of

the organisation can be identified - many organisations exist in a state of flux and development.


The Resource Based View (RBV), argued by some to be at the foundation of modern HRM , focusses on

the internal resources of the organisation and how they contribute to competitive advantage. The

uniqueness of these resources is preferred to homogeneity and HRM has a central role in

developing human resources that are valuable, rare, difficult to copy or substitute and that are

effectively organised.


Overall, the theory of HRM argues that the goal of human resource management is to help an

organization to meet strategic goals by attracting, and maintaining employees and also to manage

them effectively. The key word here perhaps is "fit", i.e. a HRM approach seeks to ensure a fit

between the management of an organisation's employees, and the overall strategic direction of the

company (Miller, 1989).


The basic premise of the academic theory of HRM is that humans are not machines, therefore we

need to have an interdisciplinary examination of people in the workplace. Fields such as

psychology, industrial relations, industrial engineering, sociology, economics, and critical

theories: postmodernism, post-structuralism play a major role. Many colleges and universities

offer bachelor and master degrees in Human Resources Management or in Human Resources and

Industrial Relations.


One widely used scheme to describe the role of HRM, developed by Dave Ulrich, defines 4 fields

for the HRM function:


* Strategic business partner

* Change Agent

* Employee champion

* Administration Expert


Business practice


Human resources management involves several processes. Together they are supposed to achieve the

above mentioned goal. These processes can be performed in an HR department, but some tasks can

also be outsourced or performed by line-managers or other departments. When effectively

integrated they provide significant economic benefit to the company.


* Workforce planning

* Recruitment (sometimes separated into attraction and selection)

* Induction, Orientation and Onboarding

* Skills management

* Training and development

* Personnel administration

* Compensation in wage or salary

* Time management

* Travel management (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)

* Payroll (sometimes assigned to accounting rather than HRM)
* Employee benefits administration
* Personnel cost planning
* Performance appraisal
* Labor relations

***HRM strategy*****

An HRM strategy pertains to the means as to how to implement the specific functions of Human

Resourse Management. An organization's HR function may possess recruitment and selection

policies, disciplinary procedures, reward/recognition policies, an HR plan, or learning and

development policies, however all of these functional areas of HRM need to be aligned and

correlated, in order to correspond with the overall business strategy. An HRM strategy thus is an

overall plan, concerning the implementation of specific HRM functional areas.

An HRM strategy typically consists of the following factors:-

**** "Best fit" and "best practice" - meaning that there is correlation between the HRM strategy

and the overall corporate strategy. As HRM as a field seeks to manage human resources in order to

achieve properly organizational goals, an organization's HRM strategy seeks to accomplish such

management by applying a firm's personnel needs with the goals/objectives of the organisation. As

an example, a firm selling cars could have a corporate strategy of increasing car sales by 10%

over a five year period. Accordingly, the HRM strategy would seek to facilitate how exactly to

manage personnel in order to achieve the 10% figure. Specific HRM functions, such as recruitment

and selection, reward/recognition, an HR plan, or learning and development policies, would be

tailored to achieve the corporate objectives.

***** Close co-operation (at least in theory) between HR and the top/senior management, in the

development of the corporate strategy. Theoretically, a senior HR representative should be

present when an organization's corporate objectives are devised. This is so, since it is a firm's

personnel who actually construct a good, or provide a service. The personnel's proper management

is vital in the firm being successful, or even existing as a going concern. Thus, HR can be seen

as one of the critical departments within the functional area of an organization.

***** Continual monitoring of the strategy, via employee feedback, surveys, etc.

The implementation of an HR strategy is not always required, and may depend on a number of

factors, namely the size of the firm, the organizational culture within the firm or the industry

that the firm operates in and also the people in the firm.

An HRM strategy can be divided, in general, into two facets - the people strategy and the HR

functional strategy. The people strategy pertains to the point listed in the first paragraph,

namely the careful correlation of HRM policies/actions to attain the goals laid down in the

corporate strategy. The HR functional strategy relates to the policies employed within the HR

functional area itself, regarding the management of persons internal to it, to ensure its own

departmental goals are met.
[edit] Careers and education
Further information: Graduate degree programs in human resources management
Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations was the world's first school for

college-level study in HRM

Several universities offer programs of study pertaining to HRM and broader fields. Cornell

University created the world's first school for college-level study in HRM (ILR

School).University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign also now has a school dedicated to the study

of HRM, while several business schools also house a center or department dedicated to such

studies; e.g., University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Minnesota, Michigan State

University, Ohio State University, Roosevelt University,and Purdue University.

There are both generalist and specialist HRM jobs. There are careers involved with employment,

recruitment and placement and these are usually conducted by interviewers, EEO (Equal Employment

Opportunity) specialists or college recruiters. Training and development specialism is often

conducted by trainers and orientation specialists. Compensation and benefits tasks are handled by

compensation analysts, salary administrators, and benefits administrators.
Professional organizations

Professional organizations in HRM include the Society for Human Resource Management, the

Australian Human Resources Institute (AHRI), the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development

(CIPD), the International Public Management Association for HR (IPMA-HR), Management Association

of Nepal (MAN) and the International Personnel Management Association of Canada (IPMA-Canada),

Human Capital Institute. National Human Resource Development Network in India.
Functions

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key among

them is deciding what staffing needs to have and whether to use independent contractors or hire

employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high

performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices

conform to various regulations. Activities also include managing your approach to employee

benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies. Usually small businesses

(for-profit or nonprofit) have to carry out these activities themselves because they can't yet

afford part- or full-time help. However, they should always ensure that employees have—and are

aware of—personnel policies which conform to current regulations. These policies are often in the

form of employee manuals, which all employees have.

Note that some people distinguish a difference between HRM (a major management activity) and HRD

(Human Resource Development, a profession). Those people might include HRM in HRD, explaining

that HRD includes the broader range of activities to develop personnel inside of organizations,

including, e.g., career development, training, organization development, etc.

There is a long-standing argument about where HR-related functions should be organized into large

organizations, e.g., "should HR be in the Organization Development department or the other way

around?"

The HRM function and HRD profession have undergone major changes over the past 20–30 years. Many

years ago, large organizations looked to the "Personnel Department," mostly to manage the

paperwork around hiring and paying people. More recently, organizations consider the "HR

Department" as playing an important role in staffing, training and helping to manage people so

that people and the organization are performing at maximum capability in a highly fulfilling

manner.

Human Resources Basic

Considering a career in Human Resources? Looking for basic information about Human Resources? Thinking of changing careers? Need human resources career development and career education information? Get an HR occupational outlook. Make this your first stop for Human Resource management and Human Resource career development.

Different Types of Compensation Management?

There are two different types of compensation management: direct and indirect. Compensation is the combination of monetary and other benefits provided to an employee in return for their time and skill. The field of compensation management provides management with the ideal combination of the different remuneration types. The purpose of this type of program is to retain and motivate good employees.

Direct compensation is typically comprised of salary payments and health benefits. The creation of salary ranges and pay scales for different positions within the company are the central responsibility of compensation management staff. The evaluation of the employee and employer portions of benefit costs is an important part of a compensation package.
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Recruitment Process Steps

Main Recruitment Process Steps

The aim of the HRM Function is keeping the recruitment process design as simple as possible. The HR Recruiters should not forget about this main goal during the design phase of the recruitment process development.

The recruitment process is simple on the high level, but it contains a lot of interaction among different participants in the recruitment process. The HRM Function, the line manager and candidates need to receive and share a lot of information and their interaction is usually the main issue during the recruitment process.

The main steps of the recruitment process are:

1.Job Design
2.Opening Job Position
3.Collecting Job Resumes
4.Preselection of Job Resumes
5.Job Interviews
6.Job Offer
The job design is the most important part of the recruitment process. The job design is a phase about design of the job profile and a clear agreement between the line manager and the HRM Function. The Job Design is about the the agreement about the profile of the ideal job candidate and the agreement about the skills and competencies, which are essential. The information gathered can be used during other steps of the recruitment process to speed it up.

The Opening of the Job Position is generally the job of the HR Recruiter. Skilled and experienced HR Recruiter should decide about the right mix of the recruitment sources to find the best candidates for the job position. This is another key step in the recruitment process.

The next step is collecting of job resumes and their preselection. This step in the recruitment process is very important today as many organization lose a lot of time in this step. Today, the organization cannot wait with the preselection of the job resumes. Generally, this should be the last step done purely by the HRM Function.

The job interviews are the main step in the recruitment process, which should be clearly designed and agreed between HRM and the line management. The job interview should discover the job candidate, who meets the requirements and fits best the corporate culture and the department.

The job offer is the last step of the recruitment process, which is done by the HRM Function, it finalizes all the other steps and the winner of the job interviews gets the offer from the organization to join.source of this recruitment process website is http://hrmadvice.com/hrmadvice/hr-processes/recruitment-and-selection/recruitment-process-design-and-development/main-recruitment-process-steps.html

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Human resources

Human resources is a term used to describe the individuals who comprise the workforce of an organization, although it is also applied in labor economics to, for example, business sectors or even whole nations. Human resources is also the name of the function within an organization charged with the overall responsibility for implementing strategies and policies relating to the management of individuals (i.e. the human resources). This function title is often abbreviated to the initials.
"
The term 'human resources' as used in organizations describes the workforce capacity available to devoted to achievement of their objectives. "

The early development of the function can be traced back to at least two distinct movements. One element has its origins in the late 19th century, where organizations such as Cadburys at its Bournville factory recognised the importance of looking after the welfare of the workforce, and their families. The employment of women in factories in the United Kingdom during the First World War lead to the introduction of "Welfare Officers". Meanwhile, in the United States the concept of human resources developed as a reaction to the efficiency focus of Taylorism or "scientific management" in the early 1900s, which developed in response to the demand for ever more efficient working practices within highly mechanised factories, such as in the Ford Motor Company. By 1920, psychologists and employment experts in the United States started the human relations movement, which viewed workers in terms of their psychology and fit with companies, rather than as interchangeable parts.
During the middle of the last century, larger corporations, typically those in the United States that emerged after the Second World War, recruited personnel from the US Military and were able to apply new selection, training, leadership, and management development techniques, originally developed by the Armed Services, working with, for example, university-based occupational psychologists. Similarly, some leading European multinationals, such as Shell and Phillips developed new approaches to personnel development and drew on similar approaches already used in Civil Service training. Gradually, this spread more sophisticated policies and processes that required more central management via a personnel department composed of specialists and generalist teams.
The role of what became known as Human Resources grew throughout the middle of the 20th century. Tensions remained between academics who emphasized either 'soft' or 'hard' HR. Those professing so-called 'soft HR' stressed areas like leadership, cohesion, and loyalty that play important roles in organizational success. Those promoting 'hard HR' championed more quantitatively rigorous management techniques in the 1960s.
In the later part of the last century, both the title and traditional role of the personnel function was progressively superseded by the emergence, at least in larger organizations, of strategic human resources management and sophisticated human resources departments. Initially, this may have involved little more than renaming the function, but where transformation occurred, it became distinguished by the human resources having a more significant influence on the organizations strategic direction and gaining board-level representation.

Human resources purpose and role

In simple terms, an organization's human resource management strategy should maximize return on investment in the organization's human capital and minimize financial risk. Human Resources seeks to achieve this by aligning the supply of skilled and qualified individuals and the capabilities of the current workforce, with the organization's ongoing and future business plans and requirements to maximize return on investment and secure future survival and success. In ensuring such objectives are achieved, the human resource function purpose in this context is to implement the organization's human resource requirements effectively but also pragmatically, taking account of legal, ethical and as far as is practical in a manner that retains the support and respect of the workforce.

Key functions

Human Resources may set strategies and develop policies, standards, systems, and processes that implement these strategies in a whole range of areas. The following are typical of a wide range of organizations:

Recruitment, selection, and onboarding (resourcing)
Organizational design and development
Business transformation and change management
Performance, conduct and behavior management
Industrial and employee relations
Human resources (workforce) analysis and workforce personnel data management
Compensation, rewards, and benefits management
Training and development (learning management)
Implementation of such policies, processes or standards may be directly managed by the HR function itself, or the function may indirectly supervise the implementation of such activities by managers, other business functions or via third-party external partner organizations.


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Leadership for Project Managers

LeadershipIn the first half of the 20th century there was a belief that Scientific Management was the new way forward. Scientific Management was the herald of a new era, removing the need for skilled craftsmen, for example on Henry Ford's production lines, and making the factory owners richer. The principle was simple; reduce complicated tasks to a series of simple tasks, each task being performed by a different person. People were treated as machines and doomed to boring, repetitive tasks. But with social changes and world wars, people decided that they wanted to be treated as such, and not as spare parts for a machine, and they insisted on being given rewarding and interesting work. Many psychologists began experimenting in the area of motivation, and eventually began suggesting that there were benefits to be had from leading people, rather than pushing them and punishing them.So how do leaders differ from managers?They say that, a manager "does the thing right", and a leader "does the right thing”. They also say that, “A leader is born, not made,” but none of these statements have much to do with real leadership. Oh sure, most leaders do the right thing most of the time, but what the “right thing” is, and who gets to decide what the right thing is? And who are “they” anyway and how does one get to become one?Doing the "right thing" seems quite a simple concept, but consider for a moment that In times of battle some unlucky leaders have had to sacrifice the lives of a few to save many. If you were the husband, wife, parent or child of one of the sacrificed “few”, would you say the leader did “the right thing”? How now if you were a relative of one of the "many" that was saved? Suddenly "right" and "wrong" don't seem that simple any more.And saying that leaders are “born not made” is a cop-out. It is true that some people are born with natural leadership abilities, but everyone can improve and develop with training and practice.I believe a true leader inspires others to greatness, and they do this through their direct influence. They help others achieve what those individuals thought was impossible for them to do. A project manager who is also a leader can encourage a team to perform much better than a group of individuals can.So in many ways a leader is like a coach, someone who works with you, encourages you and gets the best out of you. It doesn't mean that a leader will never push you or never move you out of your comfort zone. Often it's the reverse; athletes for example employ a coach to do precisely that.Johnny Weissmuller, the star of the early Tarzan movies in the 1930’s and 40’s was a very powerful man. Before he acted Tarzan he was an Olympic swimmer who won five gold medals and three bronze medals in 1924 and 1928, in the 100, 400, and 800-metre freestyle relay. He also won a bronze medal as a member of the U.S. water polo team. Obviously his huge strength gave him a big advantage over his competitors; and yet not so many years later, teenage girls were breaking his records. Obviously they weren’t more powerful than Johnny – the difference was in the technique and the coaching – the leadership, if you like. If you can tap into true leadership you will cause those around you to achieve more than they think they can.When you study motivational theory, you soon come upon Douglas McGregor's "Theory X" and "Theory Y". And what these boil down to is, “You get what you expect from people.” So if we think of everyone as basically selfish then we will always try to manipulate them in order to get what we want. Hey! Doesn’t that make us selfish too? What does a leader do then? A leader expects the team to perform, and that will be communicated to them by the leader's actions. A leader encourages, leads by example, cares about the team and gives regular feedback. People need to be recognised and praised. Find a reason to praise your team members privately each week and ensure that no one misses out. But the praise itself should be spontaneous and not formulaic. I believe in encouraging everyone, not praising just for the sake of it, but everyone does something that’s worthy of praise sometimes. Communicate often with your team; give them the “big picture” and where they fit it. This helps give them a sense of team identity, and that is a good step towards integrating them into the team.A leader influences and inspires others to believe in themselves and to follow the vision of the organisation and the team. This implies strongly that a leader must know, understand and believe the vision themselves! Try to work out what has inspired you in the past, and then you can inspire others, by communicating that passion to them.Emotions are a powerful motivator, so a leader needs to be passionate to help others “feel” the vision. A leader is not driven by their ego, because if they are, then they will inspire others to follow them, instead of the vision – so a leader is a signpost for where people should go. To be a leader, you must be credible and honest, you have to “walk the talk”, because people tend to do as you do, rather than what you tell them to do.Whilst leadership is not about ego, a leader still needs to stand out from the crowd – if you’re Mr/Ms Average you’re not going to inspire many people, even if you’re good at your job. Genuineness by definition cannot be faked. A true leader has to be compassionate as well as passionate, so make to effort to develop a relationship with your staff, but with the usual provisos for appropriate relationships of course.A leader can't afford to waste time in too much time in the minutiae of the team, in fact a functioning team will solve many of it’s own problems with peer pressure etc. For example, time keeping, dress standards, interpersonal conflict and so on, but remember - peer pressure can be a good servant but a damaging and unforgiving master, so you as leader will need to keep an eye on it. A leader is expected to solve “higher level” problems such as budgetary, emergencies, compliance, need for unique expertise or when the team can’t resolve an issue. But beware of becoming the person to whom everyone brings problems or you will never find time to do your own work.Your leadership type can and should evolve with the team; following a continuum from autocratic-biased to free-rein-biased styles (analogous to development of the parent-child relationship over time).Leaders lead by example, but they also know when it is the right time to push. This is most obvious in “take charge” leaders, exemplified by the likes of Churchill, they know what to do in a crisis, and are not afraid to do it, and they can rally people to the cause – because they live the vision. A leader is expected to be a stabilising influence when times are tough, and be able to deal with any cliché that may arise. You need to evaluate your team’s current situation and assess what is needed to progress the team to a future vision. A problem with Churchillian leaders as role models is that they get dumped from office with the crises is over, and this can be true of any single-skilled leader. A true leader needs the ability to change leadership styles to suit the team and the need. They need to be able to handle peacetime as well as war.So a leader is some of the things that I have described, as well as being a manager in the traditional sense. Often as a project manager and leader you will find yourself doing the “best” thing rather than the “right” thing because you have to do all of the above and still get your project in on time and on budget. Sometimes this means “biting the bullet”, “making the hard decision”, or flogging a dead cliché. But if you follow the leadership path, rather than the strict management path, you are much more likely to earn the respect and loyalty of your team members, customers and other stakeholders along the way, and (I believe) end up with a better project overall.
From nasir mustafa
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Matrix Organizations, What Are They?

Until the 1970's, typical, large organizations tended to function in "silos", logical divisions where essentially isolated groups of workers reported to a line manager or functional manager. Imagine columns on a page with a line manager at the top of each column and a group of workers inside each column under the manager.As these groups operated autonomously, it was not unusual to find functions replicated in each silo.In an Information Technology company for example, you might find software programmers in the development area, some more in the customer support area, and yet more in the quality assurance area, because each of these functional units had a programming need.If your organisation still operates in this manner, give your boss a copy of this article.And so it was in the 1970s that attempts to improve traditional organization structures, led to the creation of the “Matrix" organizational structure.In the matrix organisation, considering our IT example above, all programmers are now in a separate programming department and report to a functional manager in charge of programming, and that manager would control almost all of their work. In a matrix we usually refer to the line manager as a functional manager because all of their workers perform similar functions.So workers in a matrix organisation are compartmentalized by their required skills into silos, like columns in a matrix, each with its dedicated manager. The workers report to and are responsible to their functional manager, who in turn usually has sole responsibility for the advancement of their workers, as well as the administration of their area, including budgeting.So far the matrix organization sounds much like the traditional organization, except that all workers within a silo (a column in the matrix) are partitioned by a particular skill-set.The other difference between traditional organisations and matrix organisations is that matrices have rows (lines running across the columns, not fights).Traditional organizations operated quite well, but they were inefficient, with lots of duplication of skills around the company. But their major weakness was when they tried to manage projects.The problem was that in the traditional organisation, the concept of a project team, which is my nature cross-functional, did not exist, because the project manager's "team" team comprised of people from different functional areas, managed and controlled by different functional managers -- not by the project manager. And this is not a recipe for successful projects.So we have our columns of functionally similar workers in each column of our matrix, with a functional manager at the head of each column.Now picture rows running across the page, with a project manager at the "head" (i.e. the left hand side) of each row. The rows intersect the columns and so intersect the columns of workers. So each row is a silo of workers of differing functionality, headed by a project manager.In such a matrix structure there is an obvious tension between the project managers at the head of each row (each project) and the managers at the head of each column (each functional area) as they are sharing the same workers, and as each manager (project and functional) has a job to do, we have a conflict of interest.There are different types of matrix organization, designed to balance the power struggle-struggle between the managers conflicting needs. The main types are listed below.The Weak MatrixThis type of organizational structure is a bit of a nightmare for Project Managers because they are effectively reduced to being project facilitators. They make plans and monitor the execution, but they have no real authority over staff, and are almost totally reliant upon the functional managers to provide resources.The workers have little loyalty to the project managers (or the project), because it is the functional managers who decide the advancement of the workers within the organization. And the workers' performance is usually measured only on the work that they do for their functional manager -- not on their project work -- so in fact working on a project may be seen by the worker as undesirable as they will have less time to do their regular work, so the project manager may find them unmotivated.And as the PM has no real authority over the team members, then they often have to report the problem of workers not performing, to the functional managers in the hope that they will encourage the workers to work more on the project.But remember that the functional managers are primarily responsible for the performance of their own functional areas, so their workers performing project tasks can actually reduce the productivity of their area (often projects are ignored in the benchmarks). So this leads to a clear conflict of interest between the PM, the functional managers and the various workers.In this situation the PM usually loses -- and that’s the easy to remember it -- the PM is weak in a weak matrix. The Strong MatrixAll these problems led to the creation of the “strong matrix” organization In the strong matrix the tables are turned, it is the project managers that have responsibility for the workers, not the line managers. But the PMs are not responsible for the human resource administration.This empowers the project managers to manage the workers directly, and thus properly manage the whole project, but without tying the PMs up in HR administration.I have worked in organizations like this, where I managed my teams and was responsible for everything except the HR functions, and I found it a very satisfying environment from a project point of view. So my teams would have me as project manager and I had sole authority and responsibility to direct their work, but they also had staff managers who looked after anything that was not project-related, i.e. performance reviews (but I provided the key input to these) training, vacation administration, employment contracts etc. And this meant that I could focus on the projects. So when a project manager starts a new project, they discuss their staffing requirement with the functional managers and the functional managers try to make the resources available (and provide training fro them, where necessary). Usually the functional managers will draw up plans and charts (e.g. Gantt charts) of how “their people” will fit inside projects, and they might move staff between projects and project managers as required (after consulting with the project managers).Effectively the PM and the functional managers work together, but overall control of everything project-related is the function of the project manager -- so in a strong matrix, the project manager is the stronger party. The Balanced MatrixThere is an old saying, “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In each type of matrix organization there is a struggle for power, and so there needs to be some way to bring this into balance, otherwise one group will dominate the other, to the detriment of the project, and ultimately to the detriment of the organization as a whole (although individual projects or functional areas may blossom for a while). A very dominant project manager for example may bully the functional managers into always giving them the best team members for their projects. One way of reducing the problem is to make rules within the organization that varies who can manage a worker, depending upon certain circumstances. For example there could be a rule that says if an worker is to work on a project for less than one week then the functional manager (or project manager) has sole control over the worker, but if the requirement is for more than one week, control changes hands.Or there may be rules that the same worker can’t work for the same PM, on two consecutive projects.There are many possible rules that could be made of course, but the goal is to balance the power between the PM and the functional managers so that we don’t have a win/lose situation, and I’m sure you can guess that this type of organizational structure is called a “balanced matrix”. So weak, strong, or balanced, the "strength" is always from the viewpoint of the project manager.
From nasir mustafa
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