Both the human resource management and industrial relations are essential elements in the organization and represent an adversarial position in the work relations between the employee and employer. Human resource management involves the management of the relationship between the employees and employers and ensures that there are effective and harmonious relations between the two stakeholders. Human resource management is the overall management of human resources including the employees, executive and all other staff within the organization. Industrial relations, on the other hand, is the management of the relations between the actual workforce and the management of the organization and in addition to the two stakeholders, it also includes the labor unions and the government. Both the industrial relations and HR management must coexist within the workplace to ensure there is a harmonious relationship between the workers and the management. The two major components of an organization have always brought controversy over whether IR is a branch of HR or whether it stands on its own. While one school of thought argues that RI is independent and not a branch of the HR, the other school of thought argues that it falls as a subset of HR. Despite the two sides of arguments, IR remains an independent department that has is not a branch of the HR and has different functions from those of the HR departments.
Human resource management majorly deals with the management of the relationship between the employee and employers and within the organization. It deals with the formulation of policies and procedures that are aimed at ensuring that employees have a good relationship with the employees and that the employees are at their best form to be productive ( Purce, 2014 ). Through the implementation of the policies and programs and programs formulated, the HR department ensures that all matters within the organization concerning employees are well-taken care off. The industrial relations is rather different as it is concerned with the relations between the actual workforce and the management. The actual workforce involves the real workers of the organization. The IR works to ensure that the relations that the actual workforce have with the employers are a good one that does not lead to industrial conflicts ( Noe et al., 2017 ). Industrial relations is therefore not a subset of the Human resource because the role it serves is different from that of the human resource. Even though most of the policies and procedures are formed in consultation with both the HR manager and IR manager, the roles they play are different.
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Another area that proves that IR is not a subset of the HR is on the number of parties that each one of them deals with. The IR mainly involves four parties to it. Industrial relations management involves the relationship between the employees, employers, trade unions and the government ( Collings, Wood & Szamosi , 2018). Whenever there is a conflict between the employer and the employee, trade unions always get in to stand with the employees. In such a scenario, it is under the mandate of the industrial relations manager to represent the organization in negotiations with the trade union members. Based on this function, the industrial relations manager acts as a union representative and meets with the representatives from the trade unions to solve any employment issues that may arise ( Aswathappa , 2013). Such is not under the mandate of the HR, thereby making IR not to be the subset of the HR. Human resource management is mainly concerned with the internal issues of the employees and does not have the mandate to get to the outside parties whenever there is a conflict.
Human resource management involves more focus on the organization as a whole and handles all the matters of the employees within the organization. It does not get into the issues that are not within the organization with regards to the employees as these are under the mandate of the industrial relations manager. For example, the human resource management deals with the issues of employees staffing and the recruitment processes to fill in any vacancy and to ensure that there is continuous productivity ( Nankervis et al., 2016 ). Once the employees are recruited, any matters that relate to employees’ complaints that involve unionized workers remain under the control of the industrial relations manager. While the matters of the employees within the organization are under the management of the human resource, the industrial relations experts are hired by the organization to handle the industrial relations issues. Even in a union environment, some employees are not in the bargaining unit, such as the supervisors, the office staff and managers. Depending on the size of the organization and the number of employees, the organization can always have an employee relations specialist to help in handling the matters of industrial relations ( Mitchell, Obeidat & Bray , 2013). This is an area under the mandate of the human relations manager and the not under the human resource manager. Based on these functions, industrial relations is not a subset of the human resource but has its functions that do not fall within those of human resource management.
The collective bargaining process is one area that also differentiates the functions of the HR and those of the IR. Collective bargaining is the process by which the employers and the trade unions use to negotiate a contract that sets on the wages, the benefits, and the working conditions ( Davies , 2018As a result, the term bargaining unit represents the group of employees that have a common interest that is covered by the labor unions. The industrial relations always play a crucial role in the negotiation process. The industrial manager represents the whole organization including the HR department in the negation process. While the negotiation process needs the presence of the HR manager due to the role they play in preparing the wage sheets, the IR manager has a crucial role to play in negotiating with the trade unions ( Bomers & Peterson , 2013). Thus under the functions of the IR, it does not fall as a branch of the human resource management, but as a separate department with different roles and functions from those of the HR.
The operation nature of the two concepts also makes them remain as two separate departments crucial within the organization. An organization with a sound IR contributes to the achievement of the goals of the organization through reduction of the industrial conflicts ( Gartner, Schank & Schnabel, 2013 ). At the same time, an unsound IR can result in an industrial conflicts such as strike which will then call for the need of the human resource management department to change the objectives and goals. Because it functions singly as a department separate from the HR, it leads the whole organization in finding a solution to various industrial issues. The governing of the industrial resource is by the system of rules and regulations that concerns work, workplace, and the working community ( Tapia, Ibsen & Kochan, 2015 ). Even though HR is responsible for the formation of workplace policies, the operations of the IR is not done by human resource management. It works to maintain harmonious relations between the employees and the employers by representing the organization in solving the grievances and conflicts. Through the negotiations with the trade unions, the operations of the IR are shaped by these trade unions ( Rothman, Briscoe & Nacamulli , 2017). As a result, the key focus areas of IR and HR are different, and thus IR works differently and not as a branch of the HR.
While both the HR and IR managers are involved in the handling of the grievances that may arise in the employment, it is the function of the IR manager to get in and process a union-employee grievance which proceeds in three steps ( Sinha, Sinha & Shekhar , 2017). The handling of the grievances includes a union steward that represents the interests of the employees. While the human resource management involves the overall management of all resources include the workers, staff, executives and even top management, the IR involves the practice of relations between the actual workforce and the management of the organization. The two concepts though related in function are different in the scope of their operations.
In conclusion, the arguments over the IR falling under the HR department has always remained topic under research. Even though the two share specific functions, they remain entirely different in their operations. While in the overall management of all resources including workers, staff, executives, top management and even suppliers and customers.The industrial relations practice are the relations between actual workforce and management of the organization. The IR acts as a union representative in the negotiations with the trade unions whenever there is a conflict between the employees and employers. On the other hand, HR is concerned with the formulation of the policies and procedures that helps in guiding the relationship between employees and employers. The two though seemingly operating under the same guidelines, they remain independent of each other despite the consultation that is required between each of the departments. The overall duties of the IR manager and HR manager are different though the two must work in consultation with each other. as a result, IR is not a subset of HR based on the scope of their functions.
References
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