Human Resource Management (HRM, HR) is the management of an organization's employees. While human resource management is sometimes referred to as a "soft" management skill, effective practice within an organization requires a strategic focus to ensure that people resources can facilitate the achievement of organizational goals. Effective human resource management also contains an element of risk management for an organization which, as a minimum, ensures legislative compliance.
Fundamentally, human resource management is based on the assumption that employees are individuals with varying goals and needs. Human resources should not be categorized with basic business resources (trucks, filing cabinets, etc.).
Practicing good human resource management (HRM) enables managers of an enterprise to express their goals with specificity, increasing worker comprehension of goals, and provide the necessary resources to promote successfully accomplishment of said goals. When HRM is properly employed members of the workforce are expressive of the goals and operating practices of the firm.
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.
