CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

All over the world, every organisation usually have resources at their disposal which they deploy to realising their goals and objectives. These resources are: Capital, Land, Labor (Human) and Technology. Humans are an organisation’s greatest assets; humans and the potential they possess drive an organisation change (Jahn, 2007). Today’s organisations are continuously changing. Organisational change impacts not only the business but also its employees. In order to maximise organisational effectiveness occasioned by the change, human resources—individuals’ capabilities, time, and talents—must be managed. To ensure that change is efficiently driven by the human resources of an organisation has necessitated the creation of a special section, the human resource department. Hence, human resource management is the responsibility of human resource department.

Human resource management therefore can be said to be the strategic and coherent approach to the management of an organisation’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 organisations. In simple words, human resource management means employing people, developing their capacities, utilising, maintaining and compensating their services in tune with the job and organisational requirement.