164 ANALYSING HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Specific application of criteria to HRM
To evaluate the proposed professionalization of HRM in more depth one
must ask whether it meets most of the important marks of a profession. The
national context will vary even in the English speaking First World, but let us
evaluate each in turn:
1.The client has a need, which the provider’s vocation meets.Vocation might
look too strong a word for the role, but many would agree on the crucial
importance for well-being of work and dignity at work. There is arguably
no one specific need for the practice of HRM in the way that justice stands
to law and health stands to medicine. Nonetheless HR practitioners do
have to manage a cluster of specific individualneeds-satisfiers for persons
in organizations, and the needs of organizations themselves. These include:
equity and fairness (EEO and AA), fidelity (employment contracts),
procedural justice (performance management and promotion policy),
and opportunity for development and self-perfection (training), not to
mention fun (culture of informal behaviour) and friendship; conflict,
resolution processes; freedom from fear of danger, violent conflicts, and
environmental hazards (occupational health and safety). These responsi-
bilities suggest the role already has an implicit de facto grant of authority
from society through a board of management or other government struc-
ture. There is a moral need for respect for staffmembers’ personal dignity,
relevant organizational information, job safety and security, equitable
pay, and positive and negative freedoms. Additionally HR practitioners
have to meet a cluster of organizational needs—for example recruitment
and retention of qualified stafffor task accomplishment, job analysis,
performance management, and training. HRM passes this test. Code:
NeedVoc- The existence of a growingbody of systematic, specialized, knowledge, prac-
tically applied.This test seems to be essential and is listed in all discussions
of the nature of professions. The HRM knowledge base and conflict
resolution skill-sets, both draw on the standard applied social science-
based curriculum. It has a theoretical and empirically tested aspect. It
could be leavened by introduction of more normative ethics, politics, and
social policy education; and the concessional and constitutional corpo-
rate model in corporate law and economics, taught with its individualistic
assumptions and classical prescriptions laid bare. But HRM arguably can
pass this test. Code:SpTK
3.Mandatory training period. There are professional associations but no
professional licence issuing body exists. The nearest equivalents are
tertiary level degrees, certificates, and specialization within broader