One of the significant management functions of a corporation is the personnel management – human resource management. The sad reality of personnel management as traced back from the history during industrial revolution of the late eighteen and even early nineteenth centuries, though the period was considered one of the tremendous prosperities for the middle class but the affluence wasn’t evenly shared to the employees who were into back-breaking labor.
Employees before are the ones being paid, not their services. Wages of employees during this period were low, their health conditions were not in good shape and the management style were often harsh. Workers had to be always in competition against one with another and the workforce was almost totally children ages seven years old. Personnel management before was in a form of slavery and every human being was considered commodity.
When one of the employees was under-performance, the manager gets him/her out of the organization and sells to other employers in exchange for another commodity that would be something useful in their workforce. In the Philippine setting, there has been a management evolution, which consisted of the history of the entrance of Spaniards and Americans in the Philippines. Each brought in its management style to the Filipino people. Personnel managers before might be viewed nowadays as inhuman and ruthless. However, before jumping into a conclusion or labeling them, modern Human resource’s consideration for an evaluation on their performance will help assess themselves if they really are in the position to charge unfair judgment to them in the eighteen and nineteen centuries.
Personnel management during the ancient times has its own system that fits to their government condition, way of living, and the people working. The same applies to the modern management. Every period has its own system that just perfectly fits to the present condition before. Their type of personnel management can be a reflection of the past management prior to the eighteen and nineteen centuries but might no longer exactly be the same. Over the decades, because of continuous research human resource management progressed. It is because people started to get educated and discover new things that would be helpful to both organizations and workforce. Later, line upon line, precept upon precept and because of education people then started to realize slavery is not good and the only way to improve an organization.
Hence, with the help of education, and research & development, personnel management nowadays has more to do with responsible human resource management by providing what is due to the employees and avoiding unfair labor practices.