An Integrated Approach to Human Resources Management

This article appeared in the GAO Review, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Spring 1981. In 1980, GAO began operating an independent personnel system which removed it from most Office of Personnel Management regulations. This independence, combined with a continually expanding congressional mandate, a changing work force, legal constraints on employment practices, and improvements in personnel management technology, gave GAO the responsibility and opportunity to create a human resource management system that would help it more effectively manage its employees. Human resource management is an attitude and approach of managers toward the effective selection, use, and development of people in organizations. The goals are: to improve employee productivity on a variety of important performance measures such as cost savings, performance level or rate, timeliness, and accuracy; and to enhance the qualitative aspects of the work place, such as providing challenging and interesting work, reasonable control over one's job, and satisfying interpersonal relationships. This could have significant payoffs through reduced turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, grievances filed, accident rate, slowdowns, strikes, equipment breakage, and employee theft. Fundamental changes in society have many organizational and managerial consequences. Employees increasingly desire feelings of achievement, opportunities for learning and advancement, a job that uses their abilities to the fullest extent, and meaningful participation with management in decisionmaking. A systems perspective is embodied in the human resource approach to management. Without a systems oriented approach, individual components within an organization tend to develop their own human resource units or undertake related projects. This can cause problems. Human resource programs should support each other and, in total, contribute to meeting organizational objectives. Organizational functioning is an interdependent process, and the design and management of human resources is best accomplished in a systematic manner. A human resources management model should contain workforce planning, recruitment and selection, performance, rewards, training and development, and evaluation components. A human resource information system containing personnel data on acquiring, developing, and managing human resources is an important aspect of an integrated human resource management system.