The following factors are responsible for the slow growth of human resource management in India:
Factors
1. Late arrival of the Factory System:
Human resource management is conditioned by industrial development. In India, modern industry started with the development of the railways. Even after the progress of industry, human resource management was unheard of.
It was the Royal Commission of Labour which recommended in 1931, the appointment of labour officers to deal with the recruitment of labour and to settle their grievances.
Image Source: casperwy.gov
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Thus, the slow growth of human resource management in India can be linked to the late arrival of large scale industry.
2. Low Status of the Industrial Worker:
The Indian worker in the early days of industrialisation was found to be illiterate. But over the years, the profile of the industrial worker has changed. Now, his status is enhanced. As a result, the handling of labour has become more professionalised.
3. Professionalisation of Human Resource Management:
A professional subscribes to certain ethical standards. He is more loyal to the profession than to the employer.
ADVERTISEMENTS:
With the emergence of professional personnel managers, the growth of human resource management has accelerated. A professional has knowledge and judgment, which he uses to make his decision.
He is not controlled and directed by his employer. Thus, professionalisation makes a business enterprise more efficient, dynamic and socially responsible.
The growth of personnel management education in India has contributed to professionalisation of human resource management.
4. Social Responsibilities of Business:
Employees should be treated as human beings and their co-operation must be achieved for the realisation of organisational goals. The business should fulfill the following obligations towards its employees.
(a) Fair Wages:
ADVERTISEMENTS:
Business should pay reasonable salaries so that its employees may lead a good life and satisfy their needs.
(b) Adequate Benefits:
Employees should be provided benefits like housing, insurance cover, medical facilities and retirement benefits.
(c) Good Working Conditions:
Good working conditions are necessary to maintain the health of the workers. Therefore they must be provided with good working conditions.
(d) Opportunity for Growth:
Business should give the employees opportunity to develop their capabilities through training and education.
(e) Recognition of Worker’s Rights:
The business should recognise the worker’s right to fair wages, to form trade unions, to collective bargaining etc.
(f) Co-operation:
The business must win the co-operation of workers by creating the conditions in which workers are willing to put forward their best efforts towards the common goals of the business.
Therefore business organisations made a conscious attempt by contributing to the well-being and upliftment of the community in which they were located.
5. Change of Government’s Attitude:
The relationship between the state and the economy has a chequered history since the days of the planner economist, Adam Smith.
During the time of Adam Smith, the doctrine of laissez faire was widely accepted as the guiding principle of economic activity.
The state was expected to concern itself only with problems relating to law and order. It scrupulously avoided any interference in the working of private business.
Laissez faire was the era of free enterprises. The doctrine of laissez faire was based on the assumption “that every individual acting as a rational being tries to get the greatest satisfaction from life for himself and in the process contributes towards the greatest possible satisfaction to society”.
Thus, the classical economist fondly believed that the principle of non-interference with the economic and business matters led to “the greatest good of the greatest numbers”.
Prior to independence, the British government followed a laissez-faire attitude to labour-management relations.
But after independence, the national government pledge d to establish a welfare state. The government therefore enacted many laws for the benefit of the workers.