Significance of understanding Human Resource Management from the Diversity Perspective

Résumé ou Introduction

For more than a hundred years, human resource management, as a practice and discipline in people management in an organization, has evolved in definition and in scope. The most popular definition of human resource management is that provided by Storey and Armstrong. The duo define human resource management as “a distinctive approach to employment management seeking to accomplish competitive advantage through strategic deployment of highly capable and committed labour using an integrated array of cultural, structural and personnel technique” (Itika 2011, p. 12). Human resource management can further be defined as a management practice and a strategic approach towards employee management in ways that would result in attainment of organizational goals, objectives and mission. According to these definitions, human resource management uses tools that attracts, motivates, develops and retains the effective function of the management of people. His may not be easy as people are workplaces are made up of several differences that are visible or invisible, through age, marital status, gender, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion, personality and culture amongst others. Diversity in workplaces has resulted in the discriminations of certain individuals (OECD 2012). For instance, gender inequality is vice that cut across the globe, religion and ethnic segregation separates individuals in Middle East workplaces. In China, rural migrants are looked down upon by the urbanites and are mistreated in whatever kind of jobs they are allocated. Xenophobic incidences have widely been reported in South African workplaces, while the United States is blamed for racial discrimination.