Personnel management focuses on planning, acquiring, developing, compensating, and maintaining a workforce to achieve organisational objectives effectively and lawfully, spanning managerial and operative functions across the employee lifecycle.
Personnel function
Personnel functions typically span procurement, development, compensation, maintenance, and integration, combining planning, organising, directing, and controlling to align people practices with business strategy. Operative responsibilities include job analysis, recruitment and selection, induction, training, wage and salary administration, performance appraisal, employee relations, welfare, safety, and compliance. Contemporary practice adds structured benefits, grievance handling, union negotiation, and continuous learning to strengthen motivation, productivity, and retention.
- Planning and organisation define policies, structures, and workforce requirements linked to goals.
- Recruitment, selection, onboarding, and placement secure the right talent and role fit.
- Training, appraisal, and career development build capability and future readiness.
- Compensation and benefits ensure fairness, competitiveness, and statutory compliance.
- Employee relations, welfare, safety, and grievance management sustain morale and continuity.
Legal aspects
Personnel management operates within a codified labour-law framework that governs contracts, wages, social security, safety, working time, discrimination, termination, and dispute resolution, requiring robust policy design and procedural discipline. India’s labour reforms consolidate legacy laws into four codes: Wages, Social Security, Industrial Relations, and Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions, streamlining registration, compliance, and standards-setting through Central and State rules. Employers must implement due process in discipline and termination, ensure equality and non-discrimination, and protect special classes of employees under sectoral and cross-cutting statutes.
- The OSHWC framework consolidates 13 laws on safety and working conditions, mandates registration, defines employer/employee duties, and provides for national and state advisory boards.
- Equality and protection regimes cover equal remuneration, maternity benefits, disability rights, transgender protections, and HIV/AIDS non-discrimination.
- Procedural fairness requires domestic inquiries, proportionate penalties, and adherence to natural justice in misconduct cases.
Legislation on working conditions
Working conditions legislation addresses hours of work, overtime, rest intervals, leave, welfare facilities, health and safety standards, and record-keeping, often through State Shops and Establishments Acts and sectoral laws consolidated under OSHWC. The OSHWC Code prescribes employer duties for hazard-free workplaces, health checks where notified, accident reporting, and sector-specific rules for factories, mines, docks, plantations, and construction. State Shops and Establishments frameworks set local norms for work hours, weekly offs, holidays, and amenities for commercial establishments, complementing central standards.
- Employers must provide basic amenities (drinking water, sanitation, first aid), maintain registers, and follow prescribed shifts, overtime rates, and rest breaks.
- Certain provisions extend to all employees (including managerial and supervisory above a threshold), expanding the coverage beyond “workmen” classifications.
- Compliance now hinges on integrated codes and forthcoming/operative state rules, requiring establishment-level mapping and periodic audits.
HRM Articles related to Model (C & D) of CAIIB –Elective paper:
