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We may safely say that in the recent past, no other area of an organization has changed so much as human resource management. Until recently, companies and organizations had a department or division for personnel or labor relations or industrial relations. Its functions normally centered around ensuring smooth production and operations, discouraging strikes and labor activism, appraisal and compensation issues and complying with the government's mandates and rules.

The improvements and changes in the industry and economy besides increased awareness of employees as a valuable resource has changed the focus from controlling to managing this resource. An organization's most valuable asset now is its people and not capital, machinery or technology. People are emotional, ever changing and susceptible to ups and downs and as such managing this dynamic resource needs a set of both hard and soft analytical skills.

All sorts of tasks are encompassed by human resource management, such as effective recruiting of new staff, training of staff in order to enhance themselves and also be optimally productive for the organization, keeping morale up and encouraging people to achieve all they can. Other important areas include hrm and psychology, equal opportunity for women, minorities and physically challenged, compensation and benefits, and compliance with laws and government regulations.

The human resource manager has come to play an increasingly important role in an organization's success. He has the unenviable task of searching for and recruiting people having not only the qualifications required by the organization but also the right attitude and emotional balance. He has to then apply hrm and psychology to ensure that they all work towards the same direction set by the organization and at the same time, not stifle individuality and creativity.

An effective human resource management has some fundamental features like a system to bring suggestions and complaints and to apply/think over them immediately and effectively. Some other functions of a good human resource management are to have a responding appraisal system that contains the facility of giving counsel to each employee in his/her career and in building their personality and also an honest feedback mechanism.

All organizations, whether they are a large corporation, a non-profit or a small business unit, has to take care of its people if it has to grow and prosper. It has to identify and nurture those who are high performers and groom them for leadership roles. At the same time, it has to identify and help average performers to improve themselves and their productivity. Without a well-developed human resource management, it cannot hope to achieve these objectives. It has to keep its people happy. After all, a happy person is a productive person essentially.