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Keywords
Human resource management, Public sector
Abstract
This article examines the reallocation of human resource management responsibilities from HR specialists to line managers in UK public sector organisations In an increasingly regulated working environment. It uses evidence about the extent and scope of HR devolution in a large unitary city council, the British Library and a county probationary service. Based on the perceptions of senior managers, middle managers, HR specialists and the trade union representatives, it specifically explores: the issues devolution raises about the HR responsibilities of line managers; the experience of HR devolution in the public sector; and the impact of a more externally regulated and litigious workplace on continuing devolution.
Introduction
Since the early 1980s the trend in the UK has been to return as much responsibility as possible to the line manager, supported by the promotion of human resource management as a distinctive, more strategic approach to employment issues than traditional personnel management. From the outset one of the defining characteristics of HRM has been the devolution of HR responsibilities to line managers (Guest, 1987; Schuler, 1992). This organising principle was described by Krulis-Randa (1990, p. 27) as:
Wherever possible, devolving responsibility for people management to line managers, the role of personnel professionals being to support and facilitate line management in this task, not control it.
Yet 20 years on there is still little empirical evidence about the extent to which core human-resourcing activities have been devolved, the shape they have taken and their appropriateness from the perspective of the different stakeholders.
The rationale for this reallocation of responsibilities was that personnel departments had become over-controlling bureaucracies, which had played too central a role as "industrial relations experts" in the 1970s (Legge, 1988). This had led to a removal of ownership for the conduct of the employment relationship from line management. A reaction to this perceived dominance by the personnel function was for it to relinquish some of its responsibilities by moving towards an increased sharing of responsibilities between the specialist function and line management for people issues. The espoused collaboration with general management was supported by a view that HR activities needed to become more aligned with wider business objectives and more internally proactive (Torrington and Hall,...