Computers and the Industrial Relations Manager: A Case Study of the Mining Industry

A persistent theme in writing on personnel management has been the relative marginality of the personnel function within the management team as a whole (see Legge pp. 50–7) and Poole (p. 97). Because of its indirect contribution to the raising of profits, human resources management has tended not to be a priority for investment and the concerns and perspectives of personnel practitioners have tended to receive only fitful consideration in the forums at which strategic business decisions are taken. One response to this situation by the personnel profession has been to develop expertise in computer‐based data‐processing techniques which permit personnel managers to assume more of an accounting function. Such quantitative techniques enable personnel managers to monitor and evaluate the utilisation of human resources, arguably improving the efficiency and cost‐effectiveness of the enterprise. The potential and the purpose of this strategic response on the part of the profession, therefore, is to raise the centrality and indispensability of the personnel function, and elevate its importance within the management hierarchy (pp. 79–85).