Describe the revolution of the 1950 personnel departments to the current HRM departments and expand on the importance of the HRM department in the 21st century. What forces influenced the changes we have seen?

Before the World Wars, American industry was primarily focused on production and operations. Corporations invested their development into the product, since labor was easily replaceable and most factory work was considered low-skilled. There was a significantly greater supply of laborers than demand for their time. That changed in the 40s and 50s, post-WWII.

The effect of the workforce returning from overseas turned business models on their heads. The demand for workers grew beyond the supply and, in the 1950s, attraction and retention of skilled labor became an absolute necessity in order to facilitate successful businesses. Personnel departments developed rapidly to support recruitment, company culture, employee relations, safety, and compensation. In this period, the decisions made by the personnel departments were primarily tactical—handling the situations created by employees and the employer rather than actively adjusting the business to reflect the employees and their culture.

In the 1960s and 70s, employment legislation created a compliance element to the personnel department. Companies had to adopt policies that required management and oversight in order to avoid the expense of lawsuits. This occurred in the midst of a labor shortage, which required companies to put more thought into attracting and retaining skilled talent.

The final shift from personnel departments to human resource management occurred in the 1980s and 90s. These decades at last saw the integration of personnel management into company forecasting and analysis. Instead of handling situations as they arose, Human Resources claimed a seat at the corporate table and began to advocate for a people-centric view in organizational development. The cost-benefit analysis of labor went beyond the dollar value of wages and research on motivation and productivity boomed.

Today, Human Resource Management is critical to success in businesses both large and small. The 21st century has thus far faced a relatively ''hot'' labor market, where jobs are abundant and skilled laborers are few and far between. Modeling businesses to support employees, raise morale, encourage motivation and ingenuity, and recognize success is critical to the continuance of companies as large as Amazon and as small as the Mom & Pop cafe around the corner.