Personnel Management Types

Description of Personnel Management Types. Explanation.

Definition Personnel Management Types. Description.

There have been more than a few attempts to classify HR Managers or Personnel Managers into various roles or types or categories. One of the most well known is the one by Shaun Tyson and Alan Fell (1986), who distinguish 3 Types of Personnel Management:

Architect. Personnel Manager who has a strategic involvement in the business. Has an important role in ensuring that employment policies are appropriate to the wider business strategy. Creative and innovative in devising policy.
Contracts Manager. Expert negotiator, maintaining order and regulating the employment relationship through systems based on formal politics and procedures. Not strategically involved in the organization, but provides important operational support for line managers by offering professional expertise.
Clerk of Works. Personnel Manager that is concerned with employee issues on a day to day basis and dealing with routine employment administration. Has no strategic involvement in the business and employment policies are ad-hoc and short term. Formal authority is with the line managers.

K. Monks recommends in 1992 to add a fourth Innovative / Professional role for a Personnel Manager, which is positioned in between the Architect role and the Contracts Manager role.