Turning back the pages of HRMagazine

John T. Adams

Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the magazine chronicles the growth of a profession that emerges as a major new player in the corporate milleu. Join us now on a journey to HR Past, Present and Future - as reported in SHRM's flagship publication.

It's 1955.

Dwight Eisenhower is in the White House, recovering from a heart attack.

Bill Clinton is 9 years old.

Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" is giving birth to a new genre of music.

George Meany is president of the newly merged AFL-CIO.

HRMagazine, nee Personnel News, official publication of the American Society for Personnel Administration (now SHRM), publishes its first issue in March.

Unfortunately, the March 1955 Personnel News is lost to history; it is not in the SHRM archives. But, not surprisingly, the second digest-size issue carries many articles about unions. The dominant job title for practitioners was "industrial relations," and unions occupied much of their time.

Personnel News was distributed that year to 503 Society members, up from 92 members in the founding year of 1948.

Headlines included "The Guaranteed Annual Wage" and "Successful Attack on Absenteeism."

The big advertisers in the April issue were Pepsi Cola and Corning - who haven't advertised in the HR market in decades. But in those days a major function of HR was running the company cafeteria: Pepsi to drink and Corning glasses to drink from.

The September issue included an article titled How Insurance Companies Feel About Employing the Handicapped in Industry." The article - which differentiated between "handicapped" and "normal" people - reflected a fear that people with disabilities might hurt themselves or others, thus exposing employers to increased risk.

How did insurance companies feel? No problem, the article said, so long as the individual is "properly placed."

The same issue included a help-wanted advertisement from "a leading management consulting firm." The company was seeking "an outstanding man," preferably between 30 and 35 years of age with a degree from an Ivy League school.

Another help-wanted ad from a "prominent Midwest organization" sought a "technical personnel recruiter, single, willing to travel." They didn't say it, but they probably wanted a single male.

Forty years ago it was a different world.

1957

The April issue in 1957 didn't show much change in content or appearance. But the name had been changed a year earlier from Personnel News to Personnel Administrator.

Human resource management would be considered a man's game for years to come; "personnel man" was still a common reference to practitioners. The ad mix, a thin selection at best, was similar to the first year of publication.

But it was this issue that carried the first truly future-oriented article on what the profession could become - a profession with full status in the corporate hierarchy.

Richard P. Calhoon, professor of personnel administration at the University of North Carolina, laid out his prophecy in "The Eventuation of Personnel Administration."

"The personnel administrator is a relatively new member of management," he wrote, "and his responsibilities have grown in part due to changing concepts, which in turn have been influenced by factors affecting business."

One factor was the growth in company size, with larger companies having larger personnel divisions. Another component was unionization. "Organized labor has complicated the job of management," Calhoon wrote, probably aware of his understatement.

A third factor was government regulation, which had "compelled business to pay more attention to personnel administration and to establish special departments charged with this responsibility," he wrote.

The final element was economic stability. After World War II "a general period of good business has led employers to do all in their power to keep relations with employees on an even keel. This, coupled with the ability to afford special considerations for employees, has led companies to develop and expand their personnel departments."

Still, "personnel men" weren't poised to lead their companies toward the future, Calhoon wrote. Line management, fearful of the growing authority of personnel departments, frequently engaged in turf battles for control of employment decisions. Personnel was in a difficult position to fend off these assaults on its authority because it was difficult to measure the effectiveness of its actions.

Moreover, Calhoon said, there were still a lot of "weak personnel men" out there. The overall professionalism of the field needed to be raised. There were also a number of erroneous assumptions hampering the profession, wrote Calhoon:

* It requires no special training. Anyone with common sense can do it.

* It's a clerical job, centered on keeping records.

* It's a consulting position that should be available when called on by the line organization (and shouldn't meddle when not invited to).

* Its function is to develop policies and procedures for use by the line organization (and then personnel should get out of the way and let the people do their jobs).

* Personnel work covers all the individual relationships in an organization. It's subordinate to the more important functions of labor relations, public relations and, a relatively new term in the corporate lexicon, "human relations."

Personnel men need to overcome these mistaken assumptions, Calhoon wrote, by becoming students of the organizational culture, skilled in interpersonal and group relationships as well as in the technical aspects of their jobs.

The personnel administrator "must assign full consideration to both behavioral and administrative matters, intertwined as they are. Together, then, this is personnel administration in the mature concept."

1958

Of course, the changes Professor Calhoon called for, and predicted, didn't happen overnight. In the February 1958 issue of Personnel Administrator, an article looked at "What Plant Managers Expect of Personnel Managers."

The list was illuminating, and patronizing. It included character traits like integrity, enthusiasm, creativity, energy, the ability to get things done, education and experience and "a broad understanding." That last requirement most likely relates to the erroneous assumption, highlighted in Calhoon's article, that all it takes to be a good "personnel man" is common sense.

We're jumping ahead of our story, but 32 years later, in 1990, Personnel Administrator published a more current take titled, "What Does the CEO Want?" The answer in that article: Know how business works. And know how this particular business works.

1960

The brief Kennedy years had not begun. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, part of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, was in the future. So was the Vietnam War; the first U.S. military council in Vietnam was two years away.

No one had heard of hippies or yippies or the SDS. Beatniks wore beards, wrote poetry and smoked marijuana, but long hair was out for even the most reckless young men.

The life expectancy for a white male born that year was 66.6 years. For a black male it was 61.1. Today the life expectancies are 72.3 and 67.8 years.

The national expenditure for health care was $27.1 billion in 1960. Three decades later it would total more than three-quarters of a trillion dollars, nearly a thirty-fold increase.

The federal deficit was $2,852 per U.S. citizen. By 1992, it would be $15,846 per capita. Total U.S. population was 179 million, compared to 249 million 30 years later.

In this context, Personnel Administrator took another look at the future in its June-July 1960 issue. Egbert van Delden, professor of industrial relations at New York University, gave a glimpse of the coming decade and "The Task of the Personnel Administrator in the 1960s."

Van Delden admonished: "It is time for personnel administrators to start thinking now about how the use of electronic office devices will change the nature of the opportunities, challenges and problems of their job from the corresponding situations which have prevailed in the past."

It would be two decades before the personal computer would start appearing in offices. Transistors and photo etching onto silicon chips were part of the technological landscape in 1960. But computers at the time were large and slow, by today's standards, and so expensive they lent themselves mostly to applications in large businesses.

The common electronic office devices of the day were adding machines that plugged into the wall (and didn't have crank-type handles). There were electric typewriters (sans correction keys and memory chips). In 1960, secretaries still made carbon copies of their boss's letters, not photocopies. And mimeograph machines, once-modern electronic devices that now are fading into museum displays, were used for multiple-copy projects.

In his article, van Delden also noted that foreign competition would increase during the coming decade. And, he said, the "spirit of man" was being rediscovered; job satisfaction was becoming more important.

He wrote this before Sony, Toyota, Nikon, Nissan were household words in the United States, in a time when "Made in Japan" identified an item as a low-quality trinket. He wrote before the social upheaval of the '60s led to freedom marches for civil rights, anti-war protests and the ultimate redefinition of the employer-employee relationship nearly a generation later.

1963

In "Observations on the 88th Congress," Harry J. Lambeth lamented the continued liberal dominance of the national legislative agenda. Lambeth, a labor attorney with the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, compared Republican politicians to the Washington Senators baseball team, always "building for the next year."

The off-year elections of 1962 "helped the liberal Democrats to maintain their confidence as pennant winners," he wrote in the January-February 1963 issue, but the GOP showed strength at the state level.

Missing from the assessment of the magazine's legislative agenda was any prediction of the Civil Rights Act that would become law the next year. In fact, Personnel Administrator throughout this era concentrated on labor legislation and devoted little space to the passage of the act or to the early phases of its implementation.

1965

By 1965 ASPA membership had grown to 3,322. A year earlier ASPA, a volunteer-run organization since 1948, hired its first paid staff member, Executive Vice President Leonard R. Brice, who would lead the organization until 1980.

Many of ASPA's new members were worried about a new trend in the workplace: the increasing use of computers.

An article in May 1964 looked at the computer's role in personnel management, but the first technology article to make the cover of Personnel Administrator was in the September-October 1965 issue.

The cover was bigger by then; the format of the magazine had expanded to its current size in 1961. Featured on the cover was a photo enlargement of an etched silicon chip, with the headline "Man, Work and the Computer."

The article by J. James Miller starts off with the defensive man-versus-machine tone that was common in the early days of computing: "Man has a free will which no machine will ever possess and man pursues a destiny no machine ever can.

"Thus it is immaterial and irrelevant whether a machine is equal, or ever will be equal to man on a thinking basis, since the thought process is significant only in so far as it relates to the exercise of free will and the employment of judgment which is inherent in the exercise of free will."

As computers became more prevalent in the workplace, many people became fearful the devices would replace humans rather than assist them in the decision-making process. Many people fretted that they would become subservient to the new contraptions.

Miller, chairman of the Management Department at Duquesne University School of Business Administration, addressed these concerns in his article, asserting his belief that people will always have the upper hand. "Just as physical performances were accomplished in conjunction with mechanical aids, so may mental accomplishments be performed without forfeiting the control or position of dominance that is inherent in the creator and user of these human additives."

Miller concluded: "The computer at best can relieve man of the tediousness of problem solving germane to the final decision which he must make. Thus, until a machine evolves into an entity that is punishable, capable of discipline and accountable for the acts it commits, man need never fear it as a replacement for man himself."

1969

As the decade ended, Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon, the fields of Woodstock still bore the footprints of tens of thousands of young feet. And men still dominated the profession of human resource management.

One advertisement in the May 1969 issue proclaimed: "Hiring a new man? Let Fidelifacts National Network check him out."

Another, for a temporary employment service, beckoned: "Flag an American Girl."

1974

Richard Nixon resigned in 1974, rather than face impeachment for his role in the Watergate scandal. Gerald Ford became president. Jimmy Carter, who would face Ford in the 1976 election, was governor of Georgia.

Wage and price controls - in place in the United States since 1971 - were lifted, as worldwide recession continued.

A gasoline shortage created lines at filling stations and prompted the federal mandate of year-round daylight savings time. The time change lasted only one season.

Patty Hearst, the kidnapped newspaper heir, announced her intention to join her captors, the Symbionese Liberation Army.

As this turbulent year closed, Personnel Administrator called on SHRM members, now numbering around 16,000, to get in touch with their legislators.

"Businessmen must establish better contact with their elected representatives if they expect to be listened to," wrote Joseph T. Bailey, chairman and president of The Warner and Swasey Co. of Cleveland in the November-December 1974 issue.

His advice: "What you promote must be politically acceptable. Don't ask the impossible, be willing to compromise and above all - don't threaten."

The same issue included the following help-wanted ad: "Personnel Manager. For the qualified generalist whose exposure includes recruiting, wage and salary, employee relations, benefits, EEO and industrial relations. Take over these activities for a large manufacturing facility. Salary to $20,000."

1975

The recession didn't end with the new year.

Getting along in hard times was the topic of the lead article in the January 1975 issue. George A. Rieder, the new president of ASPA, took a look at "The Role of Tomorrow's Manager."

"It's difficult to shift gears from the scintillating Sixties and early Seventies - the days of rapid expansion, soaring business volumes, abundance and high expectations - to the comparative 'hard times' of scarce funds, hyperinflation and limited business horizons," wrote Rieder, vice president of Indiana National Corp. and senior vice president of Indiana National Bank.

"Today's manager," he wrote, "works with the art of the possible. He or she thinks through what can be done rather than tilting at windmills."

He added: "The manager of the future will substitute thought for muscle and, increasingly, knowledge for capital."

1975 was International Women's Year, and women in management was a major topic in the April issue.

One article looked at "Keys to Success or Failure" for women managers. It concluded that "women's motivation to be moved or to resist being moved into managerial positions vary considerably, just as they do for men [emphasis added]."

Another article dealt with "desexing the language," as proposed inwriters' guidelines issued by McGraw-Hill Book Co. The article, filled with examples of sexist language, listed inappropriate phrases and words.

A few items mentioned sound quaint 20 years later, but still crop up from time to time:

* "I'll have my girl do it."

* "Career girl."

* "Businessman."

* "The best man for the job."

1978

The high cost of health care was the focus of the May 1978 issue.

In an article on national health care, Richard Schulz, compensation and benefits manager for the First National Bank of Chicago, provided a stopping-off point in the continuing debate over how medical services should be provided.

"Over the last 50-year period, there has been a recurring national interest in this country in health care," he wrote.

"National health insurance plans were actively considered prior to World War I, in the 1930s, and after World War II. Medicare and Medicaid became a reality in 1965. The current revival of interest began in the late '60s and will probably remain at a peak until successful cost containment measures have been developed.

"Interest centers around a national health program or system."

He added: "Perhaps the main point to remember with reference to the national health problem is that there is not a crisis. The public is not seeking any fundamental changes in existing health-care institutions or provider relationships."

1981

Ronald Reagan was president. The hostages were home from Iran. Ronald C. Pilenzo had been the new chief operating officer of ASPA for a year.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 7.6 million working people, 12 percent of the full-time nonfarm employees, were on a flexible schedule that allowed them to vary the time their workdays began and ended.

Flextime, a way to cut down on fuel-consuming traffic jams, was just one of the energy-saving tips in the June 1981 issue, devoted to "Personnel and Energy."

As the nation headed into another recession, with fuel shortages and layoffs in heavy industry, ASPA members - now numbering about 30,000 - were urged to look at corporate programs to conserve energy.

A survey showed that most companies were turning thermostats up in the summer and down in the winter - and communicating the benefits of personal energy savings to employees.

A brief item in the October 1981 issue reported that the Missile Systems Division of Hughes Aircraft had run a seminar on safe biking. Enough employees were riding bicycles to work that it was worth the trouble to provide training on safety, efficient riding techniques and traffic laws.

Another article in the same issue suggested that "in most organizations, women hold a small number of the managerial and professional jobs. This tokenism tends to produce numerous social and performance pressures which reduce the token's effectiveness and promotability."

1985

Personnel Administrator was a "saddle-stitched" magazine, a method of binding thin publications by stapling the pages together. By 1983, it had added enough pages to require perfect binding, the same process used today. The June 1985 issue, which was ASPA's annual conference issue, set a record for pages: 232.

About half the pages in that issue were devoted to advertisements.

Articles looked at flexible compensation; wage discrimination; using third-party administrators to reduce health care expenses; and maternity, paternity and child care policies.

1986

The June 1986 conference issue marked the end of an era; it was the last of the old-style Personnel Administrators.

Now in its 31st year, Personnel Administrator had changed over time, but glacially. Despite increasing attention to its covers - and significant improvement in the quality of its content - the line of evolution from the first issues through June 1986 was clear.

Inside editorial pages were almost always black and white, printed on a no-gloss, uncoated paper stock. Headlines of articles were rigidly formatted, leaving little to chance and less to the imagination. Personnel Administrator had the look and feel of a professional journal: heavy content, laden with tables and graphs; well written and edited - but a bit stodgy.

That look and feel changed in July. The new design, nearly a year in creation, featured a more open layout, lighter type-faces, less rigid formatting - and color, virtually popping out of high-quality gloss coated paper.

Personnel Administrator had evolved into a new species, a slick, four-color magazine. More artwork, more photographs, more graphic devices to capture and hold the reader's attention.

The initial changes were only in design, but these changes in design wrought more changes in the future.

* The increased need for art direction led to more editorial direction. Personnel Administrator had long been dependent upon submissions of articles from HR practitioners. Editors would publish editorial calendars a year in advance, hoping that unsolicited manuscripts would appear to fill the need. Now, with a need to plan even farther in advance, editors began to work more proactively to generate articles.

* More staff-written articles began to appear. The requirement for more advance planning, and the uncertainty of topics of unsolicited manuscripts, led to assignments of articles to staff and to freelance writers. Articles by HR professionals, consultants and academicians still are a staple of the publication. But an increased emphasis on staff writing adds greater flexibility to the editorial product and can provide a broader view of the profession through multi-source articles.

1990

In late 1990 Michael R. Losey, SPHR, joined SHRM as president and chief executive officer.

But other changes preceded that transition. By the end of the '80s, it was evident that the name "American Society for Personnel Administration" was out of date. As the profession changed in scope and accountability, the name of its largest organization needed to change as well.

In September 1989, after winning approval of its members by an 8-1 margin, ASPA changed its name to Society for Human Resource Management. January 1990 marked the renaming of Personnel Administrator to HRMagazine.

The name change brought with it more design changes; for instance, the use of color and graphics increased even more.

In addition to assigning staff-written articles, editors by now were inviting topical manuscripts from selected experts, easing further the dependence on unsolicited material. Over-the-transom submissions averaged 30 a month; fewer than 30 a year were selected.

1994 and Beyond

Thirty years ago, Duquesne's Professor Miller raised issues that seem quaint today. Would humans be replaced by machines, as people feared. Miller shot holes in those fears in his 1965 article in Personnel Administrator.

A generation later, Personnel Administrator's successor fully embraced the new publishing technology that didn't replace staff, but gave them more flexibility and control over the final published product. With the March 1994 issue, HRMagazine began to use a state-of-the-art, front-end page design system that bypasses paper layouts on the way to the printer. All editorial pages go directly from disk to film, a process that saves time and gives our designers more control over the finished product.

That finished product, by the way, is distributed to more than 63,000 professional members - and more than 70,000 subscribers in all.

In November 1994, SHRM launched a forum on the Prodigy on-line service. To date, the forum includes a small portion of HRMagazine. The magazine's presence on Prodigy will increase. SHRM also is looking into other on-line activities, and alternative information delivery systems, such as CD-ROM.

Way back in 1958, Harry Edgren of Purdue University wrote an article for Personnel Administrator on "The Challenge of Leisure." In it, he quoted Lao-Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher who wrote the Tao Te Ching in the fifth century before Christ:

"A leader is best when people barely know he exists.

"Not so good when people obey and acclaim him; worse when they despise him.

"Fail to honor people; they fail to honor you.

"But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say:

"'We did this ourselves."'

So stay tuned. The next 40 years should be a lot of fun. And as we move ahead, evaluating and capturing new opportunities, we promise this: We always will be mindful of our history and will continue to celebrate the human spirit. And we won't get in the way of the story; the information is the most important thing we have to deliver.

John T. Adams III is publisher/editor in chief for HRMagazine.

COPYRIGHT 1995 Society for Human Resource Management
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group