What Do You Understand By Human Resources?

Introduction: 

What is Human Resources? Ask this question to a teenager and he will promptly answer with a textual reference that ‘Humans, with their unending demands, their infinite capacities and their ability to create innovative ideas to fulfill these demands make them the ultimate RESOURCE. Humans are the ultimate resource.

In the corporate world, all the employees working in an organization are referred to as the ‘human resources’ of that organization. However, managing these resources in a working environment, keeping track of their progress and needs, disbursing salaries, hiring new members, ensuring smooth exits of the current employees, measuring their output, rewarding them for work done, and encouraging them during their setbacks, is not an easy job. There’s an entire group of people, a team, that works towards the betterment of the organization’s workforce, and it is this team that is known as the ‘Human Resource’ for that organization, in terms of human resources as a function.

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What do you understand about the Human Resources Department?

As mentioned above, human resources (HR), as a function, is a department in an organization that handles and manages the workforce of the organization. This includes recruiting, training, upskilling, retaining, and handling the exit of an employee. Apart from this, the HR department is also responsible for the disbursement of salaries on time to the employees. The HR department also creates and implements policies for maintaining a healthy workspace.  

In small organizations, the HR department can comprise only one or two team members whereas in bigger organizations an HR department could house as many employees as needed.

Over time, the roles of the HR department have expanded from the traditional hiring, payroll, and exit of the employees to a much wider horizon. This has prompted organizations to seek outside help in the form of outsourcing recruitment, disbursement of salaries by a third party, dispute resolution, and so on. The redundant tasks are now being delegated to an outsourced partner enabling the in-house HR team to focus on core HR functions i.e., keeping the workforce encouraged, motivated, upskilled, developed, reassigned, and retained while creating space for strategic planning.

What are the three major roles of HR management?

HR management has a wide spectrum of roles in an organization. It works towards harmonizing inter-departmental collaborations as well as employee satisfaction. HR management can therefore be broadly categorized as:

• Administrative: The HR team needs to focus on the administrative role along with the other aspects. This includes processing and record-keeping activities such as internal communications, preparation of reports, keeping track of the employees’ working hours and days, etc. These were the basic tasks of HR when it first got implemented in organizations some decades ago. In today’s time, the administrative tasks of the HR departments have been reduced to the bare minimum looking at the need of the HR team to be involved in important strategic and operational decisions of the organization. The administrative tasks are therefore being delegated to the outsourced agencies or are being technologically managed through Human Resource Management Software (HRMS).

• Operational: The operational aspect of HR management focuses on identifying the need for new programs and the smooth running of these programs, tasks, training, policies, etc. This typically includes the collection of information for hiring, fulfilling required positions, conducting training programs for the employees, implementing workplace policies, addressing employee grievances, compliance with employment and labor laws, etc. The operational efforts of the HR team are directly aligned with the strategic goals of the organization. For example, if increasing the productivity of the employees is part of the strategic goal then upskilling the employees

• Strategic: The strategic role of HR management focuses on providing a structure for linking employee management and practices with the long-term goals of the organization. This involves identifying and developing employees as a resource for future positions through training, upskilling, rewards, recognitions, etc from within the organization. It also involves strategic hiring through various methods for fulfilling those positions that cannot be fulfilled by the organization’s present employees to achieve long-term goals and outcomes.

Functions of the Human Resource Management:

So, apart from the administrative, operational, and strategic roles of human resource management what does the department do? Well, apart from ensuring the smooth functioning of the organization the HRM is also responsible for:

• Identifying manpower requirements of the organization

• Curating job descriptions, posting job openings, conducting selection interviews

• Hiring employees

• Training and development of the manpower

• Compensations, rewards, and recognitions

• Health and safety regulations

• Compliance with various employment and labor laws

• Improving managerial, industrial, and labour relations

• Performance management of the employees

• Employee engagement and communication

• Succession planning

Features of Human Resource Management:

While ensuring the smooth running of the organisation along with the various functions it performs for the organisation, some features are unique to human resource management. The distinguishing features that cannot be found in any other department and make the Human Resource department of an organisation one of the best are:

• It is person-centric: Any team can perform to its optimum if and only if each person in the team is participating equally towards the team goal. Though team goals are the priority of the organisation, individualist goals are important too. Individual goals give more clarity to team goals when the goals become personal; relationships are cultivated with the team members. This is what distinguishes human resource management from other aspects of the business; the ability to build and nurture relationships within the organization.

• It is employee-centric: It is the job of the human resource department to ease the lives of the employees at their workplace. This includes remaining available and approachable to the employees, listening to their queries, providing them with solutions, and much more. The happier the employee, the more productivity can be extracted from the employee.

• It is people-centric: One of the key features of human resource management is to focus on the human resources of the organization as people. This includes the HR team as well. While managing the employees on a professional level is a given, taking the human factor into consideration and managing the workforce as humans are elemental.

• It is decision-centric: The enormous data that is flowing into the organisation is tremendous and gathering it is quite easy. It is the job of the human resource department to present this data in a concise manner that gives accurate information and helps in making informed decisions.

• It is development-centric: Human Resources is always development centric for both, the employees as well as the business. Developing the employees’ growth through training and helping the organisation grow by procuring talent that can achieve organisational goals.

• It is future-centric: Probably one of those features of human resource management without which achieving organisational goals and successes will be very difficult. Looking forward to a future needs foresight and agility along with a defined structure to embrace changes such as a change in work culture according to the times, change in the work environment, planning for future talent requirements, and enabling the organisation to meet future trends. Not only does this feature of the human resource provide a roadmap for the growth of the organisation but it also provides the business with some failsafe measures for the unexpected.

• It is constant: Human Resources is a continuous process that keeps the organizational wheels turning smoothly. It is constantly on the lookout for the progress and well-being of the employees, along with keeping a track of their performance, effectiveness, productivity and satisfaction.

• Empowers with opportunities: Employees give their best when they know that their input and growth in the organisation are being looked after. Human resource management lets the employee know that there is room for growth through well-thought-out and time-bound goals. If an employee has become too efficient at his job, it is the HR team’s responsibility to leverage his skills in other areas that will help in increasing his productivity and scale up his opportunities as well.

• It is omnipresent: Regardless of the organisation being a small one or one with a multi-national presence, human resource management is needed by every organisation. It is universal and omnipresent.

Conclusion:

Human Resources Management is a crucial aspect of any business. With effective human resource management by its side, an organisation and its employees will thrive. Human resource management helps in leveraging ‘human’ as a resource to stay ahead in the competition and scale organisational goals with ease.