Functions and objectives of human resource management

by Rohit Kumar education consultant - MBA,BBA,PGDM and Executive

Human resources Function in an organization is the powerhouse of people movements through which an organization tries to achieve its goals and objectives. This function deals with people related concerns of a company like recruitment, selection, training, payroll, career advancement, training and development etc.

HR (Human Resource Management) departments were originally called personal management. They were compartmentalized with silos of departmentalization with very little scope of integration. It all started with the Socio – technical systems by the Tavistork Institute which studied the workers in coal mining through the “long wall “experiment and they were able to understand the challenges of non social cooperative movements in work. The social factors at works started playing all lot of significance. It was then the role of HR became very important and dominant.

Earlier HR was a documentation function; however, with changing times it has become the reservoir to employee life cycle information to drive businesses. Human resources are the biggest asset for the achievement of company goals. Learning the way business works and perform is the greatest challenge in business today. HR role in positioning itself in to a competitively intelligent and useful role for strategy formulation was very important to make its stand in the organization. Thus the role of HR today is that of a strategic partner which develops the unique capabilities of the people resource of the organization to assimilate employee strengths. Thus the definition of the HRM is as it is a process of enhancing the physical, mental and emotional strengths of the people resource of the organization so that they contribute effectively to organizational benefits.

Strategic Human resource management involves a very futuristic approach for implementing effective HR practices that aim to achieve the strategic goals through people movement. From an administrative role to a strategic leap has been a trajectory growth for the department. New business thought, changing global markets, changing business models, changing landscape of workers , cultural challenges , ethical concerns and evolving knowledge workers have posit great scope of opportunity on HR personal’s .HR needs to play a very critical role for driving business opportunities through directing the manpower to learning and development to achieve the business objectives.

The basic functionaries of HR department are:

1) A line function: He works with the HR officers in same department to organize and reorganize the same.

2) A coordinative function: He helps to try to connect all departments together for a collaborative output.

3) Staff or support function: They coordinate the overall maintain ace of the well being of employees to provide them with support of payroll , benefits , performance, training and development.

The main roles an HR officer needs to take care are

1) Driving Business Strategy

2) Formulation of Employee Benefits

3) Compensation and Benefits administration

4) Training and Development

5) Right source Hiring

6) Talent engagement

7) Performance management

The below figure highlights the functions of HRM:

There could be two types of roles generated from above functions namely, Employee Services role , which implies the HR is responsible for all the above functions for a set of employees or an expertise role where HR is part of a singular expertise role and develops or formulates policies and procedures only for a definitive role.

The fundamental role in human resources management is to maximize the potential strength of the employees through effective people management skills.

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Organizations and HRM can essentially be visionaries driving the business excellence through strategic approach. HR needs to target both the hard and the soft issues that creates building block for people enhancements program. Out of the major roles of HR functions there are predominant:

Training and Development: T & D is becoming a great need for resource planners due to the skill shortages that are being experienced in Industry today. Training and developing is attributed to development of KSA’s that is knowledge skills and abilities for improving employee performance that would impact the organizational performance. HR has started with many e-learning portals like iClams in TCS which are knowledge repositories where the employees share, contribute and explore the growth of rich knowledge data base. Also e- learning tools are equipping employees to learn 24*7. They are effective as learner pace cane be handled.

Compensation and Benefit Administration: Defining the business strategy and the benefits that achieve the desired organizational goals are very imperative. Balanced score card approach to define the benefit strategies could be very impact full for competitive strategize of the organization. Bouquet of benefits is offered by organizations to customize the employee differences and needs.

Effective Performance Management: Performance management has elevated itself to talent transformation and retention. Being able to plan, monitor and assist the employee performance and thereafter bridge his deficiencies through effective feedback is very essential Talent is about the overall enhancement of the employee skills set.

To be able to deliver HR must focus on key activities and align them to company objectives. For HR is very important to be effectively aware about the business nuances to be able to deliver effective results. Thus they need a strategic alignment to planning and formulating business plans in accordance to people strengths and availability. HR needs to be aware of the computational skill set that needs to be channelized.

The organizational or career chat for an HR officer is as follows:

The functional roles as seen from the above chart highlight the verticals in to which HR function is broken in to. A strong coordination is required among these groups for effective performance.

The challenges for HR professionals is to remain abreast with the environment, highlight employee needs, formulate people friendly policies, to update the functions of HR , identify lapses in processes and to ethically see the oneness in the system.

HR audit should be very strong to incorporate the process malpractices so that the problems can be identified and rectified.

HR professionals should be very well aware of HR in the digital age to be able to analyze the employee information to insightful organizational developmental changes. Through effective HRIS practices in Place Company can handle most of the HR functional aspects on HR systems like ERP. ERP-SAP and Oracle are really good ERP in place which many organizations are using for an effective IT human resources systems in organizations.

There is a paradigm shift in which employees are changing the way organizations are benefiting through its Human resources functions. SHRM role is to create learning organizations that can evolve institutions to self learning mode. People create, collaborate and reform information s o as to provide upgraded people initiatives so new problem resolution and people engagement drives. An HR department can play a very essential role in people assimilation. This would increase employee bonding and create retention among employees. To be able to retain the good performers and growth their career graph strategically could be very important and critical role of HR.

Learning communities and ethical practices must be stressed upon. Human resources can be like the cultural new breeders for change and reformations in organizations. So HR professionals should foray their work seriously with very high level of commitment and so as to help organizations to reform through people movements.

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