Human resources -HR is a department within a business, that is responsible for all work-related things. This includes recruiting, vetting, selecting, hiring, on-boarding, training, paying, promoting and firing employees and independent contractors. Other resources simply don’t have that capacity.
Let’s look at a few of the key roles performed by HR personnel:-
1. Recruitment — when we think about HR, the first thing that comes into our mind is recruitment. This is their main function and they need to strategically plan all details involved to conduct the recruitment process successfully.
2. Job design and description — an important aspect of recruitment involves creating all details of the job for which recruitment has to be done. Hence it is the HR’s responsibility to consult with the concerned department and prepare the job roles accordingly.
3. Employee attraction — to be able to achieve a successful recruitment drive, HR must be first able to have enough number of candidates to choose from. Hence it is important that they are able to create awareness and attract a lot of potential candidates. This way they can choose the right candidate better.
4. Employee interview — in most recruitment process, the HR conducts the final round of interview. This round is conducted to determine the candidate’s interpersonal skills. Hence the HR personnel must be qualified to conduct such an interview and shortlist the suitable candidate.
5. Appraisals — for any employee, appraisals are very crucial as it decides the future course of action. HR usually doesn’t conduct the appraisal, but yet it is the HR’s responsibility to ensure every employee’s appraisal has been conducted in a diligent and honest way, as per the company’s guidelines.
6. Information sharing — the HR acts as a centralized portal where all information is received and shared. Hence the HR should be vigilant to share important updates or important information to all employees. This could include client visits date, mergers, unlisted holidays, closures, layoffs, etc.
7. Employee benefits — the HR is responsible for the employees, hence it is their duty to ensure the employee has been compensated rightly. So they need to take care of perks, bonuses, and other benefits. Ensuring that employees receive their salary and dues at the right time is also an important function they need to perform.
8. Extra activities — every employee spends most of their time doing various tasks for the company. It is HR’s responsibility to make sure they are motivated and working together as a team. For this, HR needs to conduct several team building activities, celebrations, games, team outings, lunches, etc.
9. Surveys — it is not possible for HR to know all details about the working environment. For this purpose HR’s must conduct surveys periodically, to know the attitude of their employees. A happy workforce is a productive workforce.
10. Grievance cell — the HR is like the ‘go-to’ person for all issues an employee faces in their workplace. So they need to be thoughtful enough to handle genuine grievances in a mature manner.
As we can see above, the HR department’s functions are very important and crucial to provide the right environment and hire the right workforce for any organization. Thus hiring qualified and experienced HR teams is mandatory.
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