Definition of Human Resource Management
Human Resource Management is the strategic approach to manage people effectively and efficiently in an organization. It helps businesses to gain competitive advantage in the industry. Human Resource Management is responsible for keeping an eye on the complete end-to-end employee life-cycle as well as business growth of a company.It is that important element which makes sure the smooth functioning of an organization.
Need and Importance of Human Resource Management
Employees are the organization’s most important asset, and it is vital that organizations take good care of their People. Implementing the right HR practices & policies can ensure that your employees are happy, growing and productive at their workplace. Right HR policies ensure adherence to the rules and regulations of the organization and its smooth functioning. Nowadays, organizations use a more people-centric approach, Which results in enhanced employee performance, high retention and lower attrition rates, helping in exponential growth of businesses. Thus, making the role of HR managers and an HRMS is even more important.
Focus Areas:-
Few key focus areas of HRM with respect to employees are Recruitment and On-boarding Tracking employees in terms of leave and attendance, Managing employee pay and Employee-benefits, Training and Development, Performance Management and appraisal, Reward management etc. HRM ensures that the organization is able to achieve success through people. HRM focuses on implementing the policies, procedure strategies to achieve the organizational goal within a targeted time period.
Evolution Cycle To New Trends of Human Resource Management
From earlier times when the concept of industrialisation laid down human resource management is always needed to manage and drive the relevant man-power for industrial growth, Nowadays the goal is same to drive HRM for the organizational growth but in more people centric way, By focussing more on right talent and addressing the talent grievance at right time, retaining the right talent and awarding it for better performance and to drive it maintain and boost such performance in futures as well, further HRM includes anything and everything associated with the management of employment relationships in the firm.” The words anything and everything in the definition explains the wider range of issues comprising policies, such employment contracts and ways in which employees may be involved and participate in areas not directly covered by the employment contract thus ensuring suitable work life. The overall purpose of human resources management is to ensure that the is organization is able to achieve the success through people
15 Key Human Resource Management Functions
- PLANNING 9. COMPLIANCES
- RECRUITMENT 10. EMPLOYEE WELL BEINGS
- POLICY FORMULATION 11. SUCCESSION PLANNING
- MAINTAINING WORK CULTURE 12. RESOLVE CONFLICT
- PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT 13. INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS
- LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT 14. EMPLOYEE WELL BEINGS
- EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, 15 MAINTAINING RECORDS
- ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES
PLANNING
Planning is the first and most important part of HR. HR planning plays a vital role in meeting the organization’s current and future talent demands. Human resource planning may be viewed as foreseeing the requirement of organization and future supply of human resource and making necessary adjustments between these two and making a sufficient and effective plan to ensure this. To support this HR planning, Organizations generally draw out the budget to help them and the HR department make an actionable plan to achieve their target and meet the talent needs of the organization.
RECRUITMENT
Nowadays organizations are more focussing on providing a great place to work for their employees along with other benefits. It is important for organizations to be lucrative to attract the right talent and to be willing to work for them, it is only possible when HRM has made an effort to do so. Hence all the functionalities of the HR are connected to each other because implementing the right policy and maintaining the right culture helps you to make organization people willing to work. Recruitment is not only the process of filling the vacant position with the right candidate but attracting that talent to work for you and retain the same in long term for business growth. This one is the most difficult task for an hr just because of sourcing a candidate from an online portal to fill the position with the right one, it includes a lot of analysis and dependencies on the candidate that they are willing to join or not. The process of hiring is a tough process as it is like finding the best from the pool of candidates who are eligible and right for the position. Technology and automation helps a lot in the process of shortlisting candidates from any of the sources available, connecting with candidates, keeping track and record of their candidature and making sure they are suitable for the particular position. It saves a lot of the time of the HR and they can focus more on investing their time in judging the candidates on various parameters rather than simple interview(Scientific approach can be added in the system to judge a candidate).Technology can take care of the entire Recruitment and onboarding process in a large scenerio. To find the right tools and technology to do the job best it takes analysis and consideration for the same, the technology is available in the industry and advisable to use.
POLICY FORMULATION
Policy formulation is an important part of Human Resource KRA and it is the backbone of any effective business, Policy formulation depends on the organization work culture and the according to new changes in the era. policy contains rules and regulations related for companies & employee welfare. Every single employee has to follow them to maintain the decorum of the organization. An organization without a strong set of policies won’t run too long and can suffer from controversial and inconsistent decision-making. Policy formulation is the part of HRM because HR is responsible for managing people effectively with the right set of policies and are very much aware about the human mind set and engagements of employees. It is suggested that “Organizations should be first Policy driven than people driven” are much healthier in their work culture.
The benefits of a reasonable and well-defined policy framework include:
- Lay down the road map of standard practices
- Improve Communication Gap
- Helps in decision making
- Minimize the chances of dissatisfaction between managers and subordinates
- Set Accountability
- Helps in awareness of organizational culture to its employees.
MAINTAINING WORK CULTURE
One of the crucial functions of human resources management is maintaining a good work culture. This function is connected to previous functions of policy making and an effective implementation of those policies ensures a better work culture. A company’s culture is most important for the image of the organization, the people may be willing to work for an organization highly depending on their image of their work culture. A healthy work culture of the organization is important for employee growth as well as its levels of involvement and dedication for the organization and with timely achieving targets and objectives of the organization. an organization must have a flexible work culture so it can make an employee happy and retained in the organization.Healthy and playful culture helps to learn and achieve at the same time.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
Performance management is an important human resource function.It is an ongoing process of communication between employees and their supervisors that occurs throughout the year to monitor and review employee performance and overall contribution to the organization. It also helps to boost employee performance and productivity.Performance management is necessary to motivate the employee through their performance check and appraisal. Performance management aims to set clear employee objectives, define key result areas (KRAs) and drive the result that which employee needs a particular training to enhance its performance. These performance plans are in sync with the organizational goals and objectives. Performance management systems is a set of tools that provide 360-degree feedback, where the team members, senior managers, subordinates management offer insights into employee performance.
Tech allows to set the goals and give insights at which level these set goals are achieved with respect to task and organization.Performance management helps to boost organizational productivity, find training needs of employees,helps them to become more productive, saves time to find out the lag in the achievement of goals, and largely ensures consistent performance.
LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT
Learning and development, a subset of human resources, aims to improve group and individual performance by increasing skill and knowledge. Learning and development is the most important part of an organization’s talent management strategy and design to align group and individual goals and performance with organization’s overall vision and goals .
Tech plays a major role in managing the learning and development of the employees. It(HRMS) helps the HR department to keep record of each and every employee training needs analysis(TNI) recovered at the time of the induction programme in the organization and at the later stages of the association too.
Both employee and employer want to enhance the skill of the employee during his tenure so setting proper training methods to enhance the learning of employees through various sources is a key function of the HR department.
Nowadays learning is very easy through various resources available and get certified, L&D management ensures to provide their employees with such sources to get certified for the particular role.
EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT, REWARD AND RETENTION
A basic salary will only encourage an employee to work at the level that is required of them to keep their job. If employers want to encourage their employees to perform at a high level and sync with the organization goals , they may consider offering their employees the opportunity to earn additional pay, perks and recognition. so the employee can encourage and retain themselves for a long period with the organization. Providing additional benefits may include good health plans, holiday packages to employees at exceptional work and many such perks to ensure employees feel their contribution is being fairly assessed and rewarded.it helps a lot in employee satisfaction which ultimately leads to employee retaintion.
Employee Engagement concept not only defines the encouragement of employees towards its work and about the performance of the company but also makes a proper channel of communication and with help of this nerves of employees can be checked that they are happy or not with their managers, peers and with organization at large. This helps to retain the employee and maintain a healthy work culture. An employee can engage with full dedication when they get peace of mind so that their efforts are making a difference. If the employee is happy with their organization, they are able to give their 100%. Engaged employees are more likely to be productive and highly performing.
COMPLIANCES
Compliance is among the crucial functions of the HR department. HR department tasked with ensuring that hiring practices, work rules, treatment of staff, and a range of alternative factors all adjust to the relevant laws laid by the government of a particular geography. Corporations additionally define their own HR compliance policies to be followed internally as well. HR department try their best to meet the compliances not only that it is mandatory by law but to ensure the better lifestyle of their employees as well.
INDUSTRIAL RELATION
Industrial relation show the relationship between employee and employer within the organization formed to be promoting their respective interest, and relation in between employer and employee, management and workers, particularly groups of workers represented by a union.
It is something that organizations could afford to overlook temporarily but a key function of the human resource department is to promote a best relation between management and employees and resolve the conflict between them and to make a healthier relation with them to achieve the vision and mission of an organization.
EMPLOYEES PERSONAL WELL BEINGS
Employee well being is more than providing excellent health insurance plans, absence of physical illness, it is important to make sure employees are safe at their workplace. It is important to set our safety standards as per the work nature and functions. For example, the heavy metal processing industry needs different safety standards than an IT company. It is believed by employees that work- life balance is more important nowadays than compensation so the HR department needs to focus on the physical and mental well-being of employees. The HR department needs to understand why an employee is not performing, is it because of lack of competence or lack of mental well being due to turmoil in his personal life. If the issue is properly addressed properly an employee which is an asset for the company is retained by the organization and can be made well-functioning and productive. HR must establish proper communication channels to deal with the mental and emotional well-being of the employee.
SUCCESSION PLANNING
Succession planning is the core function of HRM. Its aim is to plan , monitor and manage the growth of employees in the organization. A succession plan identifies future staffing needs and the people with the skills and potential to perform in these future roles. The purpose of succession planning is as replacement planning and often involves passing on ownership of a role, designation or position to someone else in the company.
RESOLVE CONFLICT
Human resources ensure the smooth functioning of an organization. Any conflict raises in an organization on the day to day basis, the main KRA of HR is first to decrease such an event by finding the root cause of conflict and addressing the issue.Conflict may occur at vertical or may be at horizontal level, it will depend on the situation so the main role is to solve the conflict between them with the help of right methods and any decision is drive out as per policy of the company and make sure that decision should be unbiased and wise.
ADMINISTRATIVE RESPONSIBILITIES
The final function of HR includes administrative responsibilities such as direct involvement and Human Resource management Systems.
Direct procedure of involvement contains the handling of discipline, performance improvement, promotions, relocations, illness, maintaining cultural,gender and racial diversity, unwanted intimacies etc.
The HR department ensures all policies that are laid out, implemented fairly and will be beneficial for all employees.
Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS) is also an integral part of HR management as it stores employee data and other relevant information. All the insights for unbiased decision making can be driven out of this tool through Artificial Intelligence and machine learning. These systems are available and advised to be implemented to manage the data and can be used for better decision-making.
MAINTAINING RECORDS
One other main admin work is to maintain record of each employee and history of each transaction of employee so that in future any issue comes up with the help of these records, the same can be assessed. Without proper records, it can be difficult, to effectively monitor the performance and productivity level, Maintaining records not about about their personal information but their performance also and documentation records for past and future competency reference, it provides a productivity view to the employer, Builds objectivity into the employer-employee relationship.
CONCLUSION
While these are the few areas of HR functionalities there are a lot more areas in which the HR department deals. The HR department works closely with the owners and decision makers of the organizations to ensure a better growth and development. Ensuring the human touch with becoming hi-tech in terms of technology.
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