6 Functional areas for HR Managers

A competently run human resources department in an organization can provide it with structure and the capability of meeting business needs through effective management your of highly most valuable resources of the organization, and the workforce (employees) is one of the core assets of any company. Various HR functional areas have been found, but HR practitioners in all different areas may perform more than one of the more than 6 vital functions. If you have a small business but you lack a dedicated and competent HR department or manager, you can’t attain the same efficiency and workforce management level through outsourcing HR functions.

1. Recruitment & Selection

Typically, the success level of recruiters and employment authorities is measured by the number of vacant job positions they fill by recruiting best candidates and the time they consume to fill such positions. Job recruiters working in-house have the professional qualification and skills, along with the potential to play a pivotal role in developing the workforce of a company. They are responsible for advertising job postings in print media and social media websites like LinkedIn. Facebook, Angel, Can Someone Do My. They are also responsible for sourcing candidates, screening job candidates, conducting preliminary interviews with the candidates and coordinating overall efforts and process of hiring with the management responsible for finally selecting the best candidates.

2. Workplace Safety

Indeed, workplace safety is one of the fundamental and highly important factors for organizations and their HR departments. Employers have to obey the rules defined in the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970, and thus they are responsible for providing their employees with an absolutely safe working environment. HR managers are also responsible for supporting and organizing workplace safety training and obeying laws for workplace safety, injury and fatality reporting. Moreover, HR safety and risk specialists frequently work closely with HR benefits specialists to successfully manage the issues of workers compensation in the company.

3. Employee & Labor Relations

If there is a unionized work environment in a company, the HR functions of employee and labor relations may be fused and tackled by one HR professional or be totally separate functions handled by two professionals with some specific skills in each area. ‘Employee relations’ is basically the discipline of HR concerned with reinforcing the relationship between employer and employee by means of measuring employee job satisfaction, employee engagement and participation, and generating solutions to resolve workplace conflict. The functions of labor relations may integrate developing management due to union-based organizing movements, negotiating collective bargaining agreements and providing interpretations of issues associated with labor union contract.

4. Employee Compensation & Benefits

Like the HR functions of employee and labor relations in a company, the compensation and benefits functions frequently can be managed by one HR professional with dual skills and expertise. As far as the employee compensation is concerned, the HR functions integrate setting structures of compensation and appraising competitive pay practices. An HR specialist of compensation and benefits also may be responsible for negotiating rates of group health coverage with insurers and manage activities with the retirement savings fund administrator. The important component of the HT compensation and benefits section is payroll, but it has been seen that in most of the cases employers outsource the administrative functions as payroll.

5. Compliance with Labor and Employment Laws

A most critical HR function is compliance with laws of labor and employment. Noncompliance can lead to workplace complaints on grounds of biased employment approaches, policies and practices, hazardous or risky working environments and general discontent with working environments that can negatively affect the company’s performance, productivity and profitability levels. So, HR professionals are responsible to carefully do their jobs and must be aware of all the relevant labor and employment laws constituted by the federal or state government.

6. Employee Training & Development

Employers have the ultimate responsibility to provide their workforce with all the relevant tools necessary for getting success which, in the majority of the cases, means giving extensive orientation training to fresh employees in order to assist them in transiting into a new organizational environment. Typically, HR departments help employees by providing them with relevant leadership training through which they are able to develop professionally. Effective leadership training is a requirement of freshly hired and promoted managers on different areas including performance management and how to tackle matters related to employee relations at the level of department. Opportunities of professional development are exclusively for employees seeking to get promotional opportunities or people having a desire to meet personal objective like winning a long-awaited higher degree. Tuition assistance, tuition reimbursement and many other programs frequently are within the horizon of the HR training and development area.

Author bio: Catriona Cerys is an entrepreneur who owns a partnership corporation in Chicago. Catriona came up with this idea of consultancy during her undergraduate program and found her first investor in the final year of college.