HRM - What is it? As the name suggests, it is the management of the human factor in an organization. They manage the most important asset of any firm, i.e. its employees. It finally boils down to people. Since these people are drawn from the same common pool, it is only team, culture and environment, leadership and vision, attitude towards change and occasional failure that determine team performance. The role of an HR department, be it leadership, vision, or attitude towards change, building up team culture and environment, everything is managed by this one department. They set up the long as well as short goals for each department, team and individual members in the firm. Its main aim is to bring about coordination between organizational goals and employee goals. It tries to bridge the gap between the different levels in the company. Simply put, it’s the link between all concerned.

What is the role of the HR Manager?

What is the role of the HR Manager?

He is the person who manages the whole HR department, which in turn handles all the departments and the people in the organization. So, what does he actually do?

• Setting up an HR team which will assist him in achieving organizational and individual goals.
• Assigning different roles and positions to all people in the HR department.
• Planning: Setting up goals for the organization & chalking out a path as to how to achieve them.
• Foretelling/Forecasting:  Based on the planning, an HR manager, needs to figure out the manpower requirements of the firm. As to how many employees are currently working, whether more will be required in the near future, or whether some old ones need to sacked.
• Assigning targets and goals to individual employees in the firm or giving the task of setting and assigning goals to someone in the HR department.
• Recruitment: How to attract/recruit the best people for the firm?
• Selection: Choosing the right candidate for the right job.
• Induction & Training: After employees have been hired, providing them right knowledge about the firm, its history, its working patterns etc., their role in the firm and also their duties. Under training, the skills of the newly hired ones are polished according to the needs of the firm.
• Performance Appraisal: HR manager assigns the task of following the progress or performance of each individual employee to people in his department. A systematic procedure is developed for the same.
• Career Tracking: This is usually done by a growth chart wherein the progress of individual employees is charted from the day he joined the firm till the day he leaves. In case of a problem, it is resolved by giving the employee another chance, or as a last resort sacking him.
• Hiring and firing: The process of redundancy i.e. downsizing or in other terms throwing out people who are not useful to the firm anymore, is also carried out by the HR manager. A proper process is followed wherein the concerned individuals/employees are given redundancy notices and are also paid the redundancy charges.
• Rewards & Awards: The employees need to be appreciated for the good work and resulting progress of the firm. This is done by the HR manager, who decides whether to acknowledge the progress of employees with monetary (rewards) or non-monetary (awards) terms.
• Grievance handling: Managing employee complains as well as complains about employees and resolving them in a way most suitable for the smooth functioning of the firm.

What is the role of HR Department? (What do they actually do?)

• The main role of the HR team/department is to look after the employees of the firm.
• They have to support, help, assist, or even at times do the work of the HR manager. They have to report to him regularly and follow his orders.

Goals of HR Manager/Department: (Why we need HRD?)

Administrative

• Setting up goals, long term, for various departments, teams within the departments and also individual employees.
• Ensuring successful and timely completion of each task. Managing the deadlines.
• Setting up proper reward system for acknowledging good work.
• Setting up realistic goals and reviewing the progress at regular intervals through meetings, etc. Also reviewing, discussions and meeting after actual completion.

Operational

• Setting up short term goals i.e. weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc.
• Goals need to be adaptable and flexible in contrast to the administrative ones.
• While, administrative goals largely define what is to be done, operational goals define how it is to be done. This is the role of the HR team. They work out how to do the day to day activities in order to increase productivity of the employees as well as the firm

Strategic

• Strategic goals are solid statements backed with figures at times of what a firm wants to achieve over a specific period of time.
• This defines the path of work for whole organization. The company’s goals are made clear through its vision and mission.
• This vision and mission is developed by the HR department.