Human resource management
HRM or simply HR is the management of human resources. It is a function in organizations designed to maximize employee performance in service of an employer’s strategic objectives. (Source: Wikipedia)
The HR department has to handle a lot of responsibilities as well as coordinate with all the departments of the organisation. Primary responsibilities of the human resource management are recruiting, training & development, performance evaluation and compensation management.
Recruitment:
The process of identifying and hiring the right candidate for the right job plays a vital role in the success of an organisation. The management needs to decide the whether there is a need for recruitment or the current number of staff is sufficient, if budgets are available, and forecast a need for additional employees in the future.
If hiring is not done properly, your company may incur huge expenses.
Training and Development:
While some of the new employees may be skilled at their work, they may not be familiar with the work culture of the new company. Similarly, while you may have hired someone for their attitude, they may not necessarily have the skills to perform their duties. In such cases, you need to conduct training programmes and educate them about how to perform their tasks in the most efficient manner.
Some of the older employees too need a training and development to help them overcome complacency and gain new skills. After all it is all about continuously developing the team and increase productivity.
Performance Evaluation:
It is imperative that you check your employee’s performance at frequent intervals as it helps to track those who are not performing as expected. You can address the problems that are preventing them from performing to their full potential. They can be asked to participate in the training and development programmes, if it is some skill they are lacking.
On the other hand, if it is found that they are not committed to their job, you can let them go. Such employees only add to the cost of the company with no contribution to its productivity.
Compensation and benefits:
Compensation packages are one of the first criterion that an employee looks for when approaching a company, with perks and benefits being an immediate second. Human resource management need to come up with attractive and competitive packages as well as benefits to attract the top talent while at the same time maintaining the company budget.
While these are the core tasks that need to be performed, the human resource management should be equipped with the following skills to be efficient at these tasks.
Organisation-
It is of utmost importance that HR personnel have all the necessary information at their fingertips. The top management may require certain details to take crucial decisions at any point of time. The human resource management should be able to promptly communicate the relevant information along with any other statistics that could potentially help with the decision.
This can only be possible when you are good at organisation of information. If not, you will surely lose invaluable time searching for information. Although it doesn’t mean that just one person is responsible for handling the vast amount of data that comes in daily. Multiple people may require access to the same so in that case they should be able to easily retrieve the required information even in the absence of the organiser.
Listening:
Great leaders have always known that listening is the most important tool when it comes to understanding their followers. Yet is one of the most underrated skill.
You can only truly understand what the other person is trying to say by listening to him. When a person is sharing or asking something, not only his words but his emotions, gestures too should be noticed. You are thus able to understand the intent behind the conversation. Try and keep your mind free from thinking or forming an opinion before the person has finished speaking. With an open mind, you are able to comprehend more than what is said.
Communicating:
Every day a lot of information passes to and from the company. There could be news about the company’s success or failure.The company may announce some exciting product/service launch, or share achievements about the previous quarter/year. While it is necessary that this is shared with the stakeholders as well as the external environment, it is also essential that the employees also receive this information considering they too are stakeholders in the success & failures of the team.
HR managers should be able to filter data and share only that is required with the right audience. You do not want to share sensitive information either within or without the organisation.
Handling conflicts and grievances objectively:
Irrespective of the size of the organisation or the number of employees, there are many chances of conflicts between peers, teammates or even between managers and their subordinates. Every member is firm on his stand with a belief that the other person is wrong and refuses to accept another point of view to the argument. That is normal human nature.
At such times, the HR personnel need to intervene and solve these conflicts without favouring any side. They need to objectively analyse all the information regarding the cause of the conflict and come up with a solution that helps both parties involved understand what the problem was and what can be done to overcome it.
It is necessary for them to make sure both parties agree to this solution and continue to work in harmony. If either one is disgruntled, they will not perform as per expectation and productivity will drop. HR managers have to be empathetic as well as remain neutral while dealing with such cases.
While Human Resource Management is just one of the many departments in the organisations, they have to plan for all the departments right from the top management to the most junior recruit. An organisation can only be said to be successful when it has a work culture where employees are focused on consistently giving their best.
