Functions of Human Resources Management

Human Resources Management has an important role to play in equipping organizations to meet the challenges of an expanding and increasingly competitive sector. An increase in staff numbers, contractual diversification, and changes in demographic profile compel the HR managers to reconfigure the role and significance of human resources management. The functions are responsive to current staffing needs but can be proactive in reshaping organizational objectives. All the functions of HRM are correlated with the core objectives of HRM (Table 1.1).  For example, personal objectives are sought to be realized through functions like remuneration, assessment, etc.

Figure 1.3: Functions of HRM

HR management can be thought of as seven interlinked functions taking place within organizations, as depicted in Figure 1.3 Additionally, external forces—legal, economic, technological, global, environmental, cultural/geographic, political, and social—significantly affect how HR functions are designed, managed, and changed. The functions can be grouped as follows:

Strategic HR Management: 

As a part of maintaining organizational competitiveness, strategic planning for HR effectiveness can be increased through the use of HR metrics and HR technology. The human resource planning (HRP) function determines the number and type of employees needed to accomplish organizational goals. HRP includes creating venture teams with a balanced skill mix, recruiting the right people, and voluntary team assignments. This function analyzes and determines personnel needs to create effective innovation teams. The basic HRP strategy is a staffing and employee development.

Equal Employment Opportunity: 

Compliance with equal employment opportunity (EEO) laws and regulations affects all other HR activities.

Staffing: 

The aim of staffing is to provide a sufficient supply of qualified individuals to fill jobs in an organization. Job analysis, recruitment, and selection are the main functions of understaffing.

Worker's job design and job analysis laid the foundation for staffing by identifying what diverse people do in their jobs and how they are affected by them.

Job analysis is the process of describing the nature of a job and specifying the human requirements such as knowledge, skills, and experience needed to perform the job. The end result of the job analysis is the job description. Job description spells out the work duties and activities of employees.

Through HR planning, managers anticipate the future supply of and demand for employees and the nature of workforce issues, including the retention of employees. So HRP precedes the actual selection of people for the organization. These factors are used when recruiting applicants for job openings. The selection process is concerned with choosing qualified individuals to fill those jobs. In the selection function, the most qualified applicants are selected for hiring from among the applicants based on the extent to which their abilities and skills are matching with the job.

Talent Management and Development: 

Beginning with the orientation of new employees, talent management and development includes different types of training. Orientation is the first step toward helping a new employee to adjust himself to the new job and the employer. It is a method to acquaint new employees with particular aspects of their new job, including pay and benefit programs, working hours, and company rules and expectations.

Training and Development programs provide useful means of assuring that the employees are capable of performing their jobs at acceptable levels and also more than that. All the organizations provide training for new and experienced employees. In addition, organizations often provide both on-the-job and off-the-job training programs for those employees whose jobs are undergoing change.

Likewise, HR development and succession planning of employees and managers are necessary to prepare for future challenges. Career planning has developed as a result of the desire of many employees to grow in their jobs and advance in their careers. Career planning activities include assessing an individual employee’s potential for growth and advancement in the organization.

Performance appraisal includes encouraging risk-taking, demanding innovation, generating or adopting new tasks, peer evaluation, frequent evaluations, and auditing innovation processes.

This function monitors employee performance to ensure that it is at acceptable levels. This strategy appraises individual and team performance so that there is a link between individual innovativeness and company profitability. Which tasks should be appraised and who should assess employees’ performance are also taken into account.

Total Rewards: 

Compensation in the form of pay, incentives, and benefits are the rewards given to the employees for performing organizational work. Compensation management is the method for determining how much employees should be paid for performing certain jobs. Compensation affects staffing in that people are generally attracted to organizations offering a higher level of pay in exchange for the work performed.

To be competitive, employers develop and refine their basic compensation systems and may use variable pay programs such as incentive rewards, promotion from within the team, recognition rewards, balancing team and individual rewards, etc. This function uses rewards to motivate personnel to achieve an organization’s goals of productivity, innovation, and profitability. Compensation is also related to employee development in that it provides an important incentive in motivating employees to higher levels of job performance to higher-paying jobs in the organization.

Benefits are another form of compensation to employees other than direct pay for the work performed. Benefits include both legally required items and those offered at the employer’s discretion. Benefits are primarily related to the area of employee maintenance as they provide for many basic employee needs.

Risk Management and Worker Protection: 

HRM addresses various workplace risks to ensure the protection of workers by meeting legal requirements and being more responsive to concerns for workplace health and safety along with disaster and recovery planning.

Employee and Labor Relations:

The relationship between managers and their employees must be handled legally and effectively. Employer and employee rights must be addressed. It is important to develop, communicate, and update HR policies and procedures so that managers and employees alike know what is expected. In some organizations, union/management relations must be addressed as well.  The term labor relation refers to the interaction with employees who are represented by a trade union. 

Unions are organizations of employees who join together to obtain more voice in decisions affecting wages, benefits, working conditions, and other aspects of employment. Concerning labor relations, the major function of HR personnel includes negotiating with the unions regarding wages, service conditions and resolving disputes and grievances.