Human resources management is the practice that focuses on employees of an organization and ensures that they are satisfied, engaged and have all the resources they need to perform as expected. The objectives being to help the organization attain its goals.
In order to drive success, human resource management involves a wide variety of activities like recruiting, training, payroll, performance management and other functions involved with employee hiring, retention, and development. The following are the main role of HRM in an organization.
Recruitment is the process of captivating, screening, and selecting potential and qualified candidates based on objective criteria for a particular job. The goal of this process is to attract qualified applicants and to encourage the unqualified applicants to opt themselves out. This process is very important to every organization because it reduces the costs of mistakes such as engaging incompetent, unmotivated, and underqualified employees.
Related: What are the 5 Steps of Strategic Human Resource Management?
Employee relationship is a very broad concept and it is one of the crucial functions of human resource management. It also helps to foster good employee relations. Management should organize activities that will help to know an employee at the personal and professional levels. Well-planned employee relations will promote a healthy and balanced relationship between the employee and the employer. It is the key for the organization to be successful.
In Job analysis, Human resource managers are typically responsible, often with help from leaders in other parts of the company, for determining the responsibilities of various positions. This can involve determining which skills, certifications, or experience is necessary for a given role. Human resource management is also responsible for compensation and benefits.
Related: How to become a Human Resources Manager
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For training and development, training is designed and to provide the employees with the required skills and knowledge for their current position or future roles. Development is much broader than training in which the future aspect of employees are covered.
The HRM now involves more strategy and analytics than ever before, and you will see more educational and career opportunities in these areas. HRM has progressed from a lower-rank position to have a seat at the executive table. With the added emphasis on growing people, improving processes and increasing business trends toward measurement and technology, today’s HRM professionals have had to develop as well. Possibly the biggest area of growth is within the technology space, where now effective training via web-based meetings, video, live stream, and other modalities have made it easier than ever before to get a message across to employees near and far.
Modern human resource management is guided by several overriding principles. Perhaps the paramount principle is a simple recognition that human resources are the most important assets of an organization; a business cannot be successful without effectively managing this resource. Michael Armstrong in his book A Handbook of Human Resource Management mentioned that business success "is most likely to be achieved if the personnel policies and procedures of the enterprise are closely linked with, and make a major contribution to, the achievement of corporate objectives and strategic plans." A third guiding principle, similar in scope, holds that it is the HR's responsibility to find, secure, guide, and develop employees whose talents and desires are compatible with the operating needs and future goals of the company. Other HRM factors that shape corporate culture- whether by encouraging integration and cooperation across the company, instituting quantitative performance measurements, or taking some other action, are also commonly cited as key components in business success. HRM, summarized Armstrong, "is a strategic approach to the acquisition, motivation, development, and management of the organization's human resources. It is devoted to shaping an appropriate corporate culture, and introducing programs that reflect and support the core values of the enterprise and ensure its success."
Keithley Tongai is a Consultant intern at Industrial Psychology Consultants (Pvt) Ltd, a business management and human resources consulting firm.