Chapter 1 Overview: The Role of Human Resources
Chapter 1 Overview: The Role of Human Resources
Chapter 1 Overview: The Role of Human Resources
You have just been hired to work in the human resource department of a small
company. You heard about the job through a conference you attended, put on by the
Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Previously, the owner of the
company, Jennifer, had been doing everything related to human resource management
(HRM). You can tell she is a bit critical about paying a good salary for something she
was able to juggle all on her own. On your first day, you meet the ten employees and
spend several hours with the company owner, hoping to get a handle on which human
resource processes are already set up.
Shortly after the meeting begins, you see she has a completely different perspective of
what HRM is, and you realize it will be your job to educate her on the value of a human
resource manager. You look at it as a personal challenge—both to educate her and also
to show her the value of this role in the organization.
First, you tell her that HRM is a strategic process having to do with the staffing,
compensation, retention, training, and employment law and policies side of the
business. In other words, your job as human resources (HR) manager will be not only to
write policy and procedures and to hire people (the administrative role) but also to use
strategic plans to ensure the right people are hired and trained for the right job at the
right time. For example, you ask her if she knows what the revenue will be in six
months, and Jennifer answers, “Of course. We expect it to increase by 20 percent.” You
ask, “Have you thought about how many people you will need due to this increase?”
Jennifer looks a bit sheepish and says, “No, I guess I haven’t gotten that far.” Then you
ask her about the training programs the company offers, the software used to allow
employees to access pay information online, and the compensation policies. She
responds, “It looks like we have some work to do. I didn’t know that human resources
involved all of that.” You smile at her and start discussing some of the specifics of the
business, so you can get started right away writing the strategic human resource
management plan.
What Is Human Resources?
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
What Is HRM?
Human resource management (HRM) is the process of employing people, training
them, compensating them, developing policies relating to them, and developing
strategies to retain them. As a field, HRM has undergone many changes over the last
twenty years, giving it an even more important role in today’s organizations. In the past,
HRM meant processing payroll, sending birthday gifts to employees, arranging
company outings, and making sure forms were filled out correctly—in other words, more
of an administrative role rather than a strategic role crucial to the success of the
organization. Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric and management guru, sums
up the new role of HRM: “Get out of the parties and birthdays and enrollment forms.…
Remember, HR is important in good times, HR is defined in hard times.”
It’s necessary to point out here, at the very beginning of this text, that every manager
has some role relating to human resource management. Just because we do not have
the title of HR manager doesn’t mean we won’t perform all or at least some of the HRM
tasks. For example, most managers deal with compensation, motivation, and retention
of employees—making these aspects not only part of HRM but also part of
management. As a result, this book is equally important to someone who wants to be an
HR manager and to someone who will manage a business.
Human Resource Recall
Have you ever had to work with a human resource department at your job? What was
the interaction like? What was the department’s role in that specific organization?
Keep in mind that many functions of HRM are also tasks other department managers
perform, which is what makes this information important, despite the career path taken.
Most experts agree on seven main roles that HRM plays in organizations. These are
described in the following sections.
Staffing
You need people to perform tasks and get work done in the organization. Even with the
most sophisticated machines, humans are still needed. Because of this, one of the
major tasks in HRM is staffing. Staffing involves the entire hiring process from posting a
job to negotiating a salary package. Within the staffing function, there are four main
steps:
1. Development of a staffing plan. This plan allows HRM to see how many people they
should hire based on revenue expectations.
2. Development of policies to encourage multiculturalism at work. Multiculturalism in
the workplace is becoming more and more important, as we have many more people from
a variety of backgrounds in the workforce.
3. Recruitment. This involves finding people to fill the open positions.
4. Selection. In this stage, people will be interviewed and selected, and a proper
compensation package will be negotiated. This step is followed by training, retention, and
motivation.
Every organization has policies to ensure fairness and continuity within the organization.
One of the jobs of HRM is to develop the verbiage surrounding these policies. In the
development of policies, HRM, management, and executives are involved in the
process. For example, the HRM professional will likely recognize the need for a policy
or a change of policy, seek opinions on the policy, write the policy, and then
communicate that policy to employees. It is key to note here that HR departments do
not and cannot work alone. Everything they do needs to involve all other departments in
the organization. Some examples of workplace policies might be the following:
These topics are addressed further in Chapter 6 “Compensation and Benefits”, Chapter
7 “Retention and Motivation”, Chapter 8 “Training and Development”, and Chapter 9
“Successful Employee Communication”.
Retention
Retention involves keeping and motivating employees to stay with the organization.
Compensation is a major factor in employee retention, but there are other factors as
well. Ninety percent of employees leave a company for the following reasons:
1. Issues around the job they are performing
2. Challenges with their manager
3. Poor fit with organizational culture
4. Poor workplace environment
Despite this, 90 percent of managers think employees leave as a result of pay. As a
result, managers often try to change their compensation packages to keep people from
leaving, when compensation isn’t the reason they are leaving at all. Chapter 7
“Retention and Motivation” and Chapter 11 “Employee Assessment” discuss some
strategies to retain the best employees based on these four factors.
We address each of these types of training and more in detail in Chapter 8 “Training
and Development”.
Human resource people must be aware of all the laws that affect the workplace. An
HRM professional might work with some of these laws:
Discrimination laws
Health-care requirements
Compensation requirements such as the minimum wage
Worker safety laws
Labor laws
The legal environment of HRM is always changing, so HRM must always be aware of
changes taking place and then communicate those changes to the entire management
organization. Rather than presenting a chapter focused on HRM laws, we will address
these laws in each relevant chapter.
Worker Protection
Safety is a major consideration in all organizations. Oftentimes new laws are created
with the goal of setting federal or state standards to ensure worker safety. Unions and
union contracts can also impact the requirements for worker safety in a workplace. It is
up to the human resource manager to be aware of worker protection requirements and
ensure the workplace is meeting both federal and union standards. Worker protection
issues might include the following:
Chemical hazards
Heating and ventilation requirements
Use of “no fragrance” zones
Protection of private employee information
We take a closer look at these issues in Chapter 12 “Working with Labor Unions” and
Chapter 13 “Safety and Health at Work”.
Communication
Besides these major roles, good communication skills and excellent management skills
are key to successful human resource management as well as general management.
We discuss these issues in Chapter 9 “Successful Employee Communication”.
One way managers can be aware of the outside forces is to attend conferences and
read various articles on the web. For example, the website of the Society for Human
Resource Management, SHRM Online not only has job postings in the field but
discusses many contemporary human resource issues that may help the manager
make better decisions when it comes to people management. In Section 1.3 “Today’s
HRM Challenges”, we go into more depth about some recent external issues that are
affecting human resource management roles. In Section 1.1.2 “The Role of HRM”, we
discuss some of the skills needed to be successful in HRM.
Figure 1.3
Most professionals agree that there are seven main tasks HRM professionals perform.
All these need to be considered in relation to external and outside forces.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
1. State arguments for and against the following statement: there are other things more
valuable in an organization besides the people who work there.
2. Of the seven tasks an HR manager does, which do you think is the most challenging?
Why?