The Importance Of The Human Resource Function
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The Importance of the Human Resource Function
Human resource is the backbone of any business. It deals with the most important resource in the business — people. For any business to achieve its objectives they must plan their resources and one of their key resources is people. They need to get the right people and develop them well in order to meet the organisation’s aims successfully.
As an organisation grows and expands, the human resource department
will know that the organisation needs to recruit more staff and they
plan carefully. Recruiting staff in an organisation is very expensive
and costly, so the human resource function helps the organisation to
get recruitment right. The main elements of Human resource are:
* Planning
* Recruitment & Selection
* Training & Development
* Performance Measurement.
PLANNING
Planning is a process of determining the goals and objectives of a business for a future period of time, developing the strategies guiding the firm’s operations and utilizing resources towards achieving the set goals and objectives.
A human resource manager needs to plan ahead and know what is going on in and outside the company (labour market). He needs to be aware of the past, present and future trends of employment in a particular area of specialisation. He needs to know if there are available skills needed or if there are Few people with the type of skill needed by the company. He also needs to be aware for competition for employees’ i.e. if the company’s
employees are increasing the demand for labour or whether labour is available due to redundancies. The HR planning is all about getting the right people and developing
them to meet the company’s objectives.
RECRUITMENT & SELECTION
The HR manager needs to know when, why and how to recruit staff. Businesses recruit staff so as to expand the business objectives and change job roles within the business due to new skills and new technology. New staffs are also recruited because the company needs to fill
vacancies due to dismissal, death or resignation of a member of staff, or to fill vacancies due to internal promotion of a member of staff. A business has to get recruitment right because it is very expensive. The HR manager will have to select the right people into jobs because
there is the probability of rejecting the best ones and getting the
wrong ones.
TRAINING & DEVELOPMENT
The HR manager needs to be aware of the importance of training and developing their employees as it adds to the competitive success of the business. Training could be described as a learning experience or activity aimed at making a positive change on the performance of employees which will in turn lead to the success of the company. Training could be in various forms such as education, induction, apprenticeship or management training. Training enables an employee to contribute in meeting the aims and objectives of a business while development on the other hand enables an employee to develop himself / herself as a person. This aspect of the human resource responsibility helps employees to
develop themselves and contribute in meeting the organisation’s goals and objectives. To achieve its objectives, an organisation has to train and develop its people so they could support the organisation by working towards meeting the company’s objectives.
PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT
In order to be competitive, a business needs to monitor the performance of its employees effectively. Some of the methods businesses use to monitor the performance of their
employees include:
Performance Reviews: