Role of Human Resource Manager

HR Manager is a guide, philosopher, friend, problem solver, event planner, peacemaker, and competence maker of the human resource. The human Resource Manager is a pivotal pillar of any organization. Human Resource Manager does it all, from getting the right people to manage the wrong ones to develop high potentials. HR Manager receives the right kind of human resources for the company, assesses them, and manages their motivation. An HR Manager is critical in any organization owing to his/her ability to maintain & manage the personnel of any organization.

Human Resource Manager is a bridge between an organization’s management and its employees. They plan, direct, and coordinate the administrative functions of an organization as their position is crucial for overseeing human resources activities and policies according to the executive level direction. They supervise organizational staff, manage payroll and related perks & benefits, take care of employee relations, recruitment, training and development, safety, attendance, and employment records.

Functions of HR Manager: HR wears many hats. Focussed on achieving organization goals, they are the hardcore multi-tasker and perform multi-folded functions. 

The objective of HR Function

1. Formulation of Policy: To formulate clear and friendly practicable Standard Operating Protocols (SOP).
2. Motivation: To nurture and develop the employee’s team to meet business requirements. HR Managers retain the Top performers
3. Change Management: To act as a change agent for employees to handle complex and crises arising due to the dynamic of the business environment.
4. Employee Happiness: To be a coordinator to organize various ‘skilled based team activities’ so that various HR aspects can be addressed and resolved.
5. Strategic Planning: By being a strategist for the organization, planning and implementing an effective HR Plan that aligns Business Plan and overall organization plan.
6. Recruitment: To execute workforce planning and budgeting & have a roadmap for recruitment assignments by hiring as per the plan agreed alongside the Business heads/department heads. 
7. Allow open communication to assess employee needs proactively: By being proactive, the objective is to keep ears open and reach out to all employees through contact at regular intervals to gather insights at the workplace and take feedback.
8. Learning & Development: To provide employee development and training assistance to employees to enhance employee performance and productivity.
9. Employee Retention: To take adequate measures to retain good employees and high potential employees by an advisory to the employees.
10. Grievance Redressal: To ensure ‘Statutory Compliance’ status at all times HR Manager act as a role of dispute prevention 
11. Performance Assessment: To evaluate and improvise the current HR Practices to keep with time and external benchmarks.
12. Monitor & Control: With their sharp eye for monitoring, they update working policies according to the business and organization requirements.
13. Data Management: To maintain employee records and files for ease of reference, both Online and physical copies of the documents.
14. Mediator: As a spokesperson, they have to communicate with employees and business heads for better alignment.
15. Future Planner: They play a key role in the decision-making of any employee’s future in the organization as they keep track of each employee’s performance and behaviour.

Myths about HR 

1. HR people are always diplomatic, but the reality of the role of HR involves dealing with people at all levels of hierarchy to convey any good and bad news, maintaining decorum in the office etc. To ensure that communication takes place harmoniously, there is a need to communicate differently with different people.
2. HRs hardly have any work, but the reality is HRs have the most demanding work in a company. Dealing with people, day in and day out, across backgrounds, skills, aspirations etc., is no easy task. HR handles a variety of duties requiring careful attention and dedication.
3. HR’s are not employee-friendly, but the reality is that HR’s are the top management’s face. Sometimes, when employees do not like a policy, they conveniently blame it on the HR, but they need to manage the equilibrium from both the end.

People from outside feel that Working in HR is like roaming in the park. Only an HR knows that the park is “Jurassic Park”. Below mentioned are the key roles of HR Managers:

Functions of HR

1. Recruiting and hiring – The success of any organization depends on its Human Resources, and Hr Manager owns the responsibility of hiring employees; it wouldn’t be wrong to say that the HR Manager is the most important role for any organization. These two words, ‘Recruiting and hiring’ are the founding pillar of any organization and HR Department as it is a process of inviting and attracting talented workforce and employing them in adequate numbers to facilitate an efficient working force in an organization.
2. Induction or Orientation- Neither hiring can be successful unless the new joinee is introduced well with the organization, its teammates and supervisor. To ensure the employee’s happiness and well-being from the tender stage, an effective and healthy induction session is a key component.
3. Training and development – Since there are two famous quotes which say “Noone is perfect” and “There is always some room for improvement”, the processes of training and development help in enhancing and enabling the capacities of people to build their strengths and confidence for them to deliver more effectively.
4. Organization development – As Human Resource Manager is the link between employees and top management and considered spokesperson at both sides. HR Manager plays the most vital role in bridging the gap properly and making way towards attaining business goals.
5. Communication – Communication is a key essence that removes all the ambiguities. As a mediator, it is an activity that involves conveying meaningful information. At all times, HR must share all relevant information with the employees.
6. Performance management – HR is the first point of contact for any employee regarding any query. Hence, they only have the golden scope that focuses on their current performance and capacity of improving the organization’s performance in the organization and various other services. The performance is the key indicator of future appraisal, training needs and development session.
7. Employee relations – Whether personal or professional, to bring the best out of oneself is to manage interpersonal relationships. Being the advocate and peacemaker, HR Manager has a significant role in this concept that works towards bettering the relations among the employees and between the employee and the management.
8. Resolving Conflicts- It is quite obvious when two people with different mindset coordinate, there are high chances of conflict amongst them. Still, for the success of any organization, better team coordination is a must which the HR Manager can only develop by coaching, mentoring, and counselling. It is a practice of supporting an individual and helping him/her overcome all his/her issues to perform better.
9. Wages, salary, and compensation benefits – Nowadays, it is highly believed. In fact, it is the most pragmatic truth that money is the biggest motivator, whatsoever employee benefits schemes may be practiced with the organization. Still, unless his financial and social security is not fulfilled, his/her best cannot be retrieved. By keeping a birds-eye view of their attendance, HR managers look after the timely reimbursement of monthly payouts and other social benefits and perks for their financial and future stability. These benefits are provided to the employees to keep them motivated towards their work and the organization, which many times include special rewards and incentives.
10. Healthy Work Culture & Employee Engagement – It is a management concept that works towards retaining the talent by engaging the person in a way that would further the organization’s interest by engaging them in various team-building exercises and activities or celebrations to burst out their stress and making the work ambience much lighter.
11. Organizational Management– Being the several role players and keeping things at right place at right time, it is must that every organization has a structured Standard Operating Protocols (SOP) and working policies constructed for betterment at both end managed, executed and monitored by the HR Managers. The success can only be achieved when the company attains its final goal and there the HR Manager plays the most important role as managing employees and keeping things inline.
12. Law Knowledge– In a law abiding nation being a law abiding citizen, there are several laws which are formulated in favour of organization and employees benefiting both of them and also advocates them if being harassed by each other. The HR Manager must have knowledge of all of them not only for legal fight but to settle down the issues diligently which focuses on bringing out the best in a team to ensure development of an organization, and the ability to work together closely to achieve goals.

Pros And Cons Of Working As A Human Resource Manager

A Human Resources Manager is an essential part of an organization. Every company has its HR department that manages the problems of every employee related to productivity and job satisfaction.

Every job indeed has its pros and cons, so to ensure you make a wise choice for your career, check out the pros and cons of working as a human resources manager.

Pros :

1. Deal with a variety of people

It’s the biggest and best task for anyone who loves to deal with different types of people. Being an HR manager, you get a chance to handle people working in an organization. Depending on your experience and degree, you can work in social welfare or tackle psychological issues.

2. Get management experience

The primary responsibility of an HR manager is he/she has to qualify suitable candidates for the position of a company and fulfill all requirements that your company expects. Such a type of task is called management skill. 

3. Good salary

Handling various clients and their requirements is more than understanding a few parameters. As an HR manager, you understand your company’s policies and have to understand the feelings and emotions of a person. This is why companies do not mind paying handsome salaries to attract qualified and talented candidates for handling their work.

Cons:

1. Higher workload

The working demand of an HR manager job is vast. Working with machines or equipment is different from working with people. There’s no set of equations and instructions that will help you handle the problems of an employee.

2. Handle tough conversations

As an HR manager, sometimes you need to have tough conversations: telling an employee they lost their job or reapplied for the job, firing people, especially if you like their work, delay in promotion of an employee, and more isn’t a good conversation to have.

The Pay scale of HR Managers

As stated so far, being in this position is not that easy. One person with multiple roles with the huge expectations turning out to be as reality at the end requires something good as however HR Manager is also a human and also needs the same spirit to keep the things intact personally, professionally and socially, for the sake of this generally top management keeps them motivated with a healthy and satisfactory pay package. Apart from their multi-folded activities they are at the top of the hierarchy of their department managing their team, other operational teams and their individual leaders too.

The Future of HR 

In this tough time of pandemic COVID- 19, people across the globe with their job losses and salary cuts see their future within the dark which is extremely obvious and with the emerging trend of “work from home” of concept, many questions arise for the longer term of HR in coming time. It’s not only due to of this social distancing, lockdown and corona virus but also of the too very modernization tech-methods thanks to Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning and Robotics but because the term itself says Human Resource which will never get replaced or eliminated unless it has a special touch which tech- oriented platform couldn’t provide and even this difficult time of this pandemic asks a special gesture and energy which makes the longer term even brighter as HR now play more vital part to stay the morale and work flow continue through their various roles during a distant manner.

Conclusion

To create a team to excel, it’s of utmost importance to possess an equally professional and well-managed HR department. A slipshod HR function will hamper an organization’s future and compromise on its achievements. To summarize, the role of an HR manager is to  be a hero performing one of the toughest jobs in any organisation. However, if the candidate has patience, the right temperament, and cares for employees, he/she could be the voice of the organisation not only for the employees, and also helps management in building a successful organisation by taking care of all the precious human assets within the organization.

This article was contributed by Ms. Meghna Ghosh as a part of Zigsaw’s Know-the-Job campaign where we intend to share details about various Job-profiles and industry. If you want to know the world to know about your Job-profile/industry and you want to be the one to share it, share your story at views at support@zigsaw.in and we would be happy to feature the article on our Blog