Importance of HR Management

Importance of HR Management

Angelica Lewis

Georgia Southwestern University

The overall impact of HR Management to organizations

HR contributes to an organization’s success by playing diverse roles. In fact, in the current workplace, the HR professionals are performing increasingly complex and at times paradoxical roles to add value to increasingly complex businesses (Gannile et al. 2020). In this regard, the HR managers contribute to an organization’s success by playing the following key roles:

i. Management of Firm Infrastructure: HR professionals are expected to play the role of administrative expert by eliminating unnecessary cost, improving the adequacy, and inventing new ways to perform the organization’s functions better by constantly examining, improving, and reengineering HR processes –staffing, training, appraising, rewarding and promoting.

ii. Management of Employee Contribution: HR plays the role of employee champion. As part of this role, they understand employee the expectations and demands of the employees thus increasing morale, loyalty, competence, and commitment, and as a result employee contribution grows up which is significantly reflected in a firm's financial result (Gannile et al. 2020). As employee champions, HR professionals ensure that employee’s views are voiced and heard.

iii. Management of Transformation and Change: HR professionals play the role of a change agent as they provide solutions, build relationships with employees, and formulate plans for employee growth.. They improve the design, implement initiatives, and process of change, reduce cycle time in all organizational activities. In fact, every company needs a human resources department; there is no question about it (Gannile et al. 2020). If an organization employs people, taking care of them and watching out for their needs and development not only benefits the company but ensures the quality of life of everyone involved. Therefore, if an HR department benefits people and employees, the following are what it contributes to the organization’s success as a whole:

· HR ensures better employee retention. When there’s high employee turnover, it can negatively affect a company’s efficiency and reputation. Their bottom line can be severely affected too especially since it costs twice as much to pay for hiring and training a new employee.

· HR oversees recruitment and talent acquisition. Great companies need great people working in it. With a capable HR department, the perfect candidates are selected for the job. And if everything works out, this new hire will be a great asset to the organization.

· HR takes care of conflict management and resolution. Disruptions are part of life, and your organization needs an arm that can deal with hiccups professionally and maturely, with heart and compassion, of course, to protect the company and everyone involved.

Furthermore, for an organization to strengthen its HR department, the managers and personnel must be equipped with the right knowledge, skills, and competencies for there to be the maximum return on investment for your company (Jansson & Rozenbachs, 2016). Typically the administrative aspects comprise staffing, payroll, training, grievance and query resolution, etc. These are common and easily understood. The key contribution lies in HR's ability to enable business strategy delivery. Therefore, any business strategy is only as successful as its execution by the workforce. Execution is a function of capacity (do we have enough people), capability (do they have the right knowledge and skills to perform), and finally alignment (do they understand and believe in the ‘why'). HR facilitates all of these three in the workforce to ensure successful execution and thereby creating a competitive edge.

Importantly, HR is in a unique position to have an overall understanding of the organization - both, strategic intent at the highest level and realities at the ground level. This enables the function to shape the exact narrative, both upwards and downwards, and ensure the culture of the organization supports its strategy (Jansson & Rozenbachs, 2016). In this role, HR serves as a change agent to drive the organization forward while championing the cause of the people.

HR as a Strategic Partner to organizations

The Human Resource Business Partner (HRBP)’s role in every organization needs to evolve over a period of time as per the HR transformation needs for that organization (Jansson & Rozenbachs, 2016). There cannot be a one size fits all HRBP for every organization. A practical experience is an organization’s best resource to learn from. Moreover, an HR practitioner becomes extremely valuable when that person aligns their HR program with the needs and requirements of the business unit which is served. What is it's culture? What is its strategy? What are its goals and objectives? What are the nuances required of each candidate above the ordinary KSAs of the job? What is the desired speed and cost to hire? (should this be wrote another way) If the HR practitioner can produce the value add of knowledge of all the above and execute efficiently, then you might have an HR Partner in an organization’s corner (Ramlall & Melton, 2019). Therefore, HR has truly become a strategic partner when it has a seat amongst the table of decision-makers. With that seat, HR is then able to shape organizational decisions and develops strategic HR initiatives that aim to achieve organizational strategic goals. In addition to the ways highlighted by David B (Who is David B?) in which HR can play a strategic role, HR can play a more strategic role in the following ways:

· Devise employee training programs for human resource capacity building in terms of skills, capabilities required to achieve the organizational objectives.

· Implementing an organization’s workplace culture, providing social empowerment, and identifying the best talent for the organization.

· Leveraging HR success plans, retention of the best talents, and appraisal for existing employees.

· Developing the best HR workplace practices that suit every culture in compliance with the organization's code of conduct.

· By sharing with other departments the emerging trends in business.

In conclusion, HR can be strong allies whenever managers or directors need to make decisions that may regard employees and employee relationships. Indeed it is a real support department that should not be overlooked in strategic business decisions, big and small (Ramlall & Melton, 2019). Moreover, the HR Business Partner will work closely with the Executive Management team of an organization in order to maintain all HR related matters in line with the company objectives. As companies realized the need for greater involvement of their employees, this “partnership” goes a long way to breaking down the traditional barriers that existed between employees and employers (Thoman & Lloyd, 2018). As a rule of thumb, the HR Partner will be the most senior person in the HR department and may also sit in on the Board Meetings of the larger organizations. It is also not uncommon for smaller companies to enlist the services of a specialist external provider to fulfill this role.

When we talk about HR, it depends on the size of the company. In larger organizations, there may be the HR Manager, Recruitment Manager, HR Assistant, etc. In this case, the HR Partner may be the HR Manager, and will be advising Management on the Best Practice solutions, make recommendations based on trends and Legislative Requirements. ( I am confused about the last paragraph).

References

Gannile, C., Ab Yajid, M. S., Khatibi, A., & Azam, S. F. (2020). IMPACT OF MEASUREMENT DRIVEN HR STATISTICS ON STRATEGIC HUMAN RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONS ON ORGANIZATIONAL PERFORMANCE IN INSURANCE INDUSTRY. European Journal of Social Sciences Studies, 5(3).

Jansson, A., & Rozenbachs, A. (2016). HR as strategic partner: How to make it happen.

Ramlall, S., & Melton, B. (2019). The Role and Priorities of the Human Resource Management Function: Perspectives of HR Professionals, Line Managers, and Senior Executives. International Journal of Human Resource Studies, 9(2), 9-27.

Thoman, D., & Lloyd, R. (2018). A Review of the Literature on Human Resource Development: Leveraging HR as Strategic Partner in the High Performance Organization. Journal of International & Interdisciplinary Business Research, 5(1), 147-160.