Why is Human Resource Important to an Organization
You went to your Human Resources office 5 times today and 4 out of the 5 times, the door was closed. On your fifth attempt, your HR Manager was on the phone and signaled for you to return later. At this point, you are wondering what your HR Representative could be so busy doing that is more important than your question.
I think that just about every Human Resources Professional share a similar sentiment in the belief that part of their role is to support all employees with equal effort. The various disciplines of HR can be tireless, time-consuming and quite frequently with no end in sight. That unfortunately means more often than not, time spent away from employees and behind closed doors handling various unpredictable situations.
This post reflects a popular question found to be asked by many. How does Human Resource utilize their time.
As an employee, on the outside looking in, it can seem like your HR representative is always extremely busy. Talking on the phone, in Orientations, training sessions, holding interviews, everything else but available to you on demand as needed.
Let's take a look at various areas of HR which quite commonly in many small to mid-size companies, only 1 individual is tasked with handling.
Let's talk about your paycheck for example. It certainly does not fall from the sky. Payroll & Compensation turns out to be a lengthy process. It requires your HR to take a day or two to accurately process payroll for all employees. That's right, it's not just your check but everyone else's too. At the end of the pay week when payroll is processed, you will have received a check but the process continues for HR. Auditing, reviewing, verifying and more must be done in accordance with local and federal Payroll requirements. Even more is required for companies with Union contractual Agreements.
What about Recruiting? The season has really picked up and your manager alerted you that the company will be bringing on a few Part Time seasonal employees to help out with the increased demand. New employees certainly do not magically show up. HR analyzes staffing and oversees the entire recruiting process. The process begins with a verification of the need for a particular position. This position is then posted to various advertising areas followed by screening of candidates, interviewing prospective candidates and making final hiring decisions. Recruiting is truly a challenging discipline by itself and is best assigned as an independent role in HR due to how time consuming the process can be.
Training is quite a time-consuming task for HR. It's an ongoing process which I assure you is important ii ensuring that everyone is on the same page with regards to company policies and can perform their jobs effectively. Yes, that includes sexual harassment training, Equal Employment Opportunity training, Customer service training, on the job skills enhancement, even over the top mandatory Orientation training sessions which goes on for 7 hours.
It truly does not stop here. Additional important functions includes: Risk & Legal Management, Health & Insurance Benefit Administration, Employee Relations. Did i mention company psychologist and therapist? HR does spend a lot of their time listening to all employees, counseling, correcting investigating and advising. The above mentioned are all part of your HR representatives' revolving list of responsibilities.
While Human Resources may not be a Revenue Generating department, it is certainly responsible for hiring and retaining those who generate income for the company and more importantly saves your business from spending more money than it has to in careless lawsuits.
Let's take a few steps back to where we began. You went to your HR Office a few times today and your HR representative was not available. My advice to you is to leave a note in a sealed envelope marked urgent with your name, request, maybe even your number and slip it under his/her door.
To our HR profesisonals reading, we do understand the never ending chaos on a day to day basis and highly recommend that you place a note or a request box outside your office in order for employees to leave questions or requests whenever you are unavailable.
Written and composed by a contributor at Heserhoff Consulting.
The writer may be reached at info@heserhoff.com
