«Functions of Human Resource Management» - Free Essay Paper

Human resource management is that part of the management which deals with people at work and with their relationship with an organization. Its role is to design, develop and administer policies and programs in order to make maximum use of an organization’s human resource.Human resource management has many functional areas, amalgamated into planning, staffing, employee development and employee maintenance.

The first function is planning.By this function, the human resource management determines the number of employees that are needed in order to accomplish organizational goals. Planning requires collection of information and analysis in order to forecast and predict human resource supplies and needs. The basic planning strategy is staffed and employee development.

The second function is staffing. Staffing is the selection and recruitment of human resource for the business. Recruitment attracts qualified applicants to fill job vacancies. During the selection, candidates who are most suitable are selected for hiring from among those who applied for the post. Human resource management develops and administers methods that allow managers to decide which applicants to reject and which to select for a given job.

Orientation is helping a new employee to adjust himself to a new job and employer. It acquaints new employees with particular aspects of their new employment, including working hours, pay and benefits programs as well as company rules and regulations.

The third HR function istraining and development. Training and development equip the employees with the information and techniques to perform their duties efficiently. Apart from training new or inexperienced employees, organizations also provide training to experienced workers whose jobs keep on changing from time to time. Training and development programs provide a useful avenue of making sure that employees are capable of performing their jobs at acceptable levels. The performance appraisal function monitors the performance of employees to ensure that it is at acceptable levels. Human resource staff develops and administers performance appraisal systems, although supervisors and managers do the actual appraisal of employees.Apart from providing a basis for pay, promotion and disciplinary action, performance appraisal is important for employee development, feedback (knowledge of results) is necessary to motivate and guide improvement in performance.

Career planning, the next HR function, includes assessing the potential of an individual employee for growth and advancement in an organization. Development of career planning is attributed to the desire of many employees to advance in their careers and grow in their jobs.

Compensation is the HR function by wchich the human resource personnel provides a fair method for calculating how much the employees should get payments for carrying out certain duties. Maintenance of human resource is related to pay. Compensation is a major consideration in human resource planning since it is a major cost to many organizations. Compensation also is a significant aspect of employees motivation to higher paying jobs and higher levels of job performance in an organization. Other than direct pay for work done, benefits are another form of compensation to employees. These benefits include both the legally required items and those offered at the discretion of the employer.

One more HR function is related to the labor relations. This term refers to the interaction with employees who are represented by a trade union. Employees come together in order to get more voice in decisions affecting pay, benefits, working conditions and other aspects of employment. For matters pertaining to labor relations, the human resource personnel takes part in negotiating with the unions regarding salaries, working conditions, and resolving disputes and grievances.

Recordkeeping is the basic personnel function for keeping records of employees. It involves recording, storing and retrieving information related to employees for various purposes. These records include application forms, employment history, medical records, earnings and hours of work, and other employee data. Record keeping provides raw materials for statistics that check and guide personnel policies.Human resource management is a very crucial part of the management in any business since it has major responsibilities that shape the company positively. These include shaping of the organizational culture, planning for change, training and development, health and safety, and recruitment and retention of employees.