Human Resources Management: Functions Essay Sample

The main role of human resources department is increasing the effectiveness and contribution so as to achieve the set organizational goals. Apart from this, the human resources department of any organization bears a number of functions, which can be divided into primary and secondary functions. The primary function of human resources management is getting directly involved in obtaining, maintaining and developing employees in the organization. These primary functions include human resource planning, equal employment opportunity, staffing (recruitment and selection), compensation and benefits, employee labor relations, health, safety and security employee development (Sims, 2006). Secondary functions of human resource are involved in determining or changing the structure of the organization or providing support for general management activities. They include job design, performance management and performance appraisal systems. With the functions of the human resources defined, the main aim of this paper is to look at how the primary functions of human resources work together in ensuring that the main role of the department is fulfilled.
Equal employment opportunity (EEO) is a principle by which any human resource manager has to adhere to by ensuring that they offer equal opportunities to their employees. By doing this, the manager or supervisor has to provide equal access to all available jobs, training, and promotional opportunities and provide similar benefits and services to everyone. He or she also has to apply all policies and practices to every applicant and staff member in a consistent manner. Applicants or employees should also not be differentiated in terms of their skin color, race, tribe, mental disability, medical condition, age and marital status among many others. All of this means that employment discrimination is forbidden and any biasness should be eliminated. Affirmative action works in ensuring the rules and regulations of EEO are adhered to. Affirmative action programs ensure effects of past discrimination in employment are addressed and promoting fairness.
Human resource planning helps in determining the number of employees that an organization is in need of whether in the future or at present (Caruth, Caruth & Pane, 2008). It also involves determining what skills are needed. Recruitment and selection process is involved with getting new employees for the company. Recruitment ensures that there is a sufficient number of qualified people to apply for employment in the organization. Selecting on the other hand, means choosing the best qualified candidate for a particular position in the organization. The recruitment and selection process needs to be consistent with the overall corporate strategy of the organization. It should also work with other functions of human resource functions such as resource planning, training and development, succession planning and competence assessment (Knowledge & Sims, 2005). Others include reward strategy and career management. Apart from all of this, it must also be consistent with the values and culture of the organization. Organizations have different recruitment and selection strategies, policies and procedures. Some may opt for internal promotion so as to boost the morale of their employees while others recruit employees externally (Knowledge & Sims, 2005). Planning, recruitment and selection affects the functions and the human resource system through the employees it brings into the organization.
When it comes to safety and health, human resources management has to ensure that employees are protected from 0n-the job injuries or illnesses that are work related. Human resources should also promote the general physical and mental well-being of the employees (Caruth, Caruth & Pane, 2008). Some organizations merely adhere to the minimum set standards that are set for safety and health while others respond vigorously to such rules. The image that an organization projects together with the reputation it has earned regarding the safety and health measure of its employees can affect its staffing process. Many employees might resign if they see that their safety is not guaranteed. Recruiting new employees can also be a challenge especially if the safety of the employees in the organization suffers from a negative reputation.
In training and development, human resources department is concerned with improving the productivity of groups, individuals and the entire organization. Training usually involves impacting skills that will help employees to perform better in their present jobs. Development on the other hand, is concerned with assisting employees to realize their full potential (Caruth, Caruth & Pane, 2008). These two factors too have a great effect on staffing of the organization. If the organization has gained a reputation for providing excellent training and development, attracting new employees and retaining old employees will be easy. When employees are also in a position to enhance their skills and learning opportunities is available thus leading to upgrading of personal goals, turnover rate in the organization will also be low. Productivity of employees will also be enhanced simply because employees are better skilled in performing their present jobs and any other higher positions that may be available to them in the future.
Compensation is made up of all the rewards that an organization provides its employees in exchange for the work they do for the firm. These compensations include tangible and non-tangible and monetary and non-monetary. Compensation is made up of three components; direct monetary rewards (wages and salaries), indirect financial payment (benefits and services), and psychological satisfactions (good working conditions, recognition, status etc.). The compensation plan of the organization highly affects staffing. If the compensation plan of the organization is low, employees will be leaving the organization at a high rate to take up more paying positions in other organizations. Moreover, a poor compensation plan will make it hard for the organization to recruit new members.
Employee and labor relations are mainly concerned with two things; the way the organization manages its work force and the interaction between the organization and its union, if it has one. Every employee is usually concerned with the concept of fairness in the employment relationship. Fairness can be totally different across employees but all it means is that employees expect there to be equity at the place of work. This equity is in regards to matters of promotions, demotion, layoff, termination, discipline and pay. How the organization deals with its employees becomes public knowledge, which can affect the staffing of the organization. It can either build or tarnish the image of the organization which in turn affects staffing. Labor relations is a specific term that refers to how the organization relates with the union that represents its employees. Good relationship between these two enhances the image of the organization whereas a bad relationship tarnishes the image of the organization.
All of these functions complement each other. None is more important than the other. If one of the functions is missing or non-functional. The role of human resource will not be complement. If anything, staffing will be under great danger because the rate of turnover will be high and recruiting new employees will be difficult. In learning about these functions, students had to visit the nearest organizations and learn about the policies that were used by the human resources department. We realized that all the organizations that followed these functions of the human resource to the letter have better performance than those that had sloppy functions. The reason for this, according to some of their employees and the managers was because their employees were satisfied and thus, were motivated to work hard. The relationship between the labor union of some organizations especially industries was very strong. The organization was good at listening to the grievances that the union aired on behalf of their employees. In return, the employees worked harder and the organization benefited at the end of it. Similarly, these industries had packages for the health and safety of their employees in case anything happened to them while they were working. Some of the organization have a dangerous environment especially for the employees who work their especially in the manufacturing industry. Employees could be prone to injuries by chemicals, or injuries through the heavy machineries they operate among many others. All of these employees were happy at their place of work because they knew their compensation packages, especially if anything would happen to their health while at work, was satisfactory. Similarly, other employees in the office such as messengers, accountants and the rest were also satisfied with their compensation packages. Due to this, we learned that some of the employees had worked in these organizations for a long period of time and were not in a hurry to leave for other organizations.
In conclusion, it very important fir the human resources department to perform its roles since it is a very vital department in any organization. The employees of the organization together with the public are always watching how the human resource of any department performs its roles. For organizations that have better functioning human resources department, their returns are since employees are satisfied and motivated to work harder. Recruiting new employees is also a lot easier for these organizations compared to those that have a bad reputation in how they treat their employees. All of these functions are very vital s they relate with the staffing of the organization. If one or more of the functions is not properly carried out, the staffing of the organization will be very hard, thus affecting the function of the employees and of the organization in general.

References

Caruth, D. L., Caruth, G. D., & Pane, S. S. (2008). Staffing the contemporary organization: A
guide to planning, Recruiting, & Selecting for Human Resource Professionals. 3rd ed.
Knowledge, S., & Sims, H. (2005). Human resource planning. Select Knowledge Ltd. Vol 21 of
Cambridge International Diploma in Management.
Sims, R. R. (2006). Human resource development: Today & Tomorrow. Charlotte: IAP
publishers.