Explain Functions of Human Resource Management

The Human Resources Management (HRM) function includes a variety of activities, and key among them is deciding what staffing needs you have and whether to use independent contractors or hire employees to fill these needs, recruiting and training the best employees, ensuring they are high performers, dealing with performance issues, and ensuring your personnel and management practices conform to various regulations.

Activities also include managing your approach to employee benefits and compensation, employee records and personnel policies. The Human Resource team must also be a good judge of morale and realize when morale-boosting incentives are needed.

Human resource management functions are:

• Planning: Prepare forecasts of future HR needs in the light of an organization’s environment, mission and objectives, strategies and internal strengths and weaknesses, including its structure, culture, technology, and leadership.
• Staffing: Obtaining people with the appropriate skills, abilities, knowledge, and experience to fill jobs in the work organization. Key practices are human resource planning, job analysis, recruitment, and selection.
• Developing: Analyzing learning requirements to ensure that employees possess the knowledge and skills to perform satisfactorily in their jobs or to advance in the organization. Performance appraisal can identify employees’ key skills and “competencies”.
• Motivation: The design and administration of reward systems. HR practices include job evaluation, performance appraisal, pay, and benefits.
• Maintaining: The administration and monitoring of workplace safety, health and welfare policies to retain a competent workforce and comply with statutory standard and regulation.
• Managing relationship: Encompasses a range of employee involvement/participation schemes in non-union or union workplace. In a union environment, this includes negotiating contracts and administrating the collective agreement.
• Managing change: This involves helping others to envision the future, communicating this vision, setting clear expectations for performance and developing the capability to reorganize people and reallocate other resources.
• Evaluation: Designing the procedures and processes that measure, evaluate and communicate the value-added component of HR practices and the entire HR system to the organization.

Human resource management focuses on congruence and commitment instead of compliance and control. In the present day turbulent reality, there is a need to develop industry-specific human resource management policy and practices to remain competitive and to develop a committed workforce. The role of the human resource manager is to act as a catalyst, focusing on facilitation and coordination.