Human Resource Management: 4 Functions of HRM

To understand what Human Resource Management (HRM) is, we first need to understand the concept of human resources. Human resources are the people who work in an organization and contribute to its success. This includes everything from the CEO to the janitor.

HRM is the process of managing these human resources in a way that best allows them to contribute to an organization’s success. This includes things like hiring, Training & Development, motivating, and maintaining employee performance. It’s all about ensuring that an organization has the best possible human resources (employees)to achieve its goals.

Definition of Human Resource Management: Experts’ Views

Human resource management (HRM) is the process of managing people in organizations. HRM includes the functions of human resource planning, job analysis, job design, recruitment, selection, training and development, performance appraisal, employee relations, and compensation and benefits.

According to Stephen P Robbins HRM is planning, organizing, leading, and controlling the human resources of an organization to achieve organizational goals.

HRM aims to help organizations achieve their objectives by ensuring that they have the right number and type of people with the right knowledge, skills, and abilities to do their jobs.

Many experts believe that HRM is one of the most important functions in an organization. They argue that human resources are the most important asset in any company and that the proper management of these resources is essential to the success of the organization. Other experts believe that HRM is not as important as some other functions, such as marketing or finance. They argue that human resources are just one type of resource that an organization has and that many other factors contribute to the success or failure of a company. However, most experts agree that human resource management is a critical function in any organization.

4 Key Functions of HRM: What HR Managers Do?

HRM is all about people in the organization. It deals with the people (human resources) dimension within an organization to achieve the set organizational goals. An HR manager deals with people in the organization.

When we hear the word HRM, many functions come to our minds. We think that HRM is concerned with the employee recruitment process, training and development, performance management, employee development, employee engagement, employee performance, labor relations, and many more. However, to be precise there are 4 core HR functions that HR professionals or managers perform; staffing, training and development, motivation, and maintenance. In simple words, they hire suitable employees, train and develop the selected employees, and motivate them to perform effectively and maintain their performance. Let’s read the basic functions of human resource managers in a bit of detail:

1. Staffing: Hiring Qualified People

Staffing is the first and most important function of HRM that is concerned with seeking and hiring qualified employees for the organization, with adequate knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs). Did you know what is the goal of staffing? Why do HR managers do staffing? As the name suggests the unique goal of staffing is to locate competent employees and bring them to the organization by utilizing their knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to achieve the organizational goals.

Staffing functions encompass the following three elements:

(i)Strategic Human Resource Planning:

Strategic human resource planning ( Strategic HRP) is the process of linking the human resource function with the strategic objectives of the organization to improve organizational performance. Strategic HRP starts with understanding the organization’s strategy and business goals. From there, HR professionals identify the workforce skills and competencies needed to support those goals.

(ii)Recruiting:

Recruiting is the process of attracting, screening, and finding sources for qualified people for a job. The goal of recruiting is to find people who have the necessary skills and qualifications to fill vacant positions in the organization.

(iii) Selection:

Selection is the process of choosing the most qualified person for a job from among the pool of candidates. The goal of selection is to choose the individual who has the best combination of qualifications and skills to fill a vacant position in the organization.

2. Training and Development: Preparing Employees

When an organization’s HR department hires new employees for the organization, the newly hired employees need to be oriented with the organization, be trained, and communicated the goals of the organization.

Training is necessary even if the candidates are graduates from world-reputed universities because they might not have the specific skills required for the vacant position. For example, a candidate with an MBA degree from Harvard Business School will still need some training to be an effective marketing manager in an organization.

Thus, the Training and Development function does the same; is concerned with helping employees to develop up-to-date skills, knowledge, and abilities.

Training and Development have the following dimensions or outcomes:

• Employee Orientation
• Employee Training
• Employee Development
• Career Development
• Organizational Development

The ultimate goal of training and development is to prepare employees for effective performance. Thus human resource managers train and develop employees when hired.

3. Motivation: Stimulating employees for higher performance

Did you know that 66% of employees were motivated to stay at their job with the presence of a corporate incentive program? Interestingly, Only 15% of employees worldwide feel engaged.

After training the employees, it is the job of HR managers to motivate the employees to use their skills and abilities to perform their jobs effectively. Motivation is a process that starts with a physiological or psychological need that stimulates behavior or a desire to achieve a goal.

Research shows that as training and development increase in an organisation, employees tend to show citizenship behaviour.

The ultimate goal of motivation as one of the human resource management functions is to have highly competent, productive, and adapted employees with up-to-date knowledge, skills, and abilities so that organizational goals can be achieved.

4. Maintenance: Keeping employees satisfied and content

Once employees are motivated, they need to be maintained so that they do not leave the organization. Maintenance is concerned with keeping employees satisfied and content with their jobs. The goal of maintenance is to keep employees happy, content, and productive so that they do not leave the organization; to avoid employee turnover. In other words, maintenance is concerned with maintaining employees’ commitment and loyalty to the organization.

Maintenance activities include the following:

• Compensation and Benefits
• Employee Relations
• Work-Life Balance
  The ultimate goal of maintenance functions of HR management is employee retention.

Apart from the above functions of human resource management, an HR professional also performs the following functions:

• Job analysis
• Performance management
• Health and safety regulations
• Employee relations
• Employee Benefits
• Build positive employee relations
• keeps eye on employer-employee relationships

Thus we can say that HR managers play a key role in the success of any organization.