What is Human Resource Management (HRM)? A Comprehensive Guide

What-is-Human-Resource-Management-(HRM)

Overview

Human Resource Management (HRM) is defined as the process of managing employees in an organisation, empowering them to contribute to the success of the organisation. Commonly known as HR, it is an essential department for all types of businesses, regardless of the size. Human Resource Management aims to maximise the employees’ efficiency and always protect the company from any issues and challenges that may affect the organisation and its employees. So, let’s dive into the world of Human Resource Management (HRM) and understand its importance in the professional world.

HRM

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What is Human Resource Management (HRM)?

Often referred to as Human Resources (HR), Human Resource Management involves a process of recruiting, hiring, deploying and managing employees to achieve the goal of the

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company. Its main objective is to maximise the efficiency of the employees, ensuring they are motivated, enthusiastic, supported and aligned with the company’s goals and culture. Besides, HRM also includes developing policies to ensure the safety of the employees. Since the HR Department is the main focus in any organisation, every company relies on HRM to run the business efficiently. Furthermore, HRM manages various functions like planning, organising and training & development.

What is Human Resources (HR)?

Often referred to as HR, Human Resources is a department within an organisation that is involved in all employee-related activities, such as recruiting, hiring, firing, training & development and compensation & benefits. Being a standalone department within an organisation, Human Resources has multiple types of positions that handle different work and responsibilities. They include:

  • Recruiter
  • HR Assistant
  • HR Business Partner
  • HR Manager
  • Recruitment Manager
  • Talent Management Specialist or Manager
  • Talent Acquisition Specialist or Manager
  • HR Analytics Specialist or Manager
  • Compensation Specialist or Manager

Role of Human Resources

Serving as a company’s personal department, HRM creates a balance between the employees and employers. Ideally, it formulates ways to increase the organisation’s efficiency through its employees. Some of the important roles of Human Resources are recruitment, training, retention, motivation, leave policies, labour law compliances, salary structure, compensation & benefits, evaluating employee performance and handling workplace issues. Additionally, there are different HR segments, which involve:

⮚ Talent Acquisition

This function handles sourcing of candidates and onboarding them to the company, ensuring an unbiased recruitment process.

⮚ Talent Management

Responsible for the career progression of the employees, this function works closely with the training and development team to identify the potential employee basis internal assessment.

⮚ HR Operations

 This function takes care of performance management, payroll management, exit management and HR compliance.

⮚ Employee Engagement

This role involves nurturing employee relations by conducting many activities periodically, be it a festive celebration, monthly celebration or an annual event, as per the requirements to keep the employees’ morale high.

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Importance of Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management plays a crucial role in nourishing an organisation’s resources in a significant way. It provides many benefits to an organisation, which include:

  • Developing an Engaged Workforce

 Human Resources helps employees engage, motivate and grow, with professional development and mentorships.

  • Enhancing Collaboration and Improving Communication

An HR professional’s skills have a huge impact on companies. The HR team helps solve issues of employees with conflict resolution training. In addition to this, HR training helps managers improve communication with their employees more efficiently.

  • Boosting Employee Morale

When it comes to employee engagement, boosting employee morale is one of the most important factors. To improve morale, the HR team can introduce some policies, such as coffee talks, free lunches or breakfast, a flexible working environment, an employee rewards program and weekly or monthly outings.

  • Navigating Conflict Effectively

The HR department can offer equal opportunities, like conducting workshops, to supervisors and employees for dealing with conflict.

  • Supporting Employees

From providing mentorship to offering training, the HR team makes employees supported at each level. Since their main role is to ensure all employees work well, HR professionals get in touch with each employee and make sure that they feel valued.

Functions of Human Resource Management

The Human Resource Department is an important asset that helps an organisation achieve goals. From creating job descriptions to providing training, Human Resource Management functions at each level of an employee’s journey in an organisation. Depending on the organisation, the Human Resource Department may address one or several functions of HRM. Some of the key functions are outlined below:

1.Talent Management

One of the most popular functions of Human Resources, Talent management is a process of getting the right talent onboard and helping them grow professionally. The HR team provides onboarding after they select the qualified and skilled candidate for any position. The HR department also conducts training to ensure that employees stay updated with up-to-date trends and tools.

2.Company Culture

To create a positive company culture, the Human Resources Department works as a bridge between management and employees. The HR team is able to develop company culture and maintain a high level of engagement among employees. For instance, they may establish weekly activities, encourage work-life balance by discussing concerns or create a company sports team for social connection.

3.Compensation and Benefits

Another one of the most important HR functions, compensation and benefits allow the HR manager to create an attractive offer as per the candidate’s experience. Here, compensation refers to the annual salary of an employee, while benefits vary from company to company. Benefits may include paid holidays, referral bonuses, sign-on bonuses, education benefits and parental leave.

4.Development and Training

This function identifies to provide training to any current employee and develop their career path. For instance, the HR Department conducts training sessions and seminars on different topics, such as reporting sexual harassment, emerging technology, performance evaluation and analysing skill gaps.

5.Risk Management

Another important function of Human Resources is recognising and resolving risk factors before they become reality. The HR team plays a crucial role in taking care of risk management. Here are some examples that will show how the HR department mitigates the risk:

  • Investing in the matter of allegations of sexism, harassment, etc.
  • Tracking, updating and protecting employee records.
  • Implementing procedures to maintain or increase diversity

6.Legal Compliance

HR compliance is a function which ensures that an organisation follows the labour laws of the state, city, country or the world. The HR team makes sure that the hiring process, organisation rules and other factors all comply with the applicable laws.

What are the Objectives of Human Resource Management?

Human Resource Management can be categorised into four objectives. Let’s look at these:

⮚ Societal Objectives

Human Resource Management includes developing programs to respond to the employees’ psychological, ethical, economic and social needs or challenges. These programs comprise equal opportunity programs, community relation programs and compensation & benefits programs. It is an important objective that helps an organisation become more supportable.

⮚ Organisational Objectives

These actions ensure providing the right training, hiring the correct number of employees with the right skills for a given task and maintaining the retention rates. These objectives aim to provide a positive workplace culture aligning the employees’ efforts with the organisation’s goals for its success.

⮚ Functional Objectives

These measures ensure Human Resources are functioning well within the organisation. They make sure all HR resources are assigned to their full potential.

⮚ Personal Objectives

Personal objectives are the measures used to support each employee’s personal goals along with the organisational goals. For this, employees receive proper training and feedback on their performance, helping them identify the improvement areas and fix them.

Apart from these, some additional specific objectives of Human Resource Management are:

⮚ Providing and maintaining creative employees

⮚Ensuring employees have been provided with the proper training

⮚ Creating and maintaining a positive workflow environment so that employees can contribute to the organisation’s goals.

⮚ Maintaining legal and ethical policies in the organisation

⮚ Introducing the organisation’s policies, rules and regulations to the employees

What is HRIS (Human Resource Information System)?

A software application, HRIS stands for Human Resource Information System that manages and processes employee-related information and HR policies. Referred to as a basic interactive system of keeping employee records, HRIS includes procedures such as talent acquisition, recruitment and current employee data management. HRIS is based on two fundamental pillars for managing employees and policies, ensuring overall organisational success. These pillars are Organisational Structure and Employee Data Management.

Two Pillars of HRIS

  • Organisational Structure

In the case of organisational structure, HRIS comprises roles, functions and reporting hierarchies. The system provides responsibilities and a way for operational functionality and consistency. With the right HRIS, it’s possible to hire the right employees with good skills in the right place to achieve strategic goals.

  • Employee Data Management

Similar to CRM (Customer Relationship Management), HRIS provides a complete view of each employee’s details, such as name, address and hiring details. With the right information, you can easily connect with your employees, helping them develop the right career paths and take their job performance to the next level.

Careers in Human Resource Management (HRM)

There are various different careers in Human Resource Management. You are required to have at least a bachelor’s degree in Human Resources to apply for any position. Additionally, many certifications are available online that help you get the best position in the HRM field. 

HR professionals play a crucial role in all organisations for managing employee-employer relations and ensuring an organisation’s success. Thus, they should have some specific skills that are required across all organisations. They are:

  • Communication Skills

It is a crucial skill for HR professionals to require strong verbal and written communication skills to interact with different people and business partners.

  • Strategic Thinking

Another key skill for an HR professional is strategic thinking which allows them to inquire into situations and implement the correct solution.

  • Leadership Skills

HR leadership skills are important for the company’s growth. HR leaders can motivate employees to fulfil their potential. They work actively to reach strategic goals by providing advanced leadership techniques.

  • Organisational Skills

HR professionals are also required to gain a high level of organisational skills that will help them prioritise their tasks, making them complete in an organised way. These tasks include talent acquisition strategies, generating professional development programs, initiating onboarding processes, conducting performance reviews and producing departmental reports and evaluations.

  • Performance Management

 It is the process that maintains and improves job performance by providing continuous feedback and conducting training and counselling.

  • Command of HR Technology

HR professionals need to have a good command of HR technology, which includes candidate tracking systems, performance management tools and payroll solutions.

  • Training and Development Skills

This is one of the most important skills in Human Resources as it offers plenty of opportunities for employees to learn new skills and improve their talents which will benefit the company as well as employees. HR professionals provide training sessions associated with the company’s goals. 

Some of the training sessions conducted by HR are listed below:

⮚ Behavioural Training

⮚ Leadership Training

⮚ Competency Training

⮚ Effective Communication Management

⮚ Posh Training

The Bottom Line

The backbone of an organisation, Human Resource Management makes sure the organisation gets the best talent, keeps the employees satisfied and ensures organisational growth. Referring to the process of hiring, HRM aims to improve an organisation’s workforce by using strategic initiatives. Over and above, it manages the orientation programs to familiarise new employees with the organisation’s policies and goals. Overall, HR management ensures the smooth functioning of an organisation. 

The key objective of an HR professional is to build a relationship between the employee and the organisation. Moreover, the HR department ensures the organisation has a motivated and engaged workforce, creating an appealing environment. 

Aspiring to become a great HR Manager? Then, you must enhance your skills in Human Resources by taking up a highly-valued HRM course like the Executive Development Program in HR Analytics by XLRI Jamshedpur through Jaro Education. This program prepares HR professionals to understand descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics. Moreover, this course will help them use analytics tools to understand data and people management and discover suitable solutions to real-life people’s challenges.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. What are the basics of Human Resource Management?

Ans. Recruitment & selection, performance management, compensation & benefits, HR Information Systems (HRIS), HR data & analytics, successful planning and learning & development are considered the basics of Human Resource Management that every HR professional must know.

Q2. What does an HR professional do? 

Ans. With a variety of responsibilities, an HR professional manages the recruitment, hiring process and development of an organisation’s workforce, ensuring its compliance with employment laws. As they directly work with employees, HR professionals must have organisational skills to do multiple duties at the same time.

Q3. What is strategic Human Resource Management?

Ans. Strategic Human Resources Management (SHRM) is a process that helps the HR department manage the organisation’s goals and maximise the efficiency of the workforce.

Q4. What is the difference between Human Resource Management and Human Resources?

Ans.  Human Resources (HR) is the department or function that is responsible for managing employees within an organisation, while Human Resource Management (HRM) is a strategic approach that effectively helps manage the workforce of an organisation to accomplish its goals and objectives.

Q5. How to Become a Human Resource Manager?

Ans. To become a great Human Resource Manager, you must have a bachelor’s degree. You can also pursue a master’s degree from a reputed institute, like a Master of Business Administration (MBA). Apart from that, getting a certified course in Human Resources from an institute adds more skills to your resume and helps you advance your career to become a successful HR.

Q6. What is Talent Management?

Ans. Talent Management is a process that helps organisations fetch employees on board, keep them productive and support them to develop their skills over time. It is an approach to identifying the right talent in a systematic and structured way.

Q7. Why is Talent Management important in organisation growth?

Ans. Talent Management helps the Talent Acquisition (TA) team to create a pipeline for any projected critical position. For example, if an employee resigns, then the TA team can replace him with the developed skills, and the next employee can take over the charge without any extra cost of hiring.

Q8. What are the challenges an HR professional deals with?

Ans. HR professionals deal with many challenges, but the biggest ones that they may face are:

⮚ Recruitment

⮚ Retention

⮚ Motivation

⮚ Leadership Development

⮚ Corporate Culture

Q9. What is the role of job analysis in Human Resources Management (HRM)?

Ans. Job analysis is the process in HRM that helps gather information by analysing responsibilities, tasks and duties of the job required as well as aims to identify which type of person should be employed. This process helps HR professionals to create job descriptions for the required positions.

Q10. How can an HR Manager be effective in work?

Ans. The role of an HR Manager is to hire a candidate based on his/her skills, talents and experience. The qualities that make an HR Manager great, effective and successful are:

⮚ Effective communication skills

⮚ Problem-solving

⮚ Decision-making

⮚ Multitasker

⮚ Strong Ethics

⮚ Kindness and Understanding

⮚ Detail-oriented

Q11. What is the average salary of an HR professional in India?

Ans. As per AmbitionBox, for an entry-level HR professional with less than 3 years of experience, the average salary is Rs. 3.8 lakh annually, while with 4-9 years of experience, mid-level ones can earn an average salary of Rs. 5.8 lakh per annum. And, with 10-20 years of experience, an HR professional can expect up to Rs. 11.2 lakh per year.

Q12. Can a science student become an HR Manager?

Ans. Yes! If you have graduated in science and want to make your career in the HR field, then you can go for a master’s degree in HR or take an HR certification course to become a successful HR Manager.

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