The HR department is the backbone of any business operation. Without a helpful and motivated human resources team, it would be difficult to hire and train the right employees, to manage payroll and benefits, and to ensure compliance with labour and employment laws.
As your business expands, you need to be able to rely on your HR department to perform certain duties and responsibilities. Some of these tasks could be outsourced, while others may be streamlined with the latest HR software and technology.
Before you allocate resources to the HR department, you need to understand its functions on a day-to-day basis. Below are the six primary HR department responsibilities and duties within an organization:
1. Recruiting and hiring the right people
Recruitment is one of the major HR department responsibilities in any organization. After all, a business is nothing without its most valuable assets: employees. When it comes to finding and hiring the right people to join the team, recruiters of the HR department will write and publish job postings, select and screen applicants, interview them, and help managers make the final hiring decisions.
Recruiters are also the ones deciding whether a business should hire someone new or outsource some tasks, if a new position should be opened part-time or full-time, and which qualifications will be necessary. Additionally, it’s up to HR department to make sure that each new employee is a right fit for the culture of the company.
2. Managing payroll and benefits
The HR department has the responsibility to manage the business’ payroll, and the benefits provided to employees. Many businesses choose to outsource payroll and benefit management, but others will add these tasks to the list of responsibilities of their HR department.
The HR department is primarily responsible for selecting and handling the benefits offered to the employees. Members of the HR team will negotiate group coverage rates with different insurers. Their goal is to allow the business to offer more to its employees as it expands, but without necessarily paying more. HR specialists are constantly keeping an eye on the trends of the industry, which ensures their business is offering the most competitive compensations and benefits.
3. Providing training to employees
If an employee seems like a right fit for a job, but lacks a few skills and competences, it’s up to the HR department to provide them with the training they need to succeed. Whenever the role of an employee changes, or one of them wants to take their career in a new direction within the business, the HR department will be in charge of providing them with the training opportunities they require.
Training employees is an important investment, so the HR department needs to be able to justify the programs and resources they offer to new employees. The HR department can also be responsible for tuition reimbursement and assistance, to help employees who wish to pursue their education while they work.
4. Ensuring legal compliance
Labour and employment laws exist for a good reason, and businesses must comply to them. The HR department needs to be aware of all the laws in place for their industry. If there are any inadequacies, the company should make sure they have the right policies and guidelines to comply.
One of the HR department responsibilities is to protect employees from discrimination, unfair practices, and harassment. The HR department must ensure that employees can work in a safe and inclusive workplace. Employees who have an issue need to feel like their complaints will be taken seriously by their human resources department. When a business doesn’t comply with labour and employment laws, they could get into legal trouble.
5. Maintaining workplace safety
One of the responsibilities of the HR department is to support and improve workplace safety, and to offer the necessary safety training to employees. While office workers are not really at risk of getting injured, people who are working in a warehouse or on a construction site need to take workplace safety seriously.
In industries where serious or fatal injuries can occur, the HR team will work with safety specialists to ensure they are offering adequate health and life insurance coverage to their employees. The employees will get educated on how they can help prevent accidents in the first place.
6. Managing the communication between employer and employees
The human resources department should be in charge of managing the communication between the employer and their employees. Their tasks include resolving workplace conflicts, measuring job satisfaction, assessing employee performances, and more.
The HR department will also communicate the goals and the expectations of the company to employees. It is the HR department’s responsibility to keep employees updated on the status of the company.
Finally, the HR department is also in charge of managing communication that may impact the organization in a negative way. If some employees are starting rumours, the HR team will know how to properly deal with them.
