HR Head in Education: What Are the Key Roles and Responsibilities?

Hi, this is Mamta from KSHIPL. I would like to know what the roles and responsibilities of an HR Head in the education industry are.

Please find below the roles and responsibilities of an HR Head, which one of our CiteHR contributors provided before. This may help you.

Sometimes operational heads are appointed as HR heads due to the peculiarities of circumstances or organizational policies. Thus, they may not be fully aware of the finer details of HR functions. However, as they will be supported by a team of experts in the field, they should not encounter any issues in managing HR functions. My thoughts on the issue are as follows:

Traits/Skills:

- The HR Head should possess a great degree of common sense to anticipate events and consequences.
- They should have the ability to listen to their team as they may not be HR experts themselves.
- The HR Head should be able to analyze what they have heard and read to delve into the core of the issues.
- Good communication skills are essential for effective and clear communication.
- They should be able to lead their team effectively.

Roles and Responsibilities:

1. The HR Head should facilitate the formulation of HR policies on various issues after discussions with senior management and in collaboration with their team.
2. They should oversee the implementation of HR policies with the assistance of their team by monitoring it.
3. The HR Head should establish service conditions and supervise their implementation within the organization.
4. They should streamline the grievance redressal system and monitor it with the support of their team.
5. Ensuring statutory compliances with the help of the HR team is a crucial responsibility.
6. Monitoring disciplinary cases with the HR team's assistance is also part of the role.
7. Monitoring the industrial relations situation within the organization and assisting top management in collective bargaining, negotiations, and settlements are important duties.

These are a few aspects that I envision for an HR Head.

Regards,
Sai

Please clarify. When you say Education Industry, what exactly is the type of business? Are you selling educational materials like books, educational CDs, etc., or do you conduct some courses to educate your students to acquire new skills? Please explain in detail about your organization.

Regards

Dear Mamta, Your query, "What are the roles and responsibilities of an HR Head in the education industry?"

Let me clarify right at the beginning that the core function of HR is not domain-dependent. It remains the same by getting the fundamentals right: mastering people processes, delivering on recruiting and staffing, and transforming HR into a strategic partner. However, keeping pace with the ever-increasing competition, HR will have to learn a few aspects, such as:

- Managing demographics: managing the loss of capacity and knowledge, managing the aging workforce.
- Ensuring it builds a learning organization: choosing a learning strategy, boosting the number of on-the-job development programs, measuring the return on investment.
- Helping people manage work-life balance: determining what people need, building programs that afford flexible working hours, enhancing corporate social responsibility.
- Managing changes and cultural transformation: determining and shaping desired behaviors, ensuring top-management support.

Therefore, as you can see, it's quite different from what is assumed. Hence, I thought there was no point delving into the same beaten path. This response is an attempt to look into emerging trends, what's happening around us, and how things might shape up in the future.

Writing in the Workforce - Analysis, the authors John Boudreau, Ian Ziskin, and Carrie Gibson in their essay, "What Is the Future of HR?" enlighten us in this fashion. Robert Browning's poem "Andrea del Sarto" describes the 16th-century painter's love for his wife but laments that del Sarto is limited by the mundane duties of earning money and supporting her, while his more famous (and unmarried) contemporaries Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and Raphael live for their work with greater passion and spirit. Despite being published in 1855, the Victorian Age poet's work is relevant to the challenges facing human resources leaders today. The demands of day-to-day HR may be crowding out the focus, passion, and spirit that are necessary if practitioners are to take a leading role in helping organizations capitalize on opportunities offered by emerging trends in technology. This could hinder an organization’s quest to maximize productivity and be competitive.

It is essential for HR leaders to accurately anticipate the future and how such changes may affect their accountability. Without the capacity to recognize and accurately plan for changes in the business landscape, coping strategies cannot be proactive — they can only be reactive — and at a much higher cost. Given the accelerated changes occurring in today’s turbulent economy, and narrowing it down to the workplace, Line Managers, Operational Executives, and Human Resource (HR) practitioners, most especially, are called to move away from their traditional operational administrative functions and to play a more strategic role in strengthening organizational capabilities. On the other side, Line Managers are becoming quite equipped with man-management so much so that they are becoming the primary source for their team members as a contact point for all challenges faced, be it technical or non-technical, and HR being reduced to just receiving inputs for ensuring obstacles are removed or necessary changes are made. The role, therefore, is reduced more to maintainers rather than makers.

The challenges, therefore, for HR professionals are plenty, from globalization to increased competition, to the changing age and competency profile of the current workforce. As an enabler for the knowledge economy, information technology can also be considered a driving force. The increasing recognition of "human capital" as an asset with a significant impact on sustained competitive advantage is driving the transformation of many companies' HR functions.

Any HR leader desiring to make a strategic contribution must look to the future with more foresight and accuracy than ever before. This is not an easy task.

The HR Function of the Future: New Roles and a Changing Focus

Dave Ulrich has outlined five key roles HR has to play in order to help organizations meet their strategic objectives:

• Strategic business partner
• Change agent
• Employee champion
• Manager of personnel acquisition and development
• Manager of processing, compliance, and reporting

The mantra is to live global, act local. Understanding and managing people by investing in the next generation. Human Resource professionals must learn to master and play new roles - discern, create, and adapt culture to business conditions. Rethink organizations as capabilities, not structures, by creating mutually rewarding collaborative practices.

Do work that is meaningful, that encourages the use of the mind and brain. Have a feeling of ability and competence and also feel that they are making a difference. Having choices and discretion over how work is carried out. Take decisive and proactive action when dealing with issues.

Conclusion

The world is changing in ways that put HR in the spotlight. Without question, change is constant. HR can't be what it used to be, and people who intend to make it "big" in the HR of the future should broaden their perspectives, challenge the conventional wisdom regarding HRM, and peek into the future.

Regards,

The Role of an HR Head in the Educational Industry

The HR Head position in the educational industry is quite challenging. The fundamental responsibilities and duties of an HR Head remain consistent with those shared by our HR professional colleagues.

However, the educational industry is highly competitive in the emerging market of human knowledge development services. The quality of their products depends entirely on human resources (teachers) rather than machinery. The HR policy of active participation of teachers in their roles will have an immense impact on the results.

An HR Head should have full knowledge of the Educational Policy of both the State Government and the Central Government. The policy of the school authority and management is also very important.

Hiring/Recruitment

Not all highly qualified candidates with a top educational background are perfect for becoming teachers. Related psychometric analysis and collaboration with the faculty head or senior reliable teachers will be required.

Induction and Training

We cannot say that all trained teachers are professional teachers. They need a good amount of time to adapt to a new institute's environment and different student attitudes.

Appraisal

Designing an appraisal and feedback technique from the teachers themselves and students about the teacher is essential.

There are many methods to be applied when it comes to real practical management in education. The art of management is to convert imagination into real action and visible results. Education will bring us a better future, I wish you.

Warmest Regards,

Regards

Attached is the R&R for the HR Manager.