Exploring the Importance of HR Departments and Specialized HR Functions in Organizations

Dear Seniors,

Greetings for the day,

Please give me a suitable reply as to why any company or organization must have a Human Resource Department, as well as why they should recruit HR professionals, considering that HR Department activities can be handled by any Engineer.

Regards,
Daniel

I think it is a constructive subjective question. Every organization is a combination of people and systems working harmoniously to achieve its overall objectives. When achieving the organization's overall objectives becomes complex due to the presence of multiple systems and a multitude of people, departmentalization comes into play.

Departmentalization in Organizations

Departmentalization is the harmonious division of labor involving the application of specialized skills or knowledge focused on a particular aspect or activity among many.

Basic Functions of Human Resource Management

The basic functions of Human Resource Management are: (1) recruitment, (2) safety, (3) employee relations, (4) compensation and benefits, (5) compliance, and (6) training and development. Not only an engineer, but anyone with good people skills or interpersonal skills can effectively interact with the group they belong to. However, this does not mean they would be equally effective in all HR functions. It depends on the size of the organization and the scale of its operations.

Regards,
[username]

In short, specialization is an objective that needs to be achieved for the best results. Some HR functions are specialized, requiring subject-specific knowledge such as legal compliance, etc. Engineers should focus on production, design, etc., leading to the need to hire HR professionals. It is not that an engineer or accountant cannot do the HR job well, but in my opinion, an engineer or accountant should focus on their specialty first.

HR is not merely a clerical or recruitment job. It's as simple as having marketing, finance, technical, and production departments. Man, Machine, Material, and Money are the 4M of any product or service company/industry.

Material is handled by the purchase and stores department, money is handled by the finance department, machine is handled by the production department, and man is handled by the HR department. Remember, handling humans is riskier than handling any other resources.

The Importance of a Human Resource Department

Every organization requires a set of functional as well as behavioral competencies to achieve its business goals. For some organizations, especially startups, the need for functional competencies might far outweigh the behavioral ones at that point in their growth cycle. As a result, they might decide to do away with the HR Department entirely, as most of the strategic and tactical work is done by the founding members themselves. Any transactional work, such as payroll administration or contractual hiring, can easily be handled by line managers or outsourced.

However, as organizations grow in size and scale of operations, it becomes logical to have a dedicated department to ensure that employees display the essential behaviors desired by the organization. For example, in a retail chain, this could mean customer responsiveness, while in a consulting firm, it might mean problem-solving intent. In other words, the HR department ensures that individual capabilities are utilized effectively to meet current and future business needs.

Attaining cohesiveness of culture and capability building in the organization are two important long-term objectives that may be compromised if all HR work is handled by line managers due to an increased focus on short-term results.

Besides this, there are some highly specialized HR functions, such as employment law and compensation management, for which a dedicated HR professional is necessary.

Hope the above reasons might be of some help.

Regards

The Importance of HR in Organizations

It's a good question, Mr. Daniel. If you are an HR professional, you need to introspect and evaluate the value you bring to the organization to justify the existence of the HR function.

If you are not an HR professional, whether to have an HR function separately or not depends on the size of the organization, particularly in terms of the number of people engaged. People management is a vast subject and a multifaceted function; recruitment is just a small portion of it. We have seen engineers who have taken an interest in this field and have become HR professionals and consultants. The effectiveness and success of the 3 M's very much depend on the vital resource: MEN. They can make or break the organization.

Regards, bgramesh

The Importance of Having an HR Function

The question of having an HR function is related to the size of the organization and the extent of the occupancy of other disciplines present in the organization. Moreover, there are some highly specialized functions like designing jobs, designing competencies, evaluating jobs, handling income tax-related issues, ensuring labor law compliance, designing compensation packages for maximum employee effectiveness, and understanding the psychology and sociology of work settings. Additionally, tasks include managing job content and emoluments, hiring the best fit for the work and values of the organization, and designing retention strategies for talent.

There are numerous other tasks that an HR professional has to deal with, and most importantly, results need to be delivered in a squeezed timeframe because it is expensive for an organization to "wait."

I think this suffices the need for having an HR function to be handled by a specialized HR professional.

Regards

The Role of HR Beyond Recruitment

HR is not only about conducting interviews and appointing new employees in a company, as generally assumed. This is just a small part of the broader responsibilities and functionalities associated with this role. In any company or sector, HR serves as the key link between management and employees. All decisions related to employees are connected to this profile. A strong and effective HR department is a crucial factor in the progress and success of any industry. Specialization is required at certain levels depending on the industry, but the basic requirements remain consistent. Generally, HR has the same job responsibilities across the globe, regardless of the industry or sector. It is not limited to any one company. All HR professionals are expected to perform certain duties that fall under their Key Result Areas (KRA). Their job responsibilities include:

Key Responsibilities of HR Professionals

a) Recruitment: The success of recruiters and employment specialists is generally measured by the number of positions they fill and the time it takes to fill those positions.

b) Compensation and Benefits: This is the most important and responsible KRA. HR functions include setting compensation structures and evaluating competitive pay practices.

c) Employee Relations: The main reason for an HR department in any organization is to maintain a healthy relationship between employees and management. It is the duty of HR to ensure communication within both.

d) Safety: Workplace safety is an important factor. Employers have an obligation to provide a safe working environment for employees. One of the main functions of HR is to support workplace safety.

e) Compliance: Compliance with labor and employment laws applicable to the organization is a critical HR function. Noncompliance can result in workplace complaints based on unfair employment practices, unsafe working conditions, and general dissatisfaction with working conditions that can affect productivity and ultimately, profitability.

f) Training and Development: Employers must provide employees with the tools necessary for their success, which, in many cases, means giving new employees extensive orientation training to help them transition into a new organizational culture. An HR professional understands and assesses the need for employee training for the growth of employees and the company.

Companies now have specialized personnel for each of these duties, based on the number of employees and the size of the organization.

Regards

Dear HR professionals,

Greetings for the day,

In response to the question, "Why do we need an HR department?" I am still not convinced by the answers received, as they seem to be the same old-fashioned responses from the 1970s and 1980s. I am curious about the current trends in HR practices. This question was posed to me during an interview, and I found myself providing the same conventional answer. However, the interviewer expressed dissatisfaction and seemed to expect a fresh perspective.

I kindly request senior and professional HR individuals to share their insights on this matter in a sophisticated manner.

Regards,
Daniel

Dear Daniel,

The answers given by the seniors and others are a mix of responses from 1970 till date (which are also not incorrect). You could have asked the interviewer after the interview, "What out-of-the-box answer was he expecting?" This would have helped you in preparing for your future interviews in other companies.

Regards,
Shyam

The HR department must be as old as the history of employment. Duties might have changed over time, but the responsibilities and core purpose of the HR department remain the same. Over time, the use of technologies and tools has raised the bar for employee engagement and evaluation.

If any engineer could handle an HR profile, why do companies look for HR as a specialized role? Will an engineer be able to fulfill compliance or applicable laws under various acts and notifications? Can they ensure the safety of employees, analyze employee training needs, appraise employee performance, define a growth chart for employees, solve employee grievances related to salaries or inter-employee conflict, or organize the recruitment process? If the answers to all these questions are YES, then they are actually an HR person—what are they doing in Engineering?

If your interviewer wanted you to think outside the box, then after defining the responsibilities of an HR, you should have asked for more specifics on a particular job or task before giving your reply.

If you interview a driver, what do you think they should be capable of doing other than driving and maintaining their vehicle? Out-of-the-box thinking would be to see if they can handle a medical emergency like CPR or artificial respiration in case of a vehicle collision.

Either the interviewer was naive or had no idea what they were expecting as an answer.

Regards, Daniel

Evaluation of the HR Function

The evaluation of the HR function has been phenomenal, evolving from just a staffing function to a business partner. People are the most important, dynamic, and complicated resources in a business. In my opinion, the HR function could be split into two: Strategic HR and Operational HR.

Strategic HR

The Strategic HR function involves influencing and partnering in business decisions, strategizing business activities from the start to establishment, including the vision, mission, and core values of the organization that it wants to subscribe to, as well as policy formulation.

Operational HR

The Operational HR function involves implementing the strategic HR initiatives, which is the aspect of HR that is normally understood by all of us.

Therefore, it is imperative for any business to succeed to have the HR function at its appropriate level in the organization.

Regards,
Rameshbg