When working for big companies or even small start-up businesses, we always hear things like send your paperwork to the HR manager or ask your HR manager if you can do this type of stuff. But people really don’t understand the real purpose of human resource management, aka HRM, in a company. In fact, they don’t even know that without HR, a company can’t last much in the field of corporations and businesses. In today’s world, we need someone or a whole department to advocate for diversity and inclusion in a work setting. And that’s precisely what HRM does, they improve the overall employee performance in a company, choose the right people for a particular job position, and encourage employees and the company to better communicate their messages and achieve their goals.
Forget Everything The Office Taught You About HR. Here Are 10 Things You Didn’t Know HR Management Can Do For You:
1. Create a safe and harmonious work environment
In a work environment, nothing matters most to feel safe in your office and among your peers. After all, if employees feel uncomfortable and discouraged, they jeopardize their job positions and the overall mission of the company. Because we can’t fight human nature, disputes and disagreements circle around co-workers and employees, waiting for the right moment to participate as main characters in the show, and at that moment, HR management arrives to save the day, and basically, the whole company too.
I talked to my sister, Deborah Ghelman, who majored in HR at Florida International University. Besides working as an HR recruiter and account manager, she currently goes to Nova Southeastern University pursuing an MBA with a specialization in HR (you see, she really loves her career). So, I asked her about the importance of HR in a company.
“A high-performer HR department ensures that the organizational culture matches with employees’ values and goals,” Ghelman said. “It also offers opportunities of growth and development for the employee’s professional career development along with a compensation package that rewards employee’s performance.”
People would work more effectively, creatively and collaboratively when they feel satisfied at work. For this reason, HR managers constantly need to check on their employees to ensure they live a happy lifestyle, both at work and at home. The importance of creating a harmonious work environment matters because it pushes employees to better achieve their goals and helps smooth the interaction with peers, which ultimately leads to a broader scope of opportunities for them and professional growth.
2. Motivate employees
HR Management’s most gratifying task deals with creating a culture of positivism and good energy among co-workers and the overall company. When employees find motivation in what they do and receive encouragement from their peers and supervisors, they can gain something to look up to and become more successful. Instead of feeling so tiny in an ocean full of executives and professionals with way too much experience than them, the HR department shows employees their care, which ultimately motivates them too; thus, HR Management helps find employees their places in a company.
Moreover, since the pandemic turned us into computer rats who wear fancy blouses but pajama bottoms to look decent in Zoom meetings, employees more than never need to find purpose and meaning in their jobs. According to Talent Magazine, most people consider their daily work as the main way they access a sense of purpose, as opposed to outside working hours. And this, once again, pushes employees to work harder and achieve gratifying goals at a personal level and for the whole company as well.
3. Give feedback to employees about their performance, growth and skill development
In big corporations with hundreds of employees, HR Management requires an even more meaningful presence. To achieve successful results, and to improve and advance in their career field, employees must receive feedback, either from their peers, supervisors, or the HR Management department. Feedback tells employees both in the office and in the outside world what they did right and what they didn’t. Learning from mistakes allows them to work on their weakness to develop a new toolkit while valuing their strengths to let them stand out from their peers with unique characteristics that define them.
“On a daily basis, the team leader meets with its recruiting team and discusses the previous workday to review the challenges encountered during the day, and suggests advice on best practices to achieve the goals of the company,” Ghelman said. “Personally, feedback has helped me learn about recruiting best practices, understanding each industry, its competitiveness and what we can do to be on the top among other recruiting companies.”
A workplace needs effective ways of communication among employees and staff to improve and succeed. Positive feedback motivates employees, allows them to learn more about themselves and helps them build relationships with each other. Negative observations might bring employees’ energy levels down at the beginning, but it can help them succeed in the long run. It not only highlights some areas where they need to improve but also increases their self-awareness for future responsibilities within the company.
4. Hire, train and retain the best people for the right position
Most of the people think that the only thing HR Management deals with recruiting, hiring and firing employees. But not really. Yes, it lists top on the things a human resource manager does because if you don’t hire the right people, your business sinks (literally and metaphorically at the same time). So, to avoid this, HR Management chooses people who will push up the company by doing an extensive evaluation. After rounds and rounds of interviews and background checks, they decide whether the candidate fills the job description. But the job does not end there. HR Management also thrives to retain employees by hearing them out and advocating to fulfill their needs within the company.
5. Implement reward systems
Compensation and benefits motivate employees. HR Management keeps track on payroll and any extra compensation a particular employee might receive for achieving an extra step in the company, maybe because they recruited a high number of prospective employees, or they stood out from their peers during a particular week or month.
Also, when employees receive benefits, they feel more welcomed, involved and kind of taken care of by the company, which helps them feel at home in their work environment. Ghelman said that, “…having a compensation package that is attractive to employees is a strategy to retain high valuable employees.”
6. Build and maintain the company’s culture and message
HR managers work toward maintaining the brand, image and message of the company, starting from the moment they hire an employee who can perfectly fits what the company looks for. HR Management stimulates and retains employees by giving them feedback to develop further skills that can push the business to achieve successful results.
Plus, HR Management also thrives to build a harmonious culture in the office by allowing employees equally represent themselves within the company. Working toward the company’s culture helps employees creating connections among their peers. This benefit can make them absorb different ideas by leaving their comfort zones, but they also become better in team works, which increase the company’s productivity levels.
7. Involve employees into decision making processes
Employees might contribute a great input for the organization and outcome of a whole company. When HR Management incites employees to give ideas, find solutions or help take an important decision, employees might feel motivated by the company and empowers them to work harder and achieve even more successful results.
Moreover, when employees get involved in decision making process, an opportunity of growth opens for them both at personal and professional level. They get to know other areas of the company that might benefit their position, or give them a different perspective of how things run in the company. Finally, when employees participate in decision making processes within a company, the communication channel among them and their supervisors become a space of comfort, where ideas easily flow and create an environment of positive attitude and higher company moral reigns.
8. Solve social conflicts
Today, more than ever, companies and businesses advocate for global issues like women empowerment, gender equality, climate change and politics. Regardless the number of employees, when a company support a societal issue or not, the whole staff hold accountabilities as well. Moreover, companies play leadership roles when defending these types of issues, and what they say might influence individuals too.
Take in mind some companies like Condé Nast, Warner Bros., Starbucks, DoorDash, Chobani and Nike, who didn’t support the ban of Roe v. Wade, and in contrast they’ll cover travel expenses for abortions. Studies show that the way in which an organization responds to national diversity-related events that make mass media headlines can affect the way employees feel. Situations like these might create a space of safety and security within the company, but it can also trigger feelings of threats toward employees and cultivate a lack of trust.
9. Keep track of the company’s data and analytics
HR Management focuses on keeping HR metrics that help delivering efficient services to employees and determining HR’s abilities to meet the needs of the workforce. Within a company, HR keeps track of the number of employees and data, such as their race, gender, disability and veteran status, which the government required at the moment of applying to a job.
HR Management also help a company demonstrate equal employment opportunity, diversity and inclusion within the workplace. HR Management keeps track of employee’s salaries, which matters for each worker and the company to justify the income and expenses to the government. Other type of data tracked by HR Management includes the training, hiring and retaining of employees for a company or organization
10. Happy and Satisfied Employees = Organizational Success and Development
Employees pave the way toward the creation and maintenance of a successful company, business or organization. Without them, it makes impossible to keep a company floating in the corporation world. Employee’s must meet their needs within the workspace. If they don’t speak out for themselves and don’t feel welcomed, they either quit or stop contributing to improve the company’s mission and achieving its goals.
We can see it as kind of a vicious cycle. If HR Management doesn’t help employees feel at home in a work setting, they won’t feel sufficient enough to help the company thrive among its competitors. But if HR Management follows the nine aspects mentioned in this article, they can provide a space and opportunity for each employee to feel happy, welcomed and empowered, which can translate into organizational development and success.
