Distance MBA: What Human Resource (HR) Management really is?

Every organization has three different constituents which makes it successful. They are People, Process and Technology. Among the three, People is one of the very important element, sometimes referred as Human Capital. Prior to 1970, managing people related issues was called Personnel Management. With changing times and business landscape it ended up expanding to more areas of people management like skills, knowledge, culture etc. to become today’s Human Resource (HR) Management.

Aspiring to become HR professionals with distance MBA? It would be nice if you are aware of what this field and role of HR is. So let us take a look at primary functions of Human Resource Management in an organization.

• Recruiting and staffing
• Compensation and Employee benefits
• Learning and Development (L&D)
• Performance Appraisal
• Employee Motivation
• Statutory Compliance

Recruiting and staffing

It is about selection of human resources. Recruitment department understands talent requirements by discussing with business leaders and prepares a hiring plan.

Job specifications or descriptions are created and number of job openings are posted on various job portals as well as circulated to the internal staff. Resumes are then collected, screened and candidates are shortlisted. These candidates undergo different rounds of selection tests and interviews like technical, functional, HR round and so on.

Qualified candidates get selected and are send offer letters. When the candidates join the organization, all the paper work is coordinated and facilitated by HR. New hires go through the onboarding process with HR.

Compensation and Employee benefits

Compensation or salary is the basic motivational factor for an employee. HR is entrusted with the responsibility of designing a compensation structure for every job role in the organization. Here HR has to be fair and competitive and has to strike balance between cost and benefits. Because lower pay would drive away good talent and higher pay would affect company’s balance sheet.

Employee benefits are the other form of compensation. Benefits can be monetary (bonuses, paid vacations) or non-monetary (like flexible working hours, membership of club/gym, work from home, etc). Some benefits are compulsory due to statutory requirements and others are at the discretion of the employer.

The employee benefits are designed by the HR with the help of senior management. The objective behind designing employee benefit schemes is to motivate and increase engagement with employees.

Learning and Development (L&D)

Learning and Development (L&D) is one of the core functions of HR. The market and business landscape keeps on changing, so are the job skills. It is observed that you will seldom find a new hire which is perfect 100% match for your job specification.

Recruitment process tries its best to hire the most suitable candidates. However, there would be still some skill-gaps and those must be filled up by the training programs. The whole objective of L&D is to assure that employees have requisite skills to perform the job at hand efficiently.

HR typically runs different training and development programs for employee groups. For fresher, there is an induction program/entry level training program (ELTP) which covers foundations skills needed for entry-level roles. For experienced employees, the training programs are designed when they undergo a role change or to cater to special needs of new projects. Large organizations often conduct leadership programs to develop senior management within the organization. HR plays a key role in designing, executing and monitoring such development programs.

Performance Appraisal

Performance appraisal is a function of monitoring employee performance. HR creates what is called as Key performance Areas(KPA) for each designations in the organization. Employees are assessed on the basis of their achievement w.r.t. the KPAs.

Actual performance appraisal is carried out by the direct supervisors and managers. However, HR is responsible for administration the entire performance appraisal process across the organization.

Establishment of KPAs and measuring them establishes performance standards across the organization. This helps in identifying the skill-gaps and create development plans for improving the skills of the employees.
Employee Motivation

Happy and motivated employees is a competitive advantage. HR is entrusted with a key role of attracting, engaging and retaining employees.

There are many aspects of employee motivation like good working conditions, attractive pay scale and other benefits, friendly policies, employer brand, opportunity for career development, recognition of efforts, healthy relationships and team culture. HR creates policies and design programs considering the above aspects.

In today’s situation, employees are demanding more personal attention. Due to changing lifestyle, there is increased stress on employees. Organizations are taking initiatives to work on physical and mental health of employees. HR leads all such initiatives.

Statutory Compliance

There are statutory requirements every organizations has to fulfill in terms of labor laws, company laws etc. HR manages all the statutory requirements and compliance related to labor law, work place, wages, safety, sexual harassment etc.

Why distance MBA student need to know all this?

If you are pursuing distance MBA in Human Resource (HR) Management, it is important for you to know the core functions of HR management. There are specialized roles in areas of HR. If you start learning more about your dream job, it will be easier for you to decide what career path you can choose to land into your dream job.