Just about every organisation has a Human Resources Department and broadly speaking they all carry out a similar function. Human Resources carry out a wide variety of roles including:
Recruitment
HR takes responsibility for graduate recruitment – from advertising roles, reviewing applications, organising interviews and assessments days, interviewing and recruiting. They will also aid the business with recruitment of staff - this may include placing adverts, selecting recruitment agencies, implementing psychometric tests and conducting initial or final interviews.
Training
HR Liaise with business heads to understand staff requirements for training and development. They may run internal basic courses themselves as well as organising other training courses with outside firms. They will also organise coaching sessions for senior management.
Performance Management
They are responsible for developing and implementing performance appraisal systems – and ensuring they are used across the organisation.
Salary & Benefits
They administer the quarterly or annual salary rises and bonus payments. They will liaise and manage senior management in this process and ensure evenhandedness across the organisation. They also develop and manage the employee benefits. These may change over time and will require contracts negotiated and set up with third party agents (e.g. medical insurance etc). If there is a car scheme, they will also manage this. They will research and bench mark market rates for salaries and develop and recommend job classification, pay and benefits.
Employee Relations
HR manage staff consultation and grievance issues. They are often the first point of contact for employees. They also provide a confidential resource for staff problems or issues. Where appropriate they will mange the redundancy programme and ensure that due process and proper consultation is carried out. They will work with managers to promote, reassign or if necessary terminate employees and oversee disciplinary procedures and Tribunals.
Policy Recommendation
HR will recommend policies on labour relations. This could include anything from dress code, work standards and rules, consistent & fair treatment of employees (eg bereavement time, jury service paternity etc), non-discriminatory hiring and promotion, approach to harassment, approach to travel expenses etc
Administration
HR are responsible for a number of administrative tasks such as paying employees, administering benefits, keeping track of sickness and holiday and the company pension scheme.
