The Importance of the Human Resource Function

The Importance of the Human Resource Function

Human resource is the backbone of any business. It deals with the most important resource in the business – people. For any business to achieve its objectives they must plan their resources and one of their key resources is people. They need to get the right people and develop them well in order to meet the organization’s aims successfully.

As an organisation grows and expands, the human resource department

will know that the organisation needs to recruit more staff and they

plan carefully. Recruiting staff in an organisation is very expensive

and costly, so the human resource function helps the organisation to

get recruitment right.

The main elements of Human resource are:

* Planning

* Recruitment & Selection

* Training & Development

* Performance Measurement.

PLANNING

Planning is a process of determining the goals and objectives of a

business for a future period of time, developing the strategies

guiding the firm’s operations and utilizing resources towards

achieving the set goals and objectives.

A human resource manager needs to plan ahead and know what is going on

in and outside the company (labour market). He needs to be aware of

the past, present and future trends of employment in a particular area

of specialisation.

He needs to know if there are available skills needed or if there are

few people with the type of skill needed by the company. He also needs

to be aware for competition for employees’ i.e. if the company’s

employees are increasing the demand for labour or whether labour is

available due to redundancies.

The HR planning is all about getting the right people and developing

them to meet the company’s objectives.

RECRUITMENT & SELECTION

The HR manager needs to know when, why and how to recruit staff.

Businesses recruit staff so as to expand the business objectives and

change job roles within the business due to new skills and new

technology.

New staffs are also recruited because the company needs to fill

vacancies due to dismissal, death or resignation of a member of staff,

or to fill vacancies due to internal promotion of a member of staff.

A business has to get recruitment right because it