Human resources refer to the set of people working in organizations and department responsible for managing these people through certain methods and strategies that work to raise the performance of employees, solve work problems, and achieve the organization’s desired goals.
Human Resources: Functions and Goals of HR and Scope of HRM
Human Resources (HR)
Human resources are a set of processes such as planning, organizing, directing and controlling all aspects related to individuals, in order to preserve, develop, educate, and compensate them without the need for any specialized management.
Human resources are defined as being part of facility management and are concerned with managing and training employees as one of the most important business assets.
Human resources are used to describe both the people who work in an organization and the department responsible for managing all matters related to employees.
The human resources focus on the tasks of the employees through the division of the company according to a set of activities that include training, recruiting new employees, mentoring people, and providing benefits for employees.
Human resources are the department that takes care of the people working in the company, so human resources are keen to follow the records of their appointment and the payment of their financial dues.
Human Resource Management (HRM)
Human resource management is the beating heart in the activities of the organization and the management of its available resources.
The field of human resources management has gained distinct importance due to the vital role it plays.
There is no doubt that trying to find a specific definition or concept of human resources management is difficult and that is due to the continuous development that this department is going through.
HRM is of great importance as it represents the management of the most important and most valuable assets of the organization, whether at the level of the organization or at the national level.
The primary goal of human resources management in all organizations is to provide the organization with effective human resources, and to develop people in a development that meets their desires and needs, and thus the organization can provide its commodity or service production with high efficiency.
Human Resource Development (HRD)
Human resource development (HRD) is the integrated use of training, performance management and career development efforts to improve individual, group and organizational skills, knowledge, and abilities.
HRD contributes to the development of the personal functional skills of the employees, or the organizational skills of the company.
The basic goals of HRD are to increase the process of knowledge, skills and abilities of the workforce capable of working in all fields, which are chosen in light of the various tests conducted in order to raise their level of productive efficiency to the maximum possible extent.
HRD is also concerned with supporting the knowledge and career potential of human resources and it seeks to support the prosperity of human capital through the development of the company in general, and then the development of everyone in it.
Over the past two decades, human resource development has become one of the fastest developing areas of administrative development. Many consulting organizations have become mainly specialized in this field.
Major organizations have also established specialized departments for developing human resources and training their employees on various professional curricula and aspects in this field.
What Does HR Actually Do?
Human Resources (HR): Functions and Responsibilities
Human resources in various institutions and companies apply a set of functions, namely:
Organizational Structures and Design: The organizational structure determines how to translate the organization’s strategy and scope into different activities for different units to undertake, and how these units are related and shaped to achieve a common goal.
Organization designs are broader than organizational structure. They are typically deeper in scope and provide more detail than structures.
Organization design defines how teams are set-up and led in an organization and it comprises a perspective on processes, on practice, and on performativity within the organization.
This is through knowing and describing the employment situation in the organization on the one hand, and on the other hand determining the importance of each job separately, and thus determining the appropriate wage for this job.
Training and development: This is the provision of human resources and the possibility of achieving development through various organizations, which contributes to identifying the special needs in training within the firm.
Human resources are also concerned with establishing and planning employee training programs. This leads to the provision of programs appropriate to the special needs of the firm.
Recruitment and selection: Employment is the role of human resources in achieving employment goals in enterprises.
The human resources department is keen to provide information about candidates about a job, and then decisions related to their employment are made in order to fill the available job vacancies in the firm.
Human resources are also interested in attracting job seekers by relying on a range of means, such as the Internet, and job fairs. After selecting the employees, human resources conduct job interviews with them in order to evaluate them before hiring them.
Performance appraisal and employee motivation: Performance appraisal is a process in which an employee’s performance, contributions, and skills are evaluated according to his job requirements.
HR departments measure the extent of employee development or decline in performance, find out the causes of defects, address them, and work to motivate employees by providing benefits to them.
Industrial relations and workplace relations: Strengthening employee relations is the role of human resources within the special labor policies and laws for employees.
The Human Resources Department seeks to enhance the companies’ compliance with laws and regulations regarding employment. This contributes to maintaining an equal distribution of opportunities among employees in a fair manner.
Human resources are also concerned with following up the relations between employees so that many tasks are carried out, such as resolving existing disputes, and ensuring that all employees obtain their rights.
Employee assistance program: Providing assistance to employees is the responsibility of Human Resources to oversee the implementation of employee assistance programs. These programs contribute to providing assistance to employees to achieve a balance between their normal and professional lives.
Human resources employees also seek to implement savings programs and provide retirement wages for employees.
Effective employee management: Achieving effective personnel management is the primary task of the HR manager.
As it seeks to achieve appropriate management for all employees within the firm; So that it is easier for him to know the nature of their work, and to guide them in the correct way in case they need any help in their tasks.
Human resource planning (HRP)
Human resource planning is the process that contributes to ensuring that the right number of employees is provided in the right place, and at the time when they are needed.
Human resource planning also includes analyzing the nature of available resources, developing expectations for future needs, and ensuring an appropriate investment of human resources, while ensuring a balance between the required needs and the supply of human resources.
The human resource planning process depends on the use of two types of data:
1. External data:
External data are data that are not related to the company but are specialized in the surrounding environment, and the most important of these data:
General economic conditions: Economic conditions refer to the state of macroeconomic variables and trends in a country at a point in time. This is the nature of the impact of inflation and deflation on human resource planning.
It is natural for the firm to increase production during the expansion period. This leads to the need to hire new employees, but in the event of a downturn, companies will reduce staff size, which in turn reduces costs.
Technological development: Technological advances have a significant impact on the quality and size of personnel in establishments. As technology resulted in reducing the number of employees, because of the reliance on machines to carry out jobs instead of them.
It also contributed to determining the nature of the functional specializations required, especially after most of them relied on the use of computers.
Business Competition: Competition between companies is one of the matters affecting employment policies in similar companies together in the career field, as the employment policy in the company.
(A) may directly or indirectly affect the employment policy of the company.
(B) may lead to the possibility of a transition between the employees of the two companies.
2. Internal data:
Internal data are data that are concerned with the nature of the special internal influences in the company, the most important of which are:
Organizational Planning: Organizational business planning is the role of human resources in following up the goals and plans of the company during its working period.
If the company seeks to expand its commercial or service operations or its field of work in general, then this thing is concerned with the need to increase the size of employees. And vice versa if the company is suffering from a contraction in the work environment.
Development of organizational structure: Developing an organizational structure is the concern of human resources with the nature of added or current activities. This contributes to studying the changes in the quality, the number of jobs that exist within the company, and the nature of the need to hire new employees to work in the new departments.
Internal control systems: The internal control systems include a set of policies, rules, and procedures that the organization implements to provide direction, increase efficiency and enhance adherence to the policies.
The organizational system within the company is the nature of the internal control system applied in the work environment and depends on the choice between centralization and decentralization, specialization and non-specialization in various jobs.
HR Goals and Objectives
5 Major Goals of Human Resources
Human resources seek to achieve goals that contribute to the development of the work environment, including:
Basic goals: Continuity in providing human resources efficiently and quantitatively in order to enable the institution to achieve its goals, community goals, and employees’ goals effectively and efficiently.
Organizational goals: The Human Resources Department performs its full function and is interconnected with the rest of the various departments, and provides guidance and advice on everything related to personnel affairs.
Career goals: Ensuring the continuity in the flow of manpower to the organization through selection, appointment and recruitment. And maintaining continuity in the employees’ desire to work by providing a complete system of compensation, and ensuring the benefit from human efforts through its development and training.
Humanitarian goals: Providing opportunities for the advancement of individuals in the field of their work by preparing them to increase their income and providing them with stimulating work conditions. And providing objective policies that are used for the purpose of human energies and protecting them from dangers.
Social goals: Raising living standards, assisting individuals in choosing suitable jobs for them, and maintaining the workforce in society.
10 Objectives of Human Resource Management
- Implementing HR planning; This contributes to employee development in conjunction with a new approach to work design.
- Defining an organizational structure that drives productivity.
- Ensuring availability of resources, easy access to data, on-time payroll, ensuring compliances, etc.
- Dedicating time to finding the right staff and developing their skills base.
- Enhancing organizational and individual performance; By taking care to develop employee competencies.
- Providing compensation and incentives for competent employees; by relying on the role of performance appraisal.
- Developing effective coordination and communication within the organization.
- Encouraging and supporting creativity and innovation in the workplace. This contributes to enhancing competitiveness.
- Embracing wider societal and ethical developments.
- Integrating technological means with the work environment to contribute to the development of training, employment and communication with all employees.
Scope of Human Resource Management
The scope of Human Resource Management is very vast and wide.
The scope of HRM consists of the acquisition, manpower planning, recruitment, selection, placement, training and development, promotion, transfer, layoff and retrenchment, remuneration, incentives, productivity, maintenance/retention, and control of human resources in the organization.
Human resources are the main resource for the organization, and the easiest and most difficult to manage at the same time!
The goals of HRM extend directly from assessing the workforce needs of management and retaining employees.
For this reason, the Human Resources Department is responsible for developing and implementing effective policies, procedures and programs. It is about developing and managing knowledge, skills, creativity, aptitude and talent, and using them optimally.
We can say that HRM is about developing and managing harmonious relationships in the workplace and striking a balance between organizational goals and individual goals.
HRM is not just limited to managing and optimizing human thought. It also focuses on managing the physical and emotional capital of employees.
The scope of human resource management is expanding with each passing day.
