What is HR, and what does human resources do?

HR stands for human resources, or the personnel within your business or organization who ensure the company’s policies and systems function as intended. With a defined function of managing employees, these business professionals have a variety of duties and responsibilities, from recruiting, hiring and onboarding new talent to administering fringe benefits such as health insurance and approving PTO days and leave requests.

Other human resources responsibilities include training new workers and ensuring they understand company policies. They may do this by creating or amending existing employee handbooks and scheduling and leading workforce-wide meetings that explain changes in benefits or rules. Another more unpleasant part of your HR department’s job is terminating employees. To do this, company HR staff must understand applicable labor laws and handle the process in a thoughtful, professional manner.

What is a human resources job?

Human resources department jobs comprise a range of skill sets. For example, recruitment managers create job descriptions for necessary positions, and then recruiters actively seek employees for open positions by placing ads or directly contacting potential talent. Likewise, employment specialists in company HR match the resumes received with available job descriptions to ensure smooth placement.

Human resources managers fulfill a variety of roles, including overseeing HR department personnel and ensuring they’re properly performing their duties. Employee relations managers within company HR keep communication channels open between departments and individuals at different operational levels, while employee experience directors help with career planning when employees want to take on leadership roles.

Other potential human resources department jobs include:

• Human resources generalists who perform administrative tasks, handle regulatory compliance and reporting tasks and see to employee safety and welfare policies
• Labor relations specialists who keep lines of communication open between union members, unions and company management and handle labor negotiations
• HR directors who manage teams, implement procedures and policies, oversee databases and HR department budgets and administer employee orientation and training programs

Basic HR department responsibilities

HR professionals help employees maintain positive relationships with their coworkers and employers. As such, these are some of the most common human resources responsibilities.

Helping employees with the onboarding process

Responsibilities of HR departments typically include onboarding new employees and implementing training programs. Other facets of this human resources job include aiding employees in filling out applicable paperwork and getting fresh hires set up on payroll and benefits.

Developing plans to meet company objectives

HR departments often help create various business plans to meet the company’s objectives and provide reports on progress by collecting key data. Plans under the aegis of human resources responsibilities include lining out policies for compliance with local, state and federal laws and creating hiring and training guidelines.

Creating systems to motivate employees

Employee relations and creating empowered employees are key aspects of human resources responsibilities. HR departments often focus on motivating employees by implementing team-building activities or other employee engagement initiatives that help boost morale, improve cooperation and spur healthy competition with things like merit-based pay increase programs.

Addressing employee questions and concerns

One of the most important human resources responsibilities is helping employees with work-related issues. If employees need to report situations like harassment or ask questions about their employment, your HR department should stand at the ready to help with policies and procedures established to deal with these concerns.

Maintaining employee policies and procedures

Strict guidelines exist on the local, state and federal level that help protect both companies and employees in almost any work-related situation. Typically, the HR department is the facet of a company that creates employee policies to exacting standards and performs compliance checks. HR should always keep employees’ best interests in mind to ensure a safe, productive workplace.

Communicating and implementing business changes

Often, HR departments work toward creating internal business changes that benefit both the company and its employees. Human resources responsibilities in this regard include updating employee handbooks and communicating changes across the workforce via email notices, posts to internal company portals or holding meetings to answer questions or concerns.

Conducting disciplinary actions

Though generally considered a negative part of the job, effective human resources professionals use disciplinary action as an opportunity to help employees improve performance. By ensuring employees adhere to the rules put forth in company policies and procedures, HR departments have a chance to aid those who may need help with counseling or flexibility during tough times. This, in turn, reduces recruiting and hiring expenses by maintaining experienced staff with sometimes temporary issues.

Processing terminated and retiring employees

One of the more unpleasant human resources responsibilities is processing terminated employees. This may include providing layoff paperwork to help the employee file for unemployment benefits, clearing severance pay with payroll specialists in the HR department and conducting exit interviews. When workers retire, the process typically includes putting any pension or retirement plan benefits into motion.

Related:10 Recruiting Strategies for Hiring Great Employees

Best practices for fulfilling human resources responsibilities

Because HR departments need to work in accordance with various labor laws, human resources personnel need to be careful about the way they conduct business. By being mindful of both the company’s and employees’ needs, the HR department can help create a safe and happy workplace by following these best practices.

Get feedback regularly

Similar to how employees can benefit from feedback, so can the HR department. Throughout the year, send surveys or evaluations about the HR department for employees to complete. Make the process anonymous to help employees feel comfortable sharing their honest thoughts and feedback about human resources responsibilities.

Ask employees what they like and dislike about the company, including the HR department, and have them write down changes they’d like to see or what they hope stays the same. You might also include specific concerns or gauge approval for or resistance to policies and procedures that the company plans on tweaking in the future. This type of feedback can help HR departments create better policies and systems for the workplace.

Act as an employee advocate

In order to retain reliable and motivated employees, HR departments should act as a liaison between the employees and their supervisors or managers. Employees should feel comfortable coming to human resources about any concerns they may have, and HR departments should address those concerns and advocate for solutions to common employee issues. When employees feel like they are being listened to, they are more likely to stay at a company.

Offer additional training and development

Many employees want their workplace to offer additional training and development opportunities. A good company HR professional typically determines what training could benefit employees and creates those programs accordingly. For instance, if a company starts to use a new payroll system, the HR department should help everyone understand how to use it and get employees familiar with all of the system’s features.

Consider the employees in all decisions

When making decisions for the company, the HR department should consider the wants and needs of the employees. Company HR should anticipate what employees think of any changes and how changes could affect job satisfaction or productivity. This helps keep everyone happy and wanting to work for the company.

Be consistent with policies

Though there may be specific circumstances where policy changes need to be made, the HR department must be consistent overall with all policies. This uniformity ensures everyone is treated fairly and that there’s no room for confusion. When everyone follows the same rules, all the time, companies and the individuals within them can operate much more successfully and without a sense of resentment.

Provide employees with information

A lot of the employee information the HR department handles is sensitive and should be kept private. However, things like company announcements or policy changes should be clearly communicated to employees as part of regular human resources responsibilities. Companies should be as transparent as possible to employees and keep everyone up to date with important information.

FAQs about human resources responsibilities

Having a top-notch workforce and taking care of your employees’ well-being can help your company not only survive but thrive, even during challenging times. That’s why it’s important to hire competent, trustworthy human resources professionals when creating an HR department. Learn more about what to look for in staff with these frequently asked questions.

What makes a qualified HR professional?

Qualified HR professionals usually need to have at least a bachelor’s degree in human resource management or several years of verifiable experience in lieu of formal training. For higher-level HR roles, some companies require applicants to have a master’s degree. Human resources assistants may be students seeking degrees in HR-related fields or competent clerical employees who want to learn on their feet.

Regardless of their degree, however, HR professionals need to possess the following:

• Clear written and verbal communication skills
• Experience with conflict de-escalation and resolution
• A detail-oriented mindset with excellent organizational abilities
• Empathy for employees and a knack for solving their problems

Related:How to Find Good Employees

What are some questions to ask when interviewing candidates for an HR role?

When interviewing candidates for an HR department role, you want to make sure applicants have a passion for helping others. They also need to understand and use discretion when dealing with private matters and be able to provide employees with the resources they need.

With those things in mind, these three questions can help with finding qualified HR department candidates:

• How did you become interested in working in human resources?
• Tell me about a time you dealt with a difficult employee. How did you handle the situation?
• Why is it important for a company to have a human resources department?

How does company HR deal with unions?

Human resources responsibilities may often include liaising with labor representatives and helping with contract negotiations. In situations where employees belong to unions, HR departments typically employ a labor relations specialist who has a thorough understanding of union rules and helps workers navigate any issues they may have with the company or specific staff members within the business.