If you are interested in pursuing Human resource management as a career, you must acquire the appropriate knowledge and specialized skills through training.

Roles And Responsibilities

With the onset of globalization of all businesses, human resource management is fast becoming a highly demanding and complex field. All over the world, professionals are now moving from country to country in search of new and better employment prospects. Furthermore, in order to stay ahead of the competition in business, organizations are now implementing advanced and innovative ways of carrying out their business and these include methods like downsizing, consolidating, merging, subcontracting of services and restructuring. All these methods contribute towards several issues regarding this which professionals concerned with this field are required to resolve. For instance, due to various methods that are implemented by organizations, the human resource personnel are required to compose certain retrenchment benefits, counseling programs, compensation plans and layoff procedures.

As a professional in the field of human resource management, familiarizing yourself with the various labor laws of your country is not good enough. Because of globalization of businesses and the movement of professionals from country to country, you might also need to familiarize yourself with the various labor laws of other countries. If you are required to draft policies, you must be impartial and must set certain nondiscriminatory rules to encourage equal employment opportunities. Beyond a doubt, more and more issues and factors are now involved with this than ever before.

To become a human resource professional, you are required to communicate and interact with diverse groups of people, from staff members to union members to insurance agents to job applicants. Thus, if you are interested in working in this area you must be comfortable interacting with people. Your communication skills should be excellent – even better if you are an outgoing person who likes to work on a team.

The Challenges Of Human Resource Management

Human resource management can be an extremely challenging field to pursue. There may be times when you will find that nobody is pleased with your work. For instance, a certain compensation plan set by you may not satisfy every member of the staff. Some people might be happy with the plan while the others might be dissatisfied. Additionally, while you may strive to take care of the welfare and benefits of the employees, at the same time you are also required to consider the policies of the company.

At times, you may find yourself caught in the middle of conflicts between parties involving unions, co-workers, supervisors, and so on. Delicate issues need to be handled with care and you are required to exercise patience and tact as when you encounter such trying situations.

Studying Human Resource Management

In order to become a human resource professional, you are required to undergo training in the field. Typically, a course will teach you the necessary skills to become a professional in the field. You will be introduced to subjects like compensation benefits and packages, motivation of employees, organizational behavior and structure, assistance to troubled employees and recruitment methods.

This is a very important field, but it can also be a very challenging and interesting one. It is a specialized field of work and taking a specialized course and obtaining a degree will definitely equip you with the skills required to work in this field.

Typically, Human Resource Consulting in general is classified within broad areas – system implementation, business process evaluation, recruitment and more vital, compensation management. It’s closely associated with several disciplines: information technology, general management, finance and accounting, and legal laws that pertain to personnel management. It’ll encompass the various elements of resources management like talent management, human capital, employee attitudes and behaviors, outsourcing, retirement policies, health benefits, legal counseling, etc.

These service professionals assists most businesses irrespective of its size of operations. Most offer valuable guidance whether it’s a recently established business or an already started and growing business. Human resource consulting professionals are very concentrated on their primary duties of successfully increasing profits and productivity for an organization.

These particular type of consultants help a business to form policies, procedures and guidelines to resolve employee problems and increase profits. One objective of a consultant is to help the employees of a department receive an understanding of their responsibilities, duties and motivate those employees. Most companies that hire consultants require that consultant to be able to handle everything from recruitment to investigation and restructuring. The expectation is that the consultant can handle everything with ease and little need of assistance.

Since most businesses are confused about what they need as far as human resource functions, most consultants start with a company analysis which may reveal the need for basic services. An example of the basic offering of services is as follows; for recently established businesses, the consultant may offer guidelines upon implementation and establishment of procedures and policies as per the legal rules associated with personnel management. For the mid-level business, consultants may assist in developing the productivity of workers by using proven programs. For the large businesses, human resource consultants do the vital duty of putting into action strategies, talent management or change management plans in order to serve the complete interest of a business.

Occasionally, services of consultants are employed for creating a department or revamping functions of a business. Additionally, in some cases, consultants will guide the business to cut down costs by employing efficient human resource strategies, that bring improvement to the work force and increase profits.

Companies have a choice when hiring a consultants and should be very diligent when choosing one. The one that is considered should also fit with in the culture of the company and have the ability to be flexible. I conclude by restating Human Resource Consultants can be of help to all businesses.

If people are your most important resource, then you need to understand the role of human resources in your small business. Many small business owners believe that because they have only a few employees they do not need to focus on human resources issues. The reality is that when you are a small business owner, you need to focus more attention and support to your human resources because, effectively, they can make or break your business.

Even from a mathematical perspective this is true. If a small business has only 4 employees, each of those employees has at least a 20% impact on the business (the small business owner is counted in this impact assessment). If a business has 19 employees, each of those employees has a 5% impact on the business; and so on. Therefore the impact of a bad hiring decision or an under-performing employee is significant to small businesses.

Every business employs resources to get work done; typically the resources are a mix of people and equipment. Equipment resources are typically measured for value (that is, cost and return on investment or payback on investment). Human resources are often not valued similarly but if they were, business owners would pay a lot more attention to making sure they hired the right people, trained them well and measured their performance effectiveness regularly.

Let’s consider how you can better manage your human resources:

Step #1: Create a workforce plan – this would detail the number of staff your business needs to operate effectively.

Analyze the characteristics of your current workforce: job descriptions; individual skills profiles: make sure to include skills that cross-over to other functional areas (e.g. a shipper/receiver might also be capable of doing the purchasing and/or handling the inventory in your business); experience; training or education; demographics of your staff – age, time or duration with the business; aptitude required for each position; turn-over rates; and more.

You want to know if you need to be concerned about the majority of your staff retiring in the next year; or why you have high turn-over rates; or what type of aptitude and skill is required in each position; etc. Gather the data, then analyze the data you have gathered.

What are the issues your business faces in terms of attracting new employees, in terms of retaining those employees, and in terms of developing those employees’ skills and aptitude? For example, in Western Canada it has been difficult to find employees to work in the manufacturing industries as most of the potential workforce has gone to work either in high paying oil and gas jobs in Northern Alberta or to work in the construction jobs for the 2010 Olympics. How would your business handle attracting new employees in face of competing industries for a small labor pool?

Step #2: Create a training and development plan – this would detail how you plan to develop the staff you have to be more efficient and productive and to be capable of doing more than one functional responsibility (this is particularly important in small businesses where employees need to be capable of working in a number of areas).

Step #3: Create a performance effectiveness program – this would involve developing a specific performance evaluation or review program for employees in your business. You might consider working with employees to create the program. You want to ensure that the program involves the employee: a self appraisal section, as well as a section for the owner or manager to complete.

Managing your people may be the most challenging part of being a business owner. It is not easy to predict how people will react to changes in the business or to your directions or to customer interaction. As a small business owner it is your primary responsibility to develop excellent employees. It is very likely that your employees will have contact with your customers; you want to have employees who understand how to provide customers with good service, who are well trained and knowledgeable, and who are reliable and experienced. With excellent employees, you can develop an excellent and successful business.