THE Human Resource (HR) Department is the first office an employee encounters, the unit he gets involved with a lot during his employment and the last one he deals with upon leaving a company.
Trying to grasp just how wide the scope of Human Resource is would be to imagine the globe from end to end. Seriously.
The typical HR department deals with job planning and analysis; recruitment; selection; performance appraisal; compensation and benefits administration and management; employee training and development; employee retention, labor management including collective bargaining, contract negotiation, and grievance handling; promotions and other transfers, as well as termination and resignation.
In each of these major tasks are the mountains of details serving as whirlwinds with their own deluge of deadlines critical to overall operation. Add to the heap the giant expectations of being everyone’s sounding board, counselor, stress-absorber/stress-reliever, coach, shock absorber, messenger of both the good and the bad news, and mediator.
Only a few brave souls get to weather the demands of HR. And these brave few get all the white hairs, they either lose a lot of weight or gain a lot (comfort food, right?) and become a little isolated in the office despite being familiar with everyone in order to avoid issues of bias.
All those hazards of the job are deemed worth considering that this lofty post has been described by www.hr.com as having the significant responsibility over “the maintenance of better human relations in the organization by the development, application and evaluation of policies, procedures and programs relating to human resources to optimize their contribution towards the realization of organizational objectives.”
Considering that its main function is dealing with people who are, in nature, diverse, complicated, and unpredictable, the job is indeed one for those with some sort of messianic complex. Combine all your DC and Marvel superheroes and you get the picture.
With the increasing pressures and demands from human resource, the proposal made by Ram Charan, a business adviser and co-author of “Boards That Lead” (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014), makes perfect sense.
Since HR’s lead role, which is connecting and developing people to meet the rising and changing needs of business, gets lost when it’s drowned with the equally important, but paper-pushing routine demanded by the compensation and benefits duties, Charan suggested of splitting the department into two major designations while still maintaining collaborative relationship with each other:
1. Human Resource Administration (HRA) – it is commonly known as the Personnel Department or Compensation and Benefits Department. It may be handled by someone with finance or accounting background, focusing only on the tedious nitty-gritties of salary and benefits administration including alpha lists, employee loans, and incentives programs. Considering all the preparations and filing needed just to fulfill the basic legal requirements, HRA tasks are not to be underestimated.
2. Human Resource Leadership and Organization (HRLO) – it is also called Human Resource Development. This department may be led by those with combined people or leadership skills and acumen in business operations or finance. The job entails being able to focus on assessing people and the company’s inner workings, relating this relationship to the total business performance. Long term planning and implementation for employee relations programs including discipline, training and development, performance appraisals linking to placement and salary scaling, and nourishing the company’s unique culture.
Through this split, human resource management can truly, in Charan’s words, “rely on their skills in linking people and numbers to diagnose weaknesses and strengths in the organization, find the right fit between employees and jobs, and advise on the talent implications of the company’s strategy.”