HR executives role is important for an organization. Managing people is one of the biggest challenges for a manager. Few of the reasons are:
- Individuals differ from each other in terms of their values, attitudes, beliefs, and culture. This leads to a very complex situation.
- The stimulating and motivational factors might not be the same for all employees.
It is important to understand the individual needs of the employees and cater to those needs. This involves taking up different roles by the HR. The specialist role of HR manager includes:
Service provider
Management needs to gather information such as market statistics, pay rates and labor laws, and legislation from the market as well as from their competitors before making decisions on various employee related issues.
Administrative expert
The administrative role involves record keeping and legal compliance. The HR is responsible for maintaining all records of the employees relating to their employment and also ensuring the organization complies to the statutory health and safety, employee welfare measures.
Facilitator
They act as a facilitator when training and development actions are planned and conducted, and when performance appraisals are done.
Consultant
While supervising the employees, managers face many problems. Their problems may be due to lack of motivation, lack of training, job misfit and grievances relating to pay. They should know how to smoothly resolve such problems.
Auditor
HR specialists are responsible for ensuring that all members of the management perform their respective roles efficiently and also ensures that there is effective use of the human resources of the organization.
Change agent
It is the HR that helps organizations to implement changes and help employees adapt to changes. The HR is the first department that recognizes the changes in the external environment and makes necessary changes within the organization to help the organization adjust to the changes without any hitches.
When the market is not favorable, the HR may be busy with downsizing and when there are new prospects in future, the HR tries to ensure that the employees are well trained to take full advantage of it.
Employee advocate
HR employees are the link between the top management and the employees. The concerns of the employees are first reported to the HR personnel. They report these issues to the top management and try to resolve the issues.
Thus, HR in any organization has multiple roles to play. No HR can perform just one role. They may have to perform all the mentioned roles at different stages in their career as HR personnel.
