Skip to main content
    GET CONNECTED WITH US
HR department featured image

A Closer Look at Human Resource Department

The Human Resource Department handles many necessary functions in business. It provides labor law compliance, record keeping, hiring and training, compensation, relational assistance and helps with handling specific performance issues. HR Department is a critical component of employee well-being in ay business. They are responsible for payroll, benefits, hiring, firing and keeping up-to-date with state and federal tax laws.

In every company, business, place of work has some form of HR Department to deal with the typical issues that come with employing staff. This purpose will sort out the problems, work alongside the management and the staff to ensure peace and tranquillity within the workplace.

It is crucial that all employees are completely aware of what the HR department does:

  • Policies – it is important for any company, new policies need to be understood and implemented.
  • Employment – the right staff and the right amount of staff fall to the HR department by hiring and firing.
  • Training – an important area for all employees to do their current job and career progression.
  • Payment – being paid makes everything worthwhile and pay reviews and bonuses are HR issues.
  • Equality and Diversity – two of the most important aspects within every place of work, responsible for making sure that employees are treated equally and the diversity of staff is fair.
  • Disciplinary Procedures – these can often occur when employing a large number of people, it is to be expected that some people just don’t fulfill the ideal behavior of a position.
  • Company Principles – every organization will have a purpose, intent, and principles which need to be upheld and it begins with the HR department by them spreading the intent to the company and labor unions or employee right organization.

HR Department provides your organization with a structure and the ability to meet business needs by managing your company’s employees.

Human Resource Department needs to provide a high return on the business’s investment in its people.

The Human Resource Department handles a range of different functions within an organization. There are six essential functions of the Human Resource Department.

  1. New Recruitment

The primary function of the HR Department is to oversee hiring and recruiting within an organization. The company administers the skills assessment and personality tests to match the candidates with the right job.

  1. Training and Development

HR Departments handles the training and development of an organization. It conducts training programs for new hire and existing employees. HR Department is responsible for training contracts and budgeting.

  1. Handling Compensation

Human Resource Department is responsible for the employee’s compensation. The department typically handles employee payroll and ensures are paid accurately and on time.

  1. Employee Benefits

HR Department manages all aspects of employee benefits and keeps track of employee absences and job-protected leave.

  1. Employee Relation

The HR Department handles employee relations matter within an organization. It involves the participation of the employee in different aspects of organization activities. It also handles disputes between employees and management, as well as disputes between the company and labor unions or employee right organization.

  1. Legal Responsibilities

The department is responsible for interpreting and enforcing employment and labor laws such as equal employment opportunity, fair labor standard, benefits and wages, and work hour requirements.

The main point of the Human Resource team is to “develop, advice and implement policies within the workplace” and generally find a way to keep staff and managers alike happy. The company’s human resource department is responsible for creating, implementing and overseeing policies between employees and the management team of the company.

Performance Management featured image

Keeping the Right People: Performance Management

Performance Management is a process that provides feedback, accountability, and documentation for performance outcomes. It helps employees to channel their talents towards the organizational goals.

An effective performance and appraisals process focuses on aligning your workplace, building competencies, improving employee performance and development, and driving better business results. It ensures employees get the continual direction, feedback and development they need to improve and succeed.

“To be effective and yield results for your business, performance management must be a year-round process with no end.” –Teala Wilson

To establish an effective performance management system, it requires time and resources and the support of the board, the executive director and other senior managers. Effective performance management is about leadership, interpersonal relationships, constructive feedback, and teamwork.

Effective Performance management should lead to organization growth and success. Consider the following six strategies for effective performance management.

  1. Define and Communicate Company Goals and Performance Objectives

Sometimes employers are not as clear when outlining their or company objectives. Employees cannot meet your performance expectations or company goals if they are not clearly outlined.

  1. Utilize Performance Management Software

A good performance management software system can be effective for performance management strategies, making it imperative that you either begin using one or at least begin looking to upgrade. It helps both you and your employees stay on top of things so that the company will run smoothly and be efficient at all times.

  1. Offer Frequent Performance Feedback

Managers need to check in with the teams and employees periodically not only to gauge progress but also provide feedback. A good performance feedback shows opportunity areas with a clear path to improvement. Performance feedback is the best way to affirm your employee and their works effectively.

  1. Use Peer Reviews

To foster effective performance management is to utilize peer reviews. It allows co-workers to praise other co-workers and highlight positive aspects of their performance where improvements can be made.

  1. Pre-emptive Management and Recognition

Implement rewards and practice pre-emptive management to guarantee results in the workplace. It is effective to show employees that you care, that you see the efforts and pleased by their performance and you want them to keep up the good work.

  1. Set Regular Meetings to Discuss Outcomes and Results

Also known as Progress Reports or Progress Meeting. These meetings are usually held weekly, monthly or as often. This makes the progress feedback more accurate and allows you to make plans for moving forward.

Performance management is vital but easy to over-complicate. A strong performance management process helps senior leaders know who are top and low performers are. It helps to identify organizational core strengths and weakness.

Job Shadowing Featured Image

What is Job Shadowing?

Have you heard what Job Shadowing is? Job shadowing is the given name to the opportunity to observe or “shadow” someone doing their job. Job-shadowing is also close to informational interviewing, in which career-explores or job-seekers conduct short interviews with people in their prospective professions. It is used to provide an individual within a department the opportunity to work alongside more experienced colleagues so they can learn and develop within their role.

Job Shadowing provides the individual with a unique opportunity to find out how other staff work and what their roles involve. It develops a deeper knowledge and understanding of other roles and functions. But who is involved in Job Shadowing?

The Line Manager will agree to who would be the best host for the job shadowing and arrange the experience for them. If the shadowing is for their individual will expect to do some of the arrangement themselves as they will be the main beneficiary of this kind of shadowing activity.

The Host is the person who agrees to be shadowed. It involves some preparation and thought and is not about having someone follow you around for an agreed time span. The host needs to consider if the time requested is the best time for the shadowing to take place.

The Visitor/Guest needs to consider why they are doing the shadowing and what they hope to achieve. They also need to do some preparation which will involve working with the line manager or the host before the shadowing to set objectives for the sessions.

Here are the following three different types of job shadowing.

Observation – “fly on the wall”

This type of shadowing works best when a visitor guest is looking to gain a greater understanding of what the hosts’ job role actually consists. It is a typical representation of what the “host” individual does on a daily basis.

Regular Briefings – “Burst Interactions”

This works best when individuals work near to the host and the host can then tell them about the date and times of specific activities which are valuable for understanding the role of the host. It provides a short period of focused activity, rather than passive ongoing observation.

Hands-On – “Job sharing”

It is where the visitor/guest starts to undertake some of the tasks they have observed. It provides hands-on experience of the role whilst having the safety net of being supervised by the host.

Job shadowing can be useful in some ways. It helps to decide if the skills match the career field of interest. Since job shadowing is a short-term experience, it is a great way to decide whether to pursue a particular career before applying. It is an opportunity to observe an employee performing their daily work routine in their environment. It allows to explore specific careers and get a realistic picture of the tasks performed for the job.

Here are the following benefits of job shadowing.

  • Hands-on Experience:

    it is not only to observe how the task is completed but also experience hands-on task. It is beneficial to inspire or deter from pursuing a career path further.

  • Scholarship possibilities:

    They offer scholarship and persons who want scholarship/positions must go through an interview process and if selected it will go through an interview process as well.

  • Networking:

    In job shadowing, it is a great way to meet people in the profession that you are seeking.

Job Shadowing can be beneficial as long as you know what you are looking to get from it. It can be used as a testing method to identify possible careers.