The Role and Importance of HR Managers and HR Generalists
So you are either starting a company or already have one up and running and want to develop your Human Resources (HR) department. Given how complicated business processes have become with the surge in employees and customers as you grow, it is vital to have them sorted out through an HR department. The HR generalist and HR manager are two important cogs you need in your machine.
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Human Resources Manager
HR managers are responsible for planning, directing, and coordinating the administrative processes of an organization. Their duties involve interviewing and recruiting employees, mapping strategies with the senior executives of the company, and serving as a liaison between the management and the employees.
What are the responsibilities of an HR Manager?
Human resource managers have a bunch of strategic and functional duties that they have to perform. In small organizations, they may perform all the department’s functions or tie-up with an HR assistant or generalist. Before you look up how to become an HR manager, here are a few things that HR managers are responsible for:
Recruitment of Employees
HR managers generally have strategic ways of ensuring workforce demands are met. While the employment manager is in charge of overseeing the recruitment and selection of employees, the HR manager is in charge of coming up with strategies to recruit and retain valuable employees. Examples of this include cross-training to ensure competence in multiple departments and incentives so that the employees choose to stay.
Employee Training and Development
HR managers are in charge of training and developing the employees as per the company’s standards and protocols. New hire orientation, leadership training, and so forth constitute a part of employee training. HR managers also conduct needs assessments to find out if training is required or not, and if so, the type of training necessary.
They are responsible for taking a close look at every employee’s performance records to find out where they are lacking and how they could improve. Additionally, they play a pivotal role in implementing a development strategy based on the employee’s training and development.
Payroll Management
The HR manager needs to ensure the efficient calculation of wages, salary, reimbursements, and so forth. The HR manager must maintain complete transparency and ensure the salaries are correctly calculated and transferred on time.
Maintenance of Work culture
The HR manager has the responsibility of maintaining a wholesome and safe environment that is conducive to productive work. This includes maintaining an environment that does not have a stressful or uncomfortable atmosphere that is bound to hamper the performance of the staff.
Having a positive and encouraging environment can do wonders in terms of performance and productivity. Additionally, employees must be allowed to voice their opinions and freely communicate.
Resolving Conflicts
Here is another thing an HR manager is in charge of. If there is a difference of opinion, the HR manager must come up with a solution and maintain peace in the work environment. The HR manager has to be unbiased and not do anybody any favors and play favorites.
Human Resource Generalist
An HR generalist typically has a wide range of responsibilities as opposed to a specialized set of duties. In other words, an HR generalist takes care of most of the HR functions, such as hiring, administration, compensation, and many more.
What does an HR Generalist do?
Here are a few primary functions of an HR generalist:
Recruiting of Employees
Seeing how companies regularly need new and fresh talent, recruitment is a staple function of HR generalists. Here are a few recruiting duties:
- Getting candidates
- Screening and interviewing candidates
- Scheduling new hire interviews with the hiring team
- Getting the employment offer ready
- Outlining the salary negotiations
- Performing a thorough background check
Employee Relations
Employee relations encompass a variety of activities. Here are a few main ones:
- HR generalists work with managers to formulate plans to ensure performance improvement. An HR generalist needs to be wary of what happens in the company and ensure that every employee is treated fairly.
- The direct supervisor technically fires an employee. However, the HR generalist is required to be present as support and a witness to this. Managers generally cannot terminate an employee without having consulted with the HR first.
- When an employee leaves the organization, the HR generalist must discuss why the employee has chosen to leave. The information is used as feedback to improve the organization.
Becoming an HR Generalist
There are several ways to become an HR generalist. You may get a business degree with an emphasis in HR, study organizational behavior, and then supplement that with on-the-job training
You can look up organizations that provide certification, such as the Human Resources Certification Institute (HRCI), Human Resources Management Institute (HRMI), and many more. Apart from this, you can also consider other providers that offer specialized courses in HR.
While not all HR generalists are formally trained through university, they do have HR capabilities that they may have picked up in different positions. At the very least, every aspiring HR generalist must have training in compliance and management. Keep that in mind as you draw up your HR generalist resume.
There you have it – this should have helped shed some light on the role and importance of Human Resource Managers and Generalists.
