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As the term implies, “Human Resources”, in its most basic meaning, is responsible for the staffing of an organization with competent workers, to carry out the work assigned to them by the Employer, to make the organization profitable and always ready for repeated business demands. Such resources, nowadays referred to as “Talent”, must fit with the organization’s values and culture and abide by a set of policies described in a policies and procedures manual, issued, and frequently revised by the Employer. Such policies and procedures set the ground rules of the way things should be done in any organization.
Naturally, “Human Resources” is not just about the recruitment of people, but also about their retention with the organization. This is an even more difficult and delicate task. Every employee of an organization has unique career aspirations, motives and goals that must be addressed to ensure their longevity in their employment. Nowadays, people tend to bring personal issues into the equation too, like mental health, family situations, private studies, and more.
Balancing all such issues together and creating harmony requires a solid “employee relations” function, that must also emanate from the human resources team. The Employer seeks to secure a high engagement level among his workers, while the employees naturally seek a great employee experience at work. From time to time, “Human Resources” must come up with initiatives to help such factors thrive within the organization. And they must be measured too!
The measures obtained by the organization for Engagement and Employee experience must be carefully analyzed, and any messages therefrom must be shared with the Employer, no matter how hard or painful it is to hear. The Employer would usually, after spending some time in denial, ask the “Human Resources” to come up with a set of proposals that address any negative causes within the organization, hoping that such new initiatives would not be too financially costly and that they would bring the required results.
Invariably, some employees do leave the organization and this whole cycle would need to be repeated. Employees leave an organization because they would have felt that the psychological contract with the Employer would have been broken and reached a stage of no repair possible.
It is essential for “Human Resources” to understand the reasons behind every resignation because a pattern of reasons could be unveiled, leading the organization to understand a bit more the brokenness of the psychological bond that used to be whole and firm at the start of one’s employment with the Employer.
To conclude, and summarize: “Human Resources” exists to establish and maintain the life-cycle of an employee, throughout the duration of one’s employment, with a view to making the employment relationship last as long as possible, in mutual benefit for the employer and the employee.