Don’t be afraid of Human Resources (HR)

?What Does HR Do and Why Is It Important to an Organization??

HR’s responsibility is to create a more collaborative relationship between the company and its employees which ideally results in improved profitability for the entire organization – a benefit for everybody including its shareholders, board of directors, officers, employees, and clients.?

A company is a complex piece of money-making machinery, and every department is an important cog in that wheel.

For a company to ensure profitability, all departments need to collaborate and interact smoothly to reach common goals that align with the company’s goals and objectives. This requires interaction between departments with different bodies of knowledge, which can both be rewarding and challenging as not all individuals are created the same and communication styles and preferences can be different.? Meeting departmental goals and supporting the corporate objective is a key part of a manager’s responsibilities and issues arising will impact the company, managers, and employee’s success.

HR’s job then is to do everything it can to support corporate goal achievement. This is done by supporting all departments by ensuring they have what they need to get their individual jobs done. When all departments and operations are running smoothly and cooperating and communicating successfully, it minimizes the likelihood of costly issues, both legal and industry specific,? which in turn will help keep the company on course to profitability.

How Does HR Support Employees??

HR is not just a department that you go to when you have a complaint about a coworker or need to hire or fire an employee. HR is also a safe sounding board for employees by providing general employee welfare, safety, and health and wellness counseling. ? Some examples of these are:

Career Growth: HR can assist employees in developing their career paths to assist in ensuring the employee has a long future within the company.? It’s always a great idea to have periodic check-ins throughout the year for employees, managers, and HR to gauge individual progress and change course if needed.

Education: Sometimes growth requires additional education.? Organizations may provide educational assistance and HR can help determine what courses and training programs would set the employees up for success in their career path.

Training and Manager Support: The skills that make a good manager great are not something you’re born with. Great managers are created through experience, education, and mentorship.? HR can work with the company and managers to guide in management training and help promote healthy and functional teams within the organization.??

Health and Wellness: Employees are people first and foremost.? Everyone has things going on in their personal life and at times we need some additional help weathering storms that may come our way.? This could include mental illness, health issues, debt, pregnancies, adoption, and many other life occurrences.? HR can help support employees through any of these circumstances and many companies have additional benefits available to assist such as an Employee Assistance Program (EAP).

When to Contact Human Resources

If you haven’t interacted with HR, then the HR department isn’t doing their job.? From the time you are hired, throughout your tenure with the company you should have regular interaction with your HR team.? Do not be afraid to reach out to your HR team and schedule a one-on-one meeting and talk about your career progress, how you feel about your role within the company, and any other topics, issues, or concerns you may have.

Employees should always feel comfortable reaching out to their HR team in these, and similar situations:

• When and employee or co-worker experiences harassment or discrimination from a colleague (It's important to note that everything that is brought to HR is not always confidential. Things such as personal medical conditions will always be confidential but when it comes to employee relation topics and concerns, HR will aim to keep the information confidential when possible, however, confidentiality cannot be guaranteed as many reports trigger the company's ethical and legal obligations.)

• When an employee has questions about benefits such as EAP’s, insurance coverage, retirement plans, PTO, etc.
• When an employee has a life changing event such as having a child, needing to reduce work hours, or needing accommodation for a disability.
• When an employee would like information or feedback about advancing within the company to include additional training, mentorship, etc.
• When an employee needs an objective third-party to work through a work-related issue. While unnecessary drama in the office should be kept to a minimum, there are times when an employee has a legitimate concern or challenge and it’s important to have a sounding board accessible. That is something HR is great at!

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