It may not always be essential to segregate the HR department into various profiles especially if the organization is small, and the same team could do the end to end work from talent acquisition to exit management. But when the organization is large and growing further, the manpower also grows which increases the importance of having a dedicated approach and different sub-functions. Read on as Subhankar Ghose, a People Management Professional with over 16 years of leadership experience shares his insights about the role of an HR Personnel in an Organization
Getting Talent on Board
Perhaps the most important role of HR is talent acquisition. That is because one wrong entry can spoil the entire game. The HR needs to clearly and candidly scrutinize each prospective candidate and then conclude whether they are the right fit as per the organizational ethics and environment and should be hired or not. A very important note to keep in mind is to not do any hiring under pressure or influence of family or friends. The best way perhaps would be to avoid telling people you are in HR so as to curb expectations. An HR professional should be very neutral in approach when creating his own value in the market.
If a person is good as a talent acquisition professional, other aspects come on its own.
Business Partnering
Nowadays, HR cannot remain blissfully unaware of the line of business they have been attached to or they will never be able to grow in the department. The general attitude of HR professionals is avoiding understanding the line of business with the belief this isn’t supposed to be part of their job description. A superiority complex and a sense of working in isolation also kicks in.
But once inducted into the system, one should try and stay in touch with business MDs and heads so they are aligned well with the running goals and end goals of the organization. They can then accordingly figure what can HR do to meet those end goals of organization objective.
HR cannot remain isolated and have people only talk to them for payroll issues. The HR industry has evolved to ensure professional engage and interact with not only all business leaders but even with junior management. This will help them connect better to the humans they are supposed to be managing professionally and help them gauge their pains and problems in association to the job. These kinds of initiatives will help them to understand the psychology, mindset and skillset required for the jobs required in that particular line of business and also enable them to become wholesome professionally.
Dotting the I’s and Crossing the T’s – Paperwork
Larger organizations often have separate teams for HR operations, like handling payroll issues, day to day activities, documentation issues etc. However, no matter what operation you are a part of, an HR professional is supposed to be known for their documentation – how carefully its done how compliant it is. People who don’t care about following due processes of HR would not be the best fit for this industry. Most students studying the subject of HR have weak fundamentals in Industrial Relations – IR activities. Which is why they don’t get hired by industries and factories and HR often shake up upon legal notices and the kind as they aren’t well versed with their own processes, operations, documentations, statutory and compliance. Hence the stress upon due documentation and processes.
Payroll Management
At the end of the day, everyone is working for money for survival and upkeep of a lifestyle. Hence, compensation and benefits become most important to keep people happy. An HR professional must be thorough with industry standards and be willing to offer compartiive salaries to professionals they are looking to hire to attract good talent. The professional must do a survey and industry sweep of similar organizations, and what are the best practices and benefits being given to employees to enhance their own processes better. HR professionals must work towards making the work process as creative and innovative as possible to engage employees – so even if they get other opportunities, they can take a call to stay in this organization or not, basis benefits and processes in place. Otherwise people will take the option of choosing the opportunity and moving out to a company putting out better offers.
Picking the Crop / Picking Talent
All budding professionals must carefully focus on the foremost thing – Talent Acquisition. Understand it in the best fashion, the science and art of it.
About Subhankar Ghose:
Subhankar is a People Management Professional with over 16 years of leadership experience spread across industries. He has been associated with companies like ICICI Prudential, Muthoot Pappachan Group and ABP News Network. He is leading the Human Resource Department responsible for Talent Acquisition, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Compensation & Benefits and Employee Relations. He would be additionally taking care of Administration & Information Technology. He is also a member of ZOOM’s Executive Management Team. He is a Post Graduate in Human Resources and a Bachelors in Electronics & Telecommunication. He is an alumni of IMT, NIT Silchar (formerly REC), Cotton College & Don Bosco School. He is a Life Time Member of Associations like AIMA, NHRDN, NIPM & ISABS (Associate Member).
