Roles and Responsibilities of HR Manager
Some of the typical responsibilities of an HR manager include developing and implementing policies, determining staffing levels, ensuring compliance with employment and discrimination laws, analyzing payroll reports, and formulating HR policies.
Roles and Responsibilities of HR Manager
The HR manager fulfils several roles. The nature and proportion of these roles depend on both what staff wants from management and what top management wants from the HR managers. An HR manager typically identifies three roles, which are as follows:
A list of the most common responsibilities of the HR Manager.
The roles and responsibilities of the HR Manager are as follows:
1) Administrative Roles
The HR manager performs the following administrative roles:
i) Policy-Maker
The HR manager’s duty and responsibility is to infuse the central government and state government policies in the organization and keep revising those policies for better performance of their employees. He helps the top management, CEO, Managing director in designing the policies for regulations, recruitment, staffing, promotion, leaves, personnel records, welfare activities, administration, work hours, and salary, etc.
An HR manager must be aware of all the policies that are related to the organization. He facilitates an organization through an appropriate explanation of human resource policies.
ii) Administrative Expert
The HR manager earns recognition as an expert through their performance of various administrative functions. The work performed by them includes managing HR databases and employee records, handling employee benefit claims, addressing inquiries about medical and transportation facilities, holidays, and leaves, and preparing essential reports for authorized agencies.
An HR manager must perform all these functions effectively and efficiently so that the organization can successfully meet the variable needs of the stakeholders.
iii) Advisor
The HR manager acts as an advisor as he counsels, advises, suggests, and provides assistance to the departmental heads and workers to enable them to perform their tasks. These tasks can be dispute settlement, resolving grievances, recruitment, hiring, staffing, and training of employees.
HR manager is an intermediator between management and employees, therefore, he guides and directs both the organization and management with his personnel advice including the announcement of guidelines, report preparation, to the employees, and delivering the required information concerning the labour legislation, etc.
iv) Housekeeper
As a “housekeeper” HR manager helps the organization in the management of various activities such as prior-employment testing, recruitment, background verification, selection, wage and salary administration, record maintenance, rewards, employee benefits, pension administration, compensation, training, and development programs for employees well being, etc.
v) Counsellor
As a counsellor, an HR manager must share the employee’s problems about their job, superiors, peers, family well-being, economic and social status, etc., and guide them on how they can handle these problems easily.
vi) Welfare Officer
The HR manager is responsible for overseeing all welfare activities conducted within an organization. HR manager being Welfare Officer offers various facilities such as health care institutions, creches, cafeterias, academic institutions, clubs, consumer stores, libraries, etc.
vii) Legal Advisor
The HR manager acts as a legal advisor for the organization, as he helps in making new contracts, reviewing existing contracts, creating new documents, rectifying grievances, collective bargaining, dispute settlement, handling disciplinary issues, interpreting and implementing labour laws, facilitating a platform for joint consultation, filing and handling cases in various courts, making contracts with lawyers for lawsuits, etc.
2) Operational Roles
By nature, these roles are tactical and include the following:
i) Recruiter
In the present scenario, it has become a global war for talent. HR managers must search for talent, given the heightened competition for individuals with the necessary qualifications, skills, and work experience. HR managers must utilize their experience to plan rewards, benefits, and performance appraisal methods for employees, ensuring that the organization’s financial burden remains within budget and minimal.
ii) Trainer and Motivator
The HR manager’s responsibility is to find out who employees require training to develop their skills, and thereafter he arranges adequate training and development programs for them. If a manager is willing to improve the work quality of employees he should motivate them at their workplace by providing various kinds of benefits and rewards to employees.
iii) Liaison Officer
The liaison officer is responsible for maintaining a relationship between two or more people, organizations, agencies, management, etc.
The HR manager also acts as a liaison officer in the organization, whose work is to create a communication link between departments, management, internal parts of the organization, and outside the organization.
His role is to maintain a good relationship between management, employees, and departmental heads using public relations and communication skills to their greatest extent.
iv) Mediator
The mediator is an outsider who assists the parties to arrive at a settlement. During disputes, conflicts, and grievances, an organization always needs a mediator who can resolve these problems effectively and efficiently.
HR manager plays the role of a mediator and tries to maintain industrial peace by resolving the conflicts between subordinates, industries, trade unions, supervisors, management and employees.
v) Employee Champion
Occasionally, HR managers fulfil the role of company morale officers or employee advocates. In this era of globalization, firms have experienced a tremendous transformation in their working environment. Thus to discover the area of interest of employees, an HR manager needs to look into their hearts.
3) Strategic Roles
As per the changing conditions, the roles of HR managers are also changing. HR managers are now tending to come out of their comfort zone, take up more challenging tasks (e.g., strategic partners), and act as change champions.
These strategic roles include the following roles:
i) Strategic Partner
Acting as a strategic partner. HR manager ensures the reliability and capability of contributing towards the organizational goals. This role enables the HR manager to contribute to developing and accomplishing the goals and objectives of the business. The employees of an organization should contribute to business achievements.
ii) Change Champion
The HR manager acts as a change champion, he convinces the organization about the integration and provisions of independent and outlying organizational actions through a systematic process.
Only an HR manager makes an organization capable of matching up with change or exceeding the external rate of change. HR manager guides the employees in their personal development and adjustment to change both in individual as well as organizational aspects. At the individual level, individuals improve their change, while at the organizational level, the HR manager helps acquire and incorporate the changing trends.