These days, effective businesses take every aspect of their organization seriously and have dedicated professionals across their teams who work towards a common goal—supporting the business and positioning it for lasting success.
One important team in the mix is human resources (HR), who often serve “behind the scenes” as the backbone of an organization. Their responsibilities are often essential for a business to operate effectively, and they’re at the front lines of some core business functions—from staffing and recruiting to ensuring that the needs of existing employees are capably met, and more.
In fact, according to a recent article by The Balance, “A good HR department is critical to an employee-oriented, productive workplace in which employees are energized and engaged.” Let’s explore some of the key reasons why HR is so important to an organization.
Office culture
In many ways, HR helps set the tone of an office’s culture, including everything from permissible ways of dressing to setting work hours and workplace processes. HR establishes all of those little things that help define a work environment and shape what an average day on the job is like, which helps cement an employee’s identification and thoughts on the organization at large, as well as how they’re perceived from the outside.
Staff recruitment
We all know how important having a top-tier staff is to an organization’s success, and the HR department is directly responsible for ensuring that the very best available candidates are pursued and recruited for all open positions. They also work to ensure that the reputation of the company they work for is such that it attracts top-level talent in the industry—not an easy feat in today’s ultra-competitive corporate landscape. According to The Balance, “HR is responsible for the overall recruiting of a superior workforce. Once again, HR cannot do it alone but must provide support to hiring managers who are also responsible for recruiting a superior workforce. HR must provide leadership, training, scheduling assistance, a systematic hiring process, recruitment planning processes, interview expertise, selection monitoring, and more.”
Employee benefits and perks
All of those things that come alongside an employee’s salary when they’re offered a compensation package are likely thanks to the company’s HR team, all designed to attract the best and brightest crop of employees (and in many companies, HR staff even help to set salary ranges for open positions by providing competitive market analysis). Everything from insurance benefits to vacation time, team building activities, and transportation and education reimbursement—to name just a few—can fall under their purview, and the better they are at their jobs the better they’ll be able to research, identify, and negotiate great perks to attract talent.
Employee issue resolution
In general, most of us don’t exactly look forward to having difficult or challenging personal issues that require the guidance or intervention of others, but when we do have them and they affect our work, we’re usually grateful that we have the folks in the HR department to turn to. They not only lend their expertise and experience to help deal with whatever the issue is, they can also be real advocates and allies during a difficult situation.
Although the roles and responsibilities of HR departments vary across companies and industries, hopefully by now it’s clear that they play a crucial role in most organization’s operational efficiency, as well as their immediate and long-term successes.
