Job functions - HR Part - 1

In any organization people determine, to a very large extent, the difference between success and failure and the HR function deals with all policies and activities pertaining to them in the organization.

The key expectation from an HR department, therefore, is that it will play the pivotal role in

• attracting and retaining talent 
• assist in developing required skills and motivation for people to deliver superior performance 
• perform all the administrative tasks required pertaining to employees in an organization

In this post we will talk mainly about a key part of the first task viz. Planning and Recruitment


Manpower Planning

The HR team assists the business head or departmental head to plan the organization structure and the number of employees required to deliver the required results. A manpower plan defines how many employees and the organization structure required. There are several concepts the HR person needs to understand viz.

Skills (specific skills required in the organization)
Capacity (how to assess the number of persons required with certain capabilities/skills for the current and future requirements of the organization)
Coordination/supervision requirements for the required capacity - including the concept of span of control,

in order to be able to effectively participate in a manpower planning exercise. This exercise will usually indicate how this requirement will be met - by recruiting new employees (recruitment plan), developing skills in existing employees (development plan) and sometimes outsourcing of "one time" tasks (outsourcing plan)

In larger organizations, there is a corporate development department which assists the management in defining and developing the organization structure.

Recruitment 

Recruitment is a specialized activity and many organizations use recruiting agencies for the task. Recruitment is done through Search and Selection. "Search" is done for very senior positions and normally through a specialized agency.

The normal recruitment activity entails the following steps:

Sourcing - A recruiter "sources CVs" in other words, a recruiter tries to find CVs of probable candidates from several possible sources like Job Portals (Naukri, Monster, Times Jobs, etc.), recruitment agencies, competing organizations, educational institutes, networks like LinkedIn etc.

Shortlisting - From this list, CVs are shortlisted to ascertain best fit with the job description for the position and candidates are shortlisted for the selection process.

Selection Process- This process consists of a series of steps which may include Tests, Group Discussions, Interviews etc where candidates are assessed for Technical Knowledge, Aptitude, Soft Skills, Cultural Fit and Organizational Fit. See the post, Assessment Methods, in our sister blog "Skills for Excellence" for more details.

Offer - Once the selection process is complete,an offer is made after negotiation of salary and other elements of remuneration.

Post Offer Hand Holding - This is an important step in the recruitment process where the candidate needs to be assisted during the time between his acceptance of the offer and his actual joining. Candidates may have doubts and anxieties which need to be addressed to ensure smooth transition into the organization.

Induction - The recruitment process ends with completion of "Joining Formalities" when a candidate joins the organization and preliminary induction.

Search
 

For very senior positions, an agency is employed to "search" for suitable candidates from a list of target companies or based on a detailed discussion about what the position entails and what is expected from a candidate.

The agency identifies candidates, verifies his/her antecedents through detailed reviews of available information & discussions with persons associated with him/her and recommends him/her to the organization. The "selection" process here is two way with the candidate and the senior team from the recruiting organization having a series of meetings to assess each other.

A recruiter needs to have a broad understanding of functions in the organization, S/he must be able to understand and write clear job and requirement descriptions for the positions s/he is expected to recruit. S/he must be aware of different "sources", the recruitment process and also be able to effectively converse with candidates.

In the next post we will discuss the concept of "Employee Life Cycle" and Performance Management and the tasks of Training & Development and Performance Management in HR.