Human Resources

Human Resources:
-- Know where to find resources to support you in your decision-making.
-- Demonstrate HR professionalism in your role.
Understand the value of good HR practice

1. What is HR?
2. What does the HR department do?
3. Different perceptions of HR.
4. Understanding the different views of HR.
5. What and who does HR represents?
6. HR roles in small organisations.
7. HR roles in large organisations.
8. The professional principles:
i) Work matters
ii) People matter
iii) Professionalism matters
9. Types of HR practices.
10. Importance of data.
11. HR analytics & Predictive Analytics.
12. Ethics of data collection.
13. Examples of how HR can use data more ethically.

1. HUMAN RESOURCES PRESENTED BY: SALONI AGARWAL

2. WHAT IS HR? HR (Human Resources) means different things to different people, and different organisations will also view HR in different ways. At its most simple, HR could be thought of as the team or person responsible for the people in an organisation.

3. The size of the organisation will influence what is involved in that function. For a small organisation it might be hiring new staff, helping with performance appraisals, payroll, holiday management and more. In a larger organisation it might be that some of those tasks are outsourced or carried out by managers, with the HR function more specialist in some areas like employment law, while providing general support and advice to managers. You may find HR called Personnel too, or another name such as “People Operations” but the name is less important than the impact of the work that is done and the ways of working displayed by people in that role.

4. Different perceptions of HR There are many reasons why people have these different opinions: it might be their past experiences of working in HR, or perhaps the service they have received from HR themselves. A senior manager, or supplier (such as a recruitment agency) will probably have a different perception from that of an employee. Not all perceptions of HR are necessarily clear or positive, but all of them provide an opportunity to understand what HR is to different people.

5. Understanding the different views of HR We know that the views people have are as varied as the organisations they have worked in, that they change between groups e.g. employees and senior managers, around what HR’s purpose or priorities ought to be. HR originally came from a need to protect workers from being treated poorly, but later became a labour management function, focused on recruitment, dismissals and industrial relations of unionised workers. Then, as the value of the function became more clear to organisations, HR changed to become personnel administration, a highly administrative function responsible for policies and procedures.

6. What and who HR does represent? HR can be seen by some to be very transactional, i.e. it does the everyday tasks of the business and has no part in the important decisions or strategic planning. Equally, in some cases HR can be viewed as too focused on serving the needs of the business, and perhaps not challenging unethical decisions as much as it should. These two views may appear to be opposite to each other, but they show the unique position of HR within an organisation; it touches everyone, and needs to work closely with, and be part of, management, as well as supporting and understanding the wider workforce. As a result, attitudes to HR can be affected by what is happening in an organisation - for example, if an organisation is downsizing or the economy (and recruitment) overall is going down, HR will be seen less as adding value and more as an administrative function dealing with the costs of the employees.

7. Whatever the context, in HR we need to understand the organisation, its dynamics, and the challenges and needs of the workforce in human terms. We need to balance judgments and decision-making for the short and long term, and check them against key principles well beyond thinking of people just as cost.

8. HR ROLES IN SMALL ORGANISATIONS

9. HR ROLES IN LARGE ORGANISATIONS

10. THE PROFESSIONAL PRINCIPLES Work matters People matter Professionalism matters

11. Work matters Work can and should be a force for good – for organisations, workers and the communities, societies and economies they’re part of. Good work is purposeful; it is designed to help everyone use their skills and talents effectively and find personal meaning in the work they do. Good work is safe and inclusive; it recognises contribution in a fair manner and values human connection. Good work exists for the long-term benefit of individuals, organisations and society, and balances economic needs with social accountability.

12. People matter People are fundamental to businesses and organisations; they are unique and worthy of care, understanding and investment. People should have access and opportunity to work, and be provided with the support, development and resources to be effective; in turn, individuals have a personal responsibility for their work, development and behaviour. People deserve to be treated fairly and have a meaningful voice on matters that affect them, in addition to their rights and protection under law.

13. Professionalism matters For the people profession this means: B eing ambassadors for the profession by acting with integrity and championing better work and working lives in all we do. A commitment to continually develop, and to make decisions which are principles-led, evidence-based and outcomes-driven. Bringing our expertise on people, work and change, together with our understanding of how business creates value for all, to balance the risks and opportunities inherent in any organisation and understand the implications of our decisions beyond the interests of our own organisations, for the good of wider society.

14. HR practice can be: Principles-led Principles enable us to make good decisions based on a clear purpose. As the world of work evolves, we’ll encounter more and more situations which are completely new and might not fit under our current policies, processes and rules. There are also plenty of situations where you can follow the rules, but not do the ‘right’ thing. Principles trust us to use our situational judgement to make that call, focusing on what we stand for and believe in. Evidence-based It’s important that we base our decisions on strong evidence and dispel the myth that evidence is about hard numbers alone. Evidence should combine: data which gives meaningful insights into your workforce a deep understanding of human psychology and behaviour learning from the relationships we have with people from around the business outside evidence, such as independent research and surveys. Outcomes-driven Work must balance economic needs with social accountability, and consider impact in terms of the organisations we work for, workers and wider society. The Standards guide people professionals to be driven by human outcomes alongside business ones .

15. IMPORTANCE OF DATA HR data can be both quantitative and qualitative: Quantitative data  will be numbers and so is measurable. For example, the number of people who leave your organisation in one month. Qualitative data  can’t be measured and is the ‘why’ behind the numbers. For example, the reasons given for why those people leave. In order to make sure that HR has a good overview of the whole organisation it is important that HR data is looked at with other types of data in your organisation. This could include customer satisfaction data from the sales team, which when looked at with HR data about employee engagement might show you that teams which score their manager highly also have the highest customer satisfaction.

16. HR ANALYTICS Improving employee morale: Instead of having the costs of losing employees, organisations can help prevent them leaving by measuring their happiness and well-being and working to improve them both. Driving business performance: Workers with strong leadership skills can be found through analytics, leading to better recruitment of job applicants or promotion of existing staff to the right positions. Improving retention (people staying within the organisation): Understanding why people leave means that HR can make suggestions of what to do to help keep them. PREDICTIVE ANALYTICS Understanding why people leave means that HR can make suggestions of what to do to help keep them.

17. Ethics of data collection HR records need to comply with local legislation for collecting, using and retaining data. HR records can be stored on paper or electronically but it’s important for organisations to keep the information well-organised and in an appropriate system so that is lawful and can be easily retrieved when needed. Many countries have  data protection  legislation which guides how data should be protected on a day-to-day basis. Compliance as HR practitioners is essential to the role we have in our organisations as well as our ethical judgement. However, it’s important that we not only treat employee data in accordance with data protection laws, but also in an  ethical way .

18. Examples of how HR can use data more ethically Insights gained from employees as a group are trends, they don’t necessarily represent the truth about individuals. Insights can inform HR initiatives, but should not be used to unfairly target individuals. Biases can creep into the way that HR data is collected and handled. Ethical use of HR data involves  being wary of amplifying these biases . Similarly, decisions can be made from incomplete data, which can accidentally exclude certain groups of employees’ i.e. part time employees or contractors might not be included by mistake. HR should  set clear expectations  as to how data is collected, stored, analysed and used. Equally, there should be a way in which employees can voice their concerns or objections. Finally, it’s important to consider how use of employee data may contribute to the organisational culture.  For example , do employees feel they’re being watched unfairly? Is there a culture of a transparency?