What Does a Human Resources Professional Do? 7 Common HR Functions – Career Exploration Series

What Does a Human Resources Professional Do? 7 Common HR Functions – Career Exploration Series

Have you consider a career in HR? Have you wondered what kind of training you need to be an HR professional? Is an HR career for you? Let’s take a look at some key HR functions.

1. Recruiting.   The HR professional looks for ways to let people know about job opportunities and to encourage the right people to apply. This may require placing an ad, holding a job fair, using social media, or other creative strategies to let people know the company is interested in hiring.
2. Hiring. The HR professional is often central to the hiring process. This can include gathering and reviewing applications and resumes, conducting screening interviews, scheduling interviews, giving input on who to hire, extending an offer of employment, and preparing an offer letter.
3. Onboarding. It is frequently the HR professional who coordinates the new employee training, paperwork for payroll and tax withholding, reviews corporate policies, and helps the employee get settled into the job.
4. Employee Relations. The HR professional plays a key role in employee relations by listening to employee concerns, coordinating employee activities, handling grievance and appeals, following union collective bargaining requirements when these are in place, and handling employee disputes.
5. Workplace Standards. The HR professional may help set workplace standards by developing policies and procedures, ensuring that the company complies with all state and federal laws, and taking action to keep the workplace safe. HR may use data and metrics to track and trend how well the company meets the standards that have been set.
6. Counseling and Termination. When an employee is not performing up to par, then the HR professional often gets involved in counseling, corrective action plans, or even termination. The HR professional may coach the manager on how to handle difficult situations and encourage the employee to make the needed changes to keep the job.
7. Other Employee Activities. There are many other employee related activities that an HR professional may get involved in. This includes benefit planning, incentive programs, payroll, and even the company picnic! HR professionals often assume a variety of roles in administering programs that benefit employees.

You may enjoy further reading on this by checking out the article on the Future of the HR Profession, prepared by the Society of Human Resource Management (SHRM) a professional organization for HR professionals.

For more information about the HR profession, check out the Understanding the Human Resource Function course where we go step by step through the role of the HR professional.