The role of HR

Tips and Tools

Recognizing ge
harassment

Recognizing se
harassment

Recognizing
discrimination

Recognizing ab
power

General princip
for stopping
inappropriate
behavior

Overview – rep
complaints

Overview –
investigating
complaints

Sample statem
Center values

Sample statem
responsibilities
staff/code of co

Advice to
Investigating Pa
INTRODUCTION

 The Center’s HR staff, particularly the HR Manager, has a key role in five aspects of preventing and stopping
harassment and discrimination. These aspects are:
 supporting management by developing Center policy and procedures for preventing and stopping haras
and discrimination;
educating staff, particularly through induction and retraining, with specialized training for line managers
assisting management in establishing avenues of assistance at all duty stations for staff members who h
experienced harassment or discrimination;
providing support and guidance to people directly involved in harassment and discrimination issues; and
providing guidance to committees investigating harassment and discrimination complaints.

SUPPORTING MANAGEMENT IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CENTER’S POLICY AND PROCEDURES 

HR has a key role in developing, reviewing and refining policies and practices and referring them to senior
management for decision. These guidelines provide a model policy and a range of sample practices to aid HR in
function. However, it remains up to each Center’s HR Manager to:
undertake whatever refinement/revision is necessary for the practices to mesh with other relevant polic
(e.g. Code of Conduct, disciplinary policy, performance evaluation, rewards, etc.), and
recommend their adoption by senior management and, where revisions to the Center’s Personnel Policy
Manual are involved, prepare appropriate recommendations to the Center Board.

EDUCATING STAFF

Prevention of harassment and discrimination is key to establishing a workplace of dignity. This requires careful
planning to ensure that:
all new appointees, including contractors, consultants and, particularly, line managers and supervisors h
relevant policies explained to them as part of their induction, early in their appointment;
appropriate retraining occurs across the workforce from time to time, to reinforce staff understanding o
purpose, ramifications and implications of sustaining a workplace of dignity;
line managers receive specialized training on harassment and discrimination issues because line manage
the “first line of defense” and thus must be acutely aware of harassment and discrimination issues, act as role m
be alert to the emergence of harassment and discrimination problems in their workgroup, be aware of their
responsibilities to act expeditiously and appropriately, and be empowered to do so; and
the above requirements are met effectively, not just at Center headquarters but across the Center’s enti
spectrum of regional and country offices, no matter how small the group.

PROVIDING SUPPORT AND GUIDANCE TO PEOPLE DIRECTLY INVOLVED IN

HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION ISSUES

 HR Managers are usually the ultimate sources of expert advice and guidance on harassment and discrimination
their Centers. They need to be knowledgeable of Center’s policy but also have an understanding of harassment
discrimination beyond the policies themselves.

 HR Managers need to be alert to potential harassment and discrimination issues and act appropriately, either d
or through the appropriate line manager/s. They also must be able to give impartial and expert advice to people
involved in harassment and discrimination cases, both complainants and alleged offenders.

Victims of harassment in particular may need support and reassurance about the Center’s policy and procedure
well as assurance of confidentiality. The HR Manager should identify appropriate sources of professional counse
for victims at/for each duty station.

ASSISTING MANAGEMENT IN ESTABLISHING AVENUES OF ASSISTANCE

AT ALL DUTY STATIONS 

While the HR Manager is usually the ultimate source of expert advice and guidance on harassment and discrimi
in each Center, she/he obviously cannot be at every duty station simultaneously. The HR Manager may even op
in a different time zone than some of the Center’s duty stations.

Consequently staff members at all duty stations who may be experiencing harassment need to have immediate
avenues of assistance. These would either be at their duty station or for their duty station if it has a very small s

A good contingency plan for avenues of assistance will have (but not necessarily be limited to) the following fea
one or more Local Harassment Advisors;
a hotline for reaching Center HR personnel with accessible phone numbers for the HR Manager and a sp
alternate for harassment matters;
documented information about harassment;
access to professional counseling.

The sample practice: “Avenues of Assistance for Staff Who Have Experienced Harassment or Discrimination” co
a more comprehensive explanation. 

 While it is senior management’s responsibility to establish avenues of assistance, it will be the HR Manager wh
works out the detail of these arrangements for each duty station, particularly:
informing all staff about the avenues of assistance at each duty station;
establishing the linkages from the Local Harassment Advisors to Center HR for training and advice;
establishing the linkages from local management to Center HR for policy advice and practical advice on
managing incidents;
establishing the telephone hotline to Center HR that ensures that someone knowledgeable can respond
questions from all duty stations during normal business hours for those duty stations;
transforming relevant sections of the Personnel Policy Manual (or equivalent) on harassment and
discrimination into reader-friendly brochures, Web pages, etc.;
establishing arrangements for providing professional counseling to victims of harassment.

PROVIDING GUIDANCE TO PANELS INVESTIGATING HARASSMENT AND

DISCRIMINATION COMPLAINTS 

 When harassment or discrimination culminates in a formal complaint, the HR Manager has a key role in establi
 and supporting the Investigating Panel. The HR Manager typically is the common link across Panels, being the o
person in the Center who sits on all harassment and discrimination investigation Panels. Therefore she/he not o
needs expert knowledge of the Center’s investigation process, but she/he also needs to understand the basic
requirements of conducting effective investigations. The HR Manager needs both forms of knowledge in order t
provide support to Panel members and chairpersons.

Depending on the size of the organization, the HR manager has responsibility for all of the
functions that deal with the needs and activities of the organization's people including these
areas of responsibility.

 Recruiting
 Hiring
 Training
 Organization Development
 Communication
 Performance Management
 Coaching
 Policy Recommendation
 Salary and Benefits
 Team Building
 Employee Relations
 Leadership
With all of this in mind, in Human Resource Champions, Dave Ulrich, one of the best thinkers
and writers in the HR field today, and a professor at the University of Michigan, recommends
three additional roles for the HR manager.

HR Role: Business and Strategic Partner

In today’s organizations, to guarantee their viability and ability to contribute, HR managers

need to think of themselves as strategic partners. In this role, the HR person contributes to the
development of and the accomplishment of the organization-wide business plan and objectives.

The HR business objectives are established to support the attainment of the overall strategic
business plan and objectives. The tactical HR representative is deeply knowledgeable about the
design of work systems in which people succeed and contribute. This strategic partnership
impacts HR services such as the design of work positions; hiring; reward, recognition and
strategic pay; performance development and appraisal systems; career and succession
planning; and employee development.
To be successful business partners, the HR staff members have to think like business people,
know finance and accounting, and be accountable and responsible for cost reductions and the
measurement of all HR programs and processes. It's not enough to ask for a seat at the
executive table; HR people will have to prove they have the business savvy necessary to sit
there.

HR Role: Employee Advocate

As an employee sponsor or advocate, the HR manager plays an integral role in organizational

success via his knowledge about and advocacy of people. This advocacy includes expertise in
how to create a work environment in which people will choose to be motivated, contributing,
and happy.

Fostering effective methods of goal setting, communication and empowerment through

responsibility, builds employee ownership of the organization. The HR professional helps
establish the organizational culture and climate in which people have the competency, concern
and commitment to serve customers well.

In this role, the HR manager provides employee development opportunities, employee

assistance programs, gain sharing and profit-sharing strategies, organization development
interventions, due process approaches to problem solving and regularly scheduled
communication opportunities.

HR Role: Change Champion

The constant evaluation of the effectiveness of the organization results in the need for the HR
professional to frequently champion change. Both knowledge about and the ability to execute
successful change strategies make the HR professional exceptionally valued.

Knowing how to link change to the strategic needs of the organization will minimize employee
dissatisfaction and resistance to change.

The HR professional contributes to the organization by constantly assessing the effectiveness of

the HR function. He also sponsors change in other departments and in work practices. To
promote the overall success of his organization, he champions the identification of the
organizational mission, vision, values, goals and action plans. Finally, he helps determine the
measures that will tell his organization how well it is succeeding in all of this.

Modern concept of hr mgmt

 The Modern Concept Of Human Resources
Posted on December 9th, 2008.

Human resources are a word with which a lot of organization explains the mixture of
conventionally directorial employee?s functions with performance, Employee Relations, and
resource planning or hr training. The field draws upon concepts developed in
Industrial/Organizational Psychology. Human resources have at least two related
interpretations depending on context. The original usage derives from political economy and
economics, where it was traditionally called labor, one of four factors of production. The more
common usage within corporations and businesses refers to the individuals within the firm, and
to the portion of the firm?s organization that deals with hiring, firing, training, and other
personnel issues. This article addresses both definitions.

The objective of Human Resources is to maximize the return on investment from the
organization?s human capital and minimize financial risk. It is the responsibility of
humanresource managers to conduct these activities in an effective, legal, fair, and consistent
manner.

Human resource management serves these key functions:

1. Selection
2. Training and Development
3. Performance Evaluation and Management
4. Promotions
5. Redundancy
6. Industrial and Employee Relations
7. Record keeping of all personal data.
8. Compensation, pensions, bonuses etc in liaison with Payroll
9. Confidential advice to internal ?customers? in relation to problems at work
10. Career development
Human resources

Modern analysis emphasizes that human beings are not ?commodities? or ?resources?, but are
creative and social beings in a productive enterprise. The 2000 revision of ISO 9001 in contrast
requires identifying the processes, their sequence and interaction, and to define and
communicate responsibilities and authorities. In general, heavily unionized nations such as
France and Germany have adopted and encouraged such job descriptions especially within
trade unions. One view of this trend is that a strong social consensus on political economy and a
good social welfare system facilitates labor mobility and tends to make the entire economy
more productive, as labor can move from one enterprise to another with little controversy or
difficulty in adapting.
An important controversy regarding labor mobility illustrates the broader philosophical issue
with usage of the phrase ?human resources or HR?: governments of developing nations often
regard developed nations that encourage immigration or ?guest workers? as appropriating
human capital that is rightfully part of the developing nation and required to further its growth
as a civilization. They argue that this appropriation is similar to colonial commodity fiat wherein
a colonizing European power would define an arbitrary price for natural resources, extracting
which diminished national natural capital.

The debate regarding ?human resources or HR? versus human capital thus in many ways
echoes the debate regarding natural resources versus natural capital. Over time the United
Nations have come to more generally support the developing nations? point of view, and have
requested significant offsetting ?foreign aid? contributions so that a developing nation losing
human capital does not lose the capacity to continue to train new people in trades, professions,
and the arts.

An extreme version of this view is that historical inequities such as African slavery must be
compensated by current developed nations, which benefited from stolen ?human
resources or HR? as they were developing. This is an extremely controversial view, but it echoes
the general theme of converting human capital to ?human resources? and thus greatly
diminishing its value to the host society, i.e. ?Africa?, as it is put to narrow imitative use as ?
labor? in the using society.

In a series of reports of the UN Secretary-General to the General Assembly over the last decade
[e.g. A/56/162 (2001)], a broad inter sectoral approach to developing human resourcefulness
has been outlined as a priority for socio-economic development and particularly anti-poverty
strategies. This calls for strategic and integrated public policies, for example in education,
health, and employment sectors that promote occupational skills, knowledge and performance
enhancement.

In the very narrow context of corporate ?human resources?, there is a contrasting pull to
reflect and require workplace diversity that echoes the diversity of a global customer base.
Foreign language and culture skills, ingenuity, humor, and careful listening, are examples of
traits that such programs typically require. It would appear that these evidence a general shift
to the human capital point of view, and an acknowledgment that human beings do contribute
much more to a productive enterprise than ?work?: they bring their character, their ethics,
their creativity; their social connections, in some cases even their pets and children, and alter
the character of a workplace. The term corporate, culture is used to characterize such
processes.
The traditional but extremely narrow context of hiring, firing, and job description is considered
a 20th century anachronism. Most corporate organizations that compete in the modern global
economy have adopted a view of human capital that mirrors the modern consensus as above.
Some of these, in turn, deprecate the term ?human resources? as useless.

In general, the abstractions of macroeconomics treat it this way - as it characterizes no

mechanisms to represent choice or ingenuity. So one interpretation is that ?firm-specific
human capital? as defined in macroeconomics is the modern and correct definition of ?human
resources? - and that this is inadequate to represent the contributions of ?human resources? in
any modern theory of political economy.

Modern concept of human resources

Though human resources have been part of business administration and organizations since the

first days of agriculture, the modern concept of human resources began in reaction to the
efficiency focus of Taylorism in the early 1900s. By 1920, psychologists and employment experts
in the United States started the human relations movement, which viewed workers in terms of
their psychology and fit with companies, rather than as interchangeable parts. This movement
grew throughout the middle of the 20th century, placing emphasis on how leadership,
cohesion, and loyalty played important roles in organizational success. Although more
increasingly challenged this view quantitatively, rigorous and less ?soft? management
techniques in the 1960s and beyond, human resources had gained a permanent role within an
organization