q1 HRM ensures the smooth functioning of an organisation.

The process starts with formulating the right

policies for the job requirements and ends with ensuring a successful business growth of the company.
Therefore, HRM is an invisible agent that binds all the aspects of the organisation to ensure smooth
progress.
In this modern era, organisations have become more people-centric than ever — especially since this
approach pays great dividends in terms of enhanced employee performance and lower attrition rates.
Human Resource Management or HRM plays a key role in allowing employers and organisations to reach
their objective.

The functions of HRM hold great significance in the growth and overall development of the organisations.
After all, when the employees grow and develop their skills, the organisation will automatically experience
growth and expansion. Some of the primary functions of HRM include job design and job analysis,
recruitment/ hiring and selection, training and development, compensation and benefits, performance
management, managerial relations and labour relations.

So, let us find out more about each of these seven functions of HRM.
1. Job design and job analysis

One of the foremost functions of HRM is job design and job analysis. Job design involves the process of
describing duties, responsibilities and operations of the job. To hire the right employees based on
rationality and research, it is imperative to identify the traits of an ideal candidate who would be suitable
for the job. This can be accomplished by describing the skills and character traits of your top-performing
employee. Doing so will help you determine the kind of candidate you want for the job. You will be able to
identify your key minimum requirements in the candidate to qualify for the job.

Job analysis involves describing the job requirements, such as skills, qualification and work experience.
The vital day-to-day functions need to be identified and described in detail, as they will decide the future
course of action while recruiting.

2. Employee hiring and selection

Recruitment is one of the primary functions of human resource management. HRM aims to obtain and
retain qualified and efficient employees to achieve the goals and objectives of the company. All this starts
with hiring the right employees out of the list of applicants and favourable candidates.

An HRM helps to source and identify the ideal candidates for interview and selection. The candidates are
then subjected to a comprehensive screening process to filter out the most suitable candidates from the
pool of applicants. The screened candidates are then taken through different interview rounds to test and
analyse their skills, knowledge and work experience required for the job position.

Once the primary functions of HRM in recruitment are completed, and the candidate gets selected after
rounds of interviews, they are then provided with the job offer in the respective job positions. This process
is important because these selected employees will, after all, help the company realise its goals and
objectives.

3. Employee training & development

Imparting proper training and ensuring the right development of the selected candidates is a crucial
function of HR. After all, the success of the organisation depends on how well the employees are trained
for the job and what are their growth and development opportunities within the organisation.

The role of HR should be to ensure that the new employees acquire the company-specific knowledge and
skills to perform their task efficiently. It boosts the overall efficiency and productivity of the workforce,
which ultimately results in better business for the company.

HRM plays a very crucial role in preparing employees for bigger tasks and responsibilities, which leads to
the holistic development of employees at work. And an organisation which provides ample growth and
development opportunities to its employees is considered to be a healthy organisation.

4. Compensation and Benefits

Benefits and compensation form the major crux of the total cost expenditure of an organisation. It is a
must to plug the expenses, and at the same time, it is also necessary to pay the employees well.
Therefore, the role of human resource management is to formulate attractive yet efficient benefits and
compensation packages to attract more employees into the workplace without disturbing the finances of
the company.

The primary objective of the benefits and compensation is to establish equitable and fair remuneration for
everyone. Plus, HR can use benefits and compensation as a leverage to boost employee productivity as
well as establish a good public image of the business.

Therefore, one of the core HR department functions is to lay down clear policies and guidelines about
employee compensation and their available benefits. One of the functions of HR manager is to ensure the
 effective implementation of these policies and guidelines. This creates equality and builds transparency
among the employees and the management within the organisation. After all, the level of employee
satisfaction at work is directly proportional to the compensation and benefits they receive.

5. Employee performance management

The next activity on HR functions list is effective employee performance management. Effective
performance management ensures that the output of the employees meets the goals and objective of the
organisation. Performance management doesn’t just focus on the performance of the employee. It also
focuses on the performance of the team, the department, and the organisation as a whole.

The list of HR functions for performance management includes:

 Developing a proper job description

 Initiating an appropriate selection process to hire the right candidates for the job positions
 Providing the right training and education needed to enhance the performance of the employees
 Enabling real-time feedback and coaching employees to boost efficiency among them
 Conducting performance reviews monthly or quarterly to discuss the positives and the
improvement areas of employees
 Formulating a proper exit interview process to understand why experienced employees choose to
leave the company
 Designing a proper appraisal and compensation system that recognises and rewards the
workforce for their effort and hard work
6. Managerial relations

Relationships in employment are normally divided into two parts — managerial relations and labour
relations. While labour relations is mainly about the relationship between the workforce and the company,
managerial relations deals with the relationship between the various processes in an organisation.

Managerial relations determine the amount of work that needs to be done in a given day and how to
mobilise the workforce to accomplish the objective. It is about giving the appropriate project to the right
group of employees to ensure efficient completion of the project. At the same time, it also entails
managing the work schedules of employees to ensure continued productivity. It is essential that HR
handles such relations effectively to maintain the efficiency and productivity of the company.

7. Labour relations

Cordial labour relations are essential to maintain harmonious relationships between employees at the
workplace. At the workplace, many employees work together towards a single objective. However,
individually, everyone is different from the other in characteristics. Hence, it is natural to observe a
communication gap between two employees. If left unattended, such behaviours can spoil labour
relations in the company.

Therefore, it is crucial for an HR to provide proper rules, regulations and policies about labour relations.
This way, the employees have a proper framework within which they need to operate. Therefore, every
employee will be aware of the policies which will create a cordial and harmonious work environment.

Such a structured and calm work atmosphere also helps with improving performance and aching higher
targets.

8. Employee engagement and communication

Employee engagement is a crucial part of every organization. Higher levels of engagement guarantee
better productivity and greater employee satisfaction. Efficiently managing employee engagement
activities will help in improving the employee retention rates too. HRM is the right agent who can manage
the employee engagement seamlessly. Proper communication and engagement will do wonders for the
employees as well as the organization. The more engaged the employees are, more committed and
motivated they will be.

Human resource teams know the ‘humans’ of the organization better than anyone else. This gives them
an upper hand in planning engagement activities. Although such activities might not fall under the direct
functions of HRM, they are indeed required for the organizational welfare and employer branding.

9. Health and safety regulations

Every employer should mandatorily follow the health and safety regulations laid out by the authorities. Our
labour laws insist every employer to provide whatever training, supplies, PPE, and essential information
to ensure the safety and health of the employees. Integrating the health and safety regulations with
company procedures or culture is the right way to ensure the safety of the employees. Making these
safety regulations part of the company activities is one of the important functions of HRM.

10. Personal support for employees

HRM assists employees when they run into personal problems which may interfere with the workflow.
Along with discharging administrative responsibilities, HR departments also help employees in need.
Since the pandemic, the need for employee support and assistance has substantially increased.For
example, many employees needed extra time off and medical assistance during the peak period of the
pandemic. For those who reached out for help, whether it may be in the form of insurance assistance or
extra leaves, companies provided help through HR teams.

11. Succession Planning

Succession planning is a core function of HRMs. It aims at planning, monitoring, and managing the
growth path of the employees from within the organizations.

What usually happens is that promising and bright employees within the organization who have excelled
in their roles are handpicked by their supervisors and HRs, and their growth paths are developed.

This, of course, becomes quintessential as those employees who recognize the fact that the company is
investing in their growth and development, and therefore, will stay loyal in the long run. However, while
developing such employees towards a higher role, companies must keep in mind several aspects, such
as improving employee engagement, assigning challenging tasks and activities.

An employee leaving the organisation can prove to be disruptive and expensive. Therefore, succession
planning is a saviour of some sorts, as it helps identify the next person who is just right to replace the
outgoing individual.

12. Industrial Relations

It’s usually the production lines and manufacturing units where this HR function is mostly used. You see,
Unions exist in factories and manufacturing units. And their responsibility is towards the goodwill about
the workers — in fact, they’re always vocal and upfront about.

Now, for a company, especially into manufacturing and production, the HRs must have ongoing Industrial
Relations practices. They must also continuously engage with the Unions in a friendly and positive
manner to maintain amicable relations.

The true motive of Industrial Relation touches on a lot of issues within the company. For instance,
Industrial Relations may be in place to meet wage standards, reduce instances that call for strikes and
protests, improve working and safety conditions for employees, reduce resource wastage and production
time and so on.

Industrial Relations is extremely important because, if handled properly, it can circumvent protests,
violence, walkouts, lawsuits, loss of funds and production time. IR is a sensitive yet critical function of the
HR department, naturally, it requires personnel with vast experience.

HRM plays a major role in the smooth functioning of the organisation. The process starts with formulating
the right policies for the job requirements and ends with ensuring a successful business growth of the
company. Therefore, HRM works as an invisible agent that binds together all the aspects of the
organisation to ensure smooth progress.

q2 HR professionals have more than one reason to explain this, but the problem doesn’t end here,
there are various other challenges that the industry is likely to face in the coming years. With that in
mind, here are the 9 major responses by different HR professionals on being asked, “What will be
the “real” HR challenges in the coming years?”

1) Retaining and Rewarding Talented Candidates:

Around 59% seasoned HR professionals believe that in the next few years, major battle will be
retaining talented and well-performing candidates. Moreover, it is going to become even worse to
recognize and reward the real performers as the market competitiveness is growing and that needs
more collaborated efforts to establish loyalty among employees.

2) Developing Future Leaders:

With growing options for top performing candidates, employers are in a great jitty over how will they
build the future pillars of the organization. The rising employee turnover rate is
giving recruiters really a tough time with implementing practices to enhance employee engagement
and make them stay for long in the organization. Over 52% HR people have a serious concern over
building next generation organizational leaders.

3) Establishing Healthy and Cooperative Corporate

Culture:
Corporate culture has become one of the deciding factors lately. Elevating market demands makes
companies work more to grow, expand and sustain within the volatile market scenarios. This, thus
directly or indirectly affects the organizational culture, as every resource is over-occupied with loads
of work that may affect the healthy work culture at office leading more to clashes or office chaos.

4) Attracting Top Talent to Organization:

During any job interview, a candidate’s job is to sell himself to the recruiters. Similarly, the recruiters
also need to sell themselves before the candidate. It is now more important as the talent shortage is
making every organization strive to bring in the best talent and become the most preferred choice
among available options. Around 36% recruiters feel that it is the need of the hour to establish a
corporate culture that will attract best candidates to your organization.

5) Elevating Human Capital Investments:

Around two-fifth of HR professionals indicate that the biggest challenge for the coming decade will
be acquiring human capital and optimizing human capital investments. On deeply analyzing the
challenges, one thing that is clear is that the most difficult challenge that’ll crop up is retaining good
employees and attracting best candidates. This entails that HR professionals need to develop talent
management tactics that can effectively contribute in attracting, retaining and rewarding top
performing employees. But what the organizations can do for countering this skills shortage and
ensure that they find right candidates? Here are the major responses to this…

6) Flexible Work Arrangements:

Millennials just love it! The coming generation of employees emphasizes on working in flexible set-
ups and the major concern must be kept on giving results and not on working in a traditional 9 to 6
set-up. This does not disrupts the company decorum or discipline, it will just allow individuals to
work the way they want and exhibit better productivity. Even 40% HR pros believe that this can be a
wining factor.

7) Clear & Transparent Work Culture & Open Leadership:

Employees demand it greatly, but are seen rarely! That’s a fact! Maximum organizations fail to
establish a culture of clear and transparent work communication or open leadership that somewhere
affects the employee morale and his dedication to work. 37% have indicated that if communication
barriers are removed, then the organization can attract more candidates.

8) Career Advancement Opportunities for Employees:

If the company takes employee career development seriously and strives to work for it as well, then
definitely you can shine out over your competitors who are also looking to grab talented
prospects for the same jobs. Around 26% professionals have indicated this as a problem and major
factor for increased attrition rate.

9) Better Compensations:
Undoubtedly, money matters! If you have a start performer, you need to take good care of the
compensation you offer. These days employers are largely playing on this factor with awarding
employees lucrative reward packages and attracting more talent towards them. Thus, recruiters need
to fold up their sleeves to attract the real talent to themselves to stay ahead of their counterparts.
Recruitment processes are the first interface of candidates with the company and this need to be the
best of all. The employer must sell the organization to the candidate and the boarding candidate must
also feel elated on joining the same. Apart from other factors, one is that of technology upgraded-
ness. Now is the time of the cloud and one has to be up on technology as every candidate wants to
get smoother recruitment application and processing. An effective Recruitment Management
System must be there that can take care of channelized processing from application to on-boarding
while the HR people can work on other retention and acquisition tactics!

q3There is a lot of evidence that empowering employees is directly linked with increased productivity. Not
only that job satisfaction and loyalty to the company are also improved.
One thing is for sure, the success of your company is directly linked with the success of your employees.
When your employees are successful, so is your company.
So, let’s get down to basics, shall we? What do we exactly mean when we say empowering employees?
Empowering employees is simply giving your employees more freedom and thereby making them
more accountable in every task they handle. It means giving your team members and your employees
permission to take decisions and actions that affect your company.

So what is an empowered organization?

Business dictionary probably summed it up in the best way.
An empowered organization is one where individuals have the knowledge, skill, desire and
opportunity to personally succeed in a way that leads to the success of the organization.
Human beings have a natural craving for power. As managers, tapping what makes employees more
productive in their job is extremely crucial. Employees want to have a certain degree of freedom and it is
something you must give to them.
If employees don’t see a fast-rising graph in their career path, they lose interest at work and productivity
falls. On the other hand, when you empower them, they become more responsible, more invested. And
hence more efficient at the job.
Let’s take the example of the World’s leading online retailer, Amazon.
While Amazon's culture is nowhere near perfect, they have got one thing right. And that is empowering
employees. Amazon’s motto is to “Make employees think like owners”. Their 14 Leadership
principles put emphasis on “taking ownership” and autonomy at work. The idea of offering stock options
at Amazon while hiring puts another feather on the cap.
"We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee
base. Each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner."- Jeff Bezos

6 Hidden Benefits of Empowering Employees

Before going any further, let us take a step back. We know what employee empowerment means. But
how does empowering your employees translate into better organizational performance?
Let’s have a look at a few ways empowering employees benefits your company.
1. More Productivity
This is one of the direct benefits of employee empowerment. Your employees become much more
productive when they are involved in all the key decision-making issues.
You will never feel motivated to work for a company where you have little autonomy and are often ordered
what to do, right? In the same way, your employees don’t really enjoy it when you order them to work on a
certain project or work in a certain way.
When employees make decisions on their own, they generally achieve a sense of empowerment and not
only increase their productivity but also improves the work environment with their positivity and energy.

2. Employee Satisfaction
It is a proven fact that when we make our own decisions, we tend to be more satisfied. Having an
environment of accountability encourages your employees to take more decisions on their own. This
trickles down into them being happy and satisfied. And of course, satisfied employees are likely to be
more productive, energetic and more loyal.
When a project goes well, your employees feel a sense of accomplishment as they had autonomy over
the project. This encourages your employees to take on even more bold decisions and projects in the
future. When your employees are satisfied you automatically make a case for a dynamic employee
branding.

3. Improved Employee Branding

One of the ways in which empowering employees can help directly is making a case for employee
branding. When your brand is known for empowering its employees, you can make a great case for
superior employee branding.
Wait, what is employee branding you ask?
The core idea of employee branding is that you have such a superior work culture that your employees
act as brand ambassadors and present your company in the best light possible.
When employees feel empowered, your company becomes an ideal place to work for job seekers. Having
a great employee brand serves various purposes. First of all your company becomes desirable for all the
top talents.
Also, since you have a bustling employee branding you don’t have to invest too heavily on recruitment
processes. Making your company desirable also serves the purposes of reducing your employee attrition.
Since your employees are already working for a desirable company, they are less likely to leave.

4. Flattening the Hierarchy

One of the hidden benefits of empowering your employees is flattening your hierarchy. In a flat hierarchy,
there is little to no micro-managing.
A flat structure can eliminate the excess management layers to improve communication and increase
transparency in the workforce. Fewer management levels can improve productivity and decision making
among your employees.
Of course, there is some risk of flat hierarchy too. There is a good chance for generalization and
confusion if the desired results are not achieved. It becomes unclear as to who would be responsible for
the failure of a certain project, the guy who worked on the content or the guy who worked on the
voiceover, etc.
What you need to do is understand the level of “flatness” you want. If you have a huge company, maybe
going too flat might not be the best idea. If your company is small, then a flat hierarchy can give you
optimum results.

5. Career Development
Career development is one of the most crucial factors for employees when they consider a job.
In fact, according to a 2018 survey, 75% of employees are looking for opportunities for skill development.
Empowering your employees is one of the most efficient ways to develop their skills. Since they will be
taking most of the decisions involving their work, it is likely that they would put extra effort into the project.
When employees are empowered, it gives them a sense of accountability and responsibility for
developing their own skills. They usually go to lengths for optimizing their efforts and nailing their work. It
is one less worry for the human resources department when employees are fueling their own skills and
developing themselves.

6. Customer Handling
Good or bad customer experience is largely dependent on one thing and that is what is happening in the
inside of an organization.
One of the major advantages of empowering employees can be seen in the quality of customer service.
According to a Gallup study, organizations that empower employees experience 50% higher customer
loyalty.
Empowered employees take personal pride in their work and they take the responsibility for doing a good
job. As a result, organizations reap the benefits of empowered employees as they deliver superior
products and services.
Additionally, empowered employees can address day to day challenges of customer handling much more
efficiently. For example, while dealing with an unsatisfied customer if your employees have the tools and
authority to make a decision, they can fix the issue there and then.

How can we make employees feel empowered?

Build Trust and respect:
Foster a culture at work where employees feel respected and trusted. Attitude is an important part of the
environment. Empowerment is not a one-step process but a continuous one. It requires nurturing and
grooming of employees from the very beginning.
Trust provides a secure place for people to share their struggles and achievement. It helps them unlock
their full potential and thrive as individuals and teams.
Facilitate Robust Communication :
Communication is the most crucial element to spark empowerment. Employees shouldn’t feel they are
last to know about any development in the company. When the management makes sharing information a
norm, it makes all the difference.
People love to be let in on important issues. It enhances the feeling of belongingness in the company.
Simultaneously, the management should also be receptive of inputs coming from the
employees. Listening and making them feel heard are proven boosters of employee morale. And hence
empowerment.

Be clear about Company Core Values and Goals:

Alignment is an important part of empowerment. The goals and objectives of the company should be
clearly spelt out to the employees. Your employee should be aware of what is expected of them.
They can then align their personal objectives with their job role. It will boost their confidence in
contributing to the ultimate goal of the company. Hence enhancing empowerment.

Provide Tools and Resources:

If you want to empower your employees, you must also give them the means to grow.
One of the biggest challenges that employees often face is the lack of tools and resources. It is necessary
that these are readily available for employees to deliver their best.
Moreover, companies that are early adopters of technology are better at dealing with changes. Both the
employees and the company become better prepared for future obstacles. It creates an empowering work
environment.