The role of human resource management is to plan, develop and administer policies and programmes designed to make expeditious use of an organisation’s human rusources. It is that part of management which is concerned with the people at work and with their relationship within an enterprise. The major functional areas in human resource management are:
1. Planning,
2. Staffing,
3. Employee development, and
4. Employee maintenance.
A brief description of usual human resource functions are Human Resource Planning, job annalysis, staffing, trainning and development, performance management, career planning, compensation, labour relations.
In the human resource planning function, the number and type of employees needed to accomplish organisational goals are determined. The basic human resource planning strategy is staffing and employee development.
Staffing emphasises the recruitment and selection of the human resources for an organisation. Recruiting is the personnel function that attracts qualified applicants to fill job vacancies. In the selection function, the most qualified applicants are selected for hiring from among those attracted to the organisation by the recruiting function. On selection, human resource functionaries are involved in developing and administering methods that enable managers to decide which applicants to select and which to reject for the given jobs. In both recruitment and selection, company should provide equal employment opportunity, Levi Strauss & Co. has been a leader in the fight for equal rights for over 50 years. “We are engaged in the battle for equal rights on many fronts: racial, gender, sexual and economic. And our efforts to bring about equality for all extend well beyond our own workplaces, where we treasure the diverse backgrounds and talents of our employees.”(Levi Strauss & Co 2013).
Performance appraisal function monitors employee performance to ensure that it is at acceptable levels.