Human Resource Management Functions

What is the primary role of the Human Resource Function in an organization?

According to Ulrich, what is essential for achieving organizational excellence?

Which of the following activities is NOT part of the Human Resource Function?

What is the ultimate goal of the Human Resource Function?

What are the three central activities of the Human Resource Function?

What is involved in retaining human resources?

What is one of the organisational challenges that requires organisations to improve their learning capabilities and manage complexity and diversity?

What is the primary role of HR in facilitating the manner in which the organisation deals with the organisational challenges?

What is the primary focus of HR according to Ulrich (1998)?

What is the main challenge that managers face in terms of Intellectual Capital?

What is the primary role of HR in relation to employee commitment?

What is the primary focus of HR in terms of coping with change?

Human Resources Function

Defined as the activities that managers engage in to attract and retain employees, and to ensure they perform at a high level and contribute to organizational goals.
The HR function assists other managers in fully utilizing the employees allocated to them.

Key Activities of HR Function

Attracting human resources:
- Involves human resource planning, recruitment, selection, placement, and induction.
Retaining human resources:
- Involves managing employee performance, remunerating employees, providing for health and safety, and promoting positive labor relations.
Developing human resources:
- Involves training and educating employees both on and off the job.

Importance of HR Function

Achieving organizational excellence must be the work of HR, given the competitive forces that exist today.
The importance of HR is due to several organizational challenges:
- Globalization: improving learning capabilities and managing complexity and diversity.
- Profitability through growth: innovation, creativity, and encouraging information sharing among employees.
- Technology: remaining ahead of the information curve and utilizing information to attain business results.
- Intellectual capital: attracting, assimilating, compensating, and retaining talented individuals.
- Change: developing the capacity to cope with change.

Changing Role of HR Function

To facilitate the organization's response to challenges, the HR function needs to change its role by becoming:
- A partner in strategy execution: guiding strategy discussions and decisions.
- An administrative expert: improving efficiency within the HR department and the entire organization.
- An employee champion: ensuring employee commitment to the organization.
- A change agent: building the organization's capacity to embrace and cope with change.
HR needs to focus more on deliverables of their work and less on just getting their work done.

Test your understanding of the Human Resource Function and its role in attracting and retaining employees, ensuring high performance and contributing to organizational goals. Learn about the central tasks of HR and how it supports other managers in the business. Evaluate your knowledge of HR activities and their impact on organizational success.