Hr Roles and Responsibilities

Abstract

Human Resource Departments have grown a lot over the years, and have expanded their job duties to include things such as law knowledge in the workforce, ethics, training, etc. This paper will discuss how globalization, technology, diversity, e-business, and ethics have helped steer HR into that direction.

HR Roles and Responsibilities

Human Resources used to be seen as a department that solely tracked employee records. Over the last few years they have evolved into so much more due to changes in globalization, technology, diversity, e-business, and ethics. They are now responsible for things such as benefits, law interpretation, job descriptions, incentives, hiring processes, etc. The many sects that Human Resources can be identified with can be seen in Figure 1 (Noe, Hollenback, Gerhart, & Wright 2003).

Figure 1 Human Resource Management Practices

(Noe, et al pp. 5)

Globalization has drastically affected the way that companies conduct their businesses. Due to the fast and vast expansions, more and more companies are discovering that they need to keep up to date with the numerous employment laws in different states, and even countries. The majority of HR departments have adopted this task. They keep track of things such as the different wage and hour laws for the different regions where employees work.

Globalization has also affected the typical hiring process. Instead of just advertising open positions in local newspapers, companies can now post positions on numerous websites such as hotjobs, craigslist, monster.com, etc. Advertising can now reach more people to get a better pool to interview from. This was all made possible through the Internet.

Advances in technology have also helped HR evolve into the department they are now. Software such as WebEx and Microsoft Live help conduct online training for employees. It is now possible to offer training to remote employees without accruing the travel costs from airplanes, food, hotels, etc. Employees can have all the experiences of a classroom setting in a virtual environment.

Online training environments are also signs of e-business playing a role in HR. E-business can be defined as “any process that a business conducts electronically, especially business involving the use of the Internet” (Noe et al. 2003). It is becoming more and more common amongst businesses in the world today. The Fundamentals of Human Resources Management defines Electronic Human Resources Management (e-HRM) as being “the process and transmission of digitalized HR information, especially using computer networking and the Internet” (Noe et al 2003).

Salary.com is a neat tool that has become useful in the HR industry. It is now common for HR departments to use Salary.com to identify what the current median is for salaries related to open positions within their company. Salary.com can help identify salary suggestions in multiple regions as well, making it easy to justify salary in relation to job descriptions.

HR has also had to change the way companies are run due to diversity. Because of equal rights movements, globalization, and immigration, companies are becoming more and more diverse. Women are holding a lot of