Just a team of happy people engaged in employee well-being and enforcing rules is the most common yet surreal understanding of job roles in Human Resources and Capital Management. Surprisingly, that is why most people want to take up HR as their area of core in management courses. Little do they realize that it’s a critical profession wherein the managers are directly held responsible for employee burnout and lowered reputation in the industry. 48% of HR leaders have cited employee management as the most underrated task and that’s where the chain of Myths About HR and their job description begins. Think being an HR is easy? Think again!
Here are the top myths about the HRs.
They hire resources, only!
There couldn’t be a better kick-start to the subject than clarifying the greatest myth engulfing HR managers. Recruitment indeed is one of the most crucial enterprise functions assigned to the HR department but that doesn’t entirely covers all the functions in the HR domain. There’s payroll processing, compliance assurance management, employee grievances handling and of course events organizing and management. Although the volume of work in each of these roles may vary with organization, HR managers are at the helm of seamless functioning. For candidates seeking career choices in the field, there’s way more than just hiring resources for your organization. Explore more!
Payroll processing is a finance function
Partially yes but keeping human resource managers entirely out of scope is an unfair analysis. In fact, in many small scale organizations the HR department does most of payroll management tasking wherein they are the go to stop for employees seeking clarification on various issues. In other organizations, the HR department works as a buffer between the employee performance and the finance team that does transaction handling.
The salary / payment may vary for few employees every month on grounds of contractual engagement, performance metrics, and attendance / leave tracking and others. Thus, finance teams seek instructions from the HR departments for payment disbursement to the entire staff. Not to miss, payroll processing could get complex in bigger organizations wherein Tax management, Labour acts compliance and travel claims are highly important roles for HR teams.
They can make exceptions in the law
No they can’t! One of the Myths About HR teams is the restriction to go by the rule book. If the organization law asks them to fire an employee, no matter what their personal opinion is, they have to be the devil’s advocate and take strict measures. In a way, they are the buffer between employees and the leadership wherein the ultimate agenda is to convey the organization expectations with utmost transparency and take stringent actions as per the will of C- level executives, even if they don’t want to. It’s a hard job and they have to put down their emotional calling for the sake of the organization’s integrity in handling employees. However, sometimes the organization rule book may allow them to make exceptions in the rarest of occasions followed by valid justifications.
They train employees
Although HR departments are highly instrumental in conducting training courses as per the desire of the employees or the requirement of the company, they don’t exactly design the courses or train the employees. Depending upon the structure of the organization, HR managers do have talent development as an important job function in their profile to a certain level that covers analyzing training requirements from the product teams and finalizing an appropriate budget post conveying it to the finances. Therefore, they have to keep themselves updated with the company’s services and the extent to which employees must be trained for stronger bench strength.
They don’t need to have technical knowledge
In all honesty, this was true until few years ago when HR executives were expected to have some top level understanding of the company’s core services and the COE. However, with job roles diversifying into more areas, Human resource professionals have choice but educate themselves in the tech domain (basic level) so that they screen appropriate candidates while hiring and understand the skills gap prevailing within the organization. As discussed above, they are highly instrumental in organizing training session for employees wherein their technical understanding helps take better decisions. Having mentioned that, the biggest challenge stays with coping up with rapid changes in the company’s COE due to the trends in technology. Just like the product teams, HRs too update themselves as per the pulse of the market. You didn’t expect that right? This is also one of the big Myths About HR
Small companies don’t need HR
Wrong! In fact, they need Human Resource professionals as much as the bigger companies do. One of the most common Myths About HR encircling the spectrum is the lack of scope in such organizations. Small and Medium-scale enterprises including startups have a greater scope of rapid expansion and they need dedicated teams doing the tasks for them. Recruitment, setting up new center locations, employee management, office automation and many more tasks are by default assigned to the HR teams unlike larger establishments wherein dedicated departments take over respective jobs.
Lastly,
It is a job role meant for women
This one will be hard to argue upon as more than 70% of professionals in the HR industry are women. However, that doesn’t mean men don’t have a career growth in the business. Women are known to have better emotional intelligence quotient than men wherein they can understand the employee behavior better. For others, lack of women employees in an organization could be resolved with more women candidates available in the HR roles. The gender biased aspect is a graving concern across the industrial spectrum. However, that doesn’t hint at the future of HR departments entirely governed and run by women. A change is on its way!
It is a diversified portfolio and not anyone can become a good HR. Human Resource Specialists are the thread bonding the expectations of employees and the goals of an organization. It requires understanding of deep behavioral skills, transforming trends in the industry and ultimately the organization’s preparedness to expand services. There’s a lot more to do than just screen resumes. I hope this article has cleared all Myths About HR. Don’t forget to comment for more information.
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