About Human Resources

Human Resources, often known as HR, is the department of a company that manages everything related to employees. The Human Resources department, also known as Personnel, manages the functions of bringing talent into and out of the company, as well as administering and developing employees during their tenure.

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KEY TERMS
Human resources deals with the workforce of an organization, and is therefore an important and strategic part of every organization. It directly affects the functions of every other functional unit of an organization, such as finance, marketing, operations, and material resource management.

The growth of an organization depends on how employees perform their assigned task and meet their potential. Without a dedicated team of employees, it becomes difficult for an organization to survive market competition. Therefore a company should always focus on opportunities that can help improve employee performance and encourage them to put in their best effort. To fulfill this consideration, most at least mid-sized companies have a designated Human Resources department.

The department of Human Resources is endowed with the responsibility to design plans and programs related to employee welfare. As such, this department functions to hire, train, educate and recruit employees in a professional and legal manner. Apart from this, a Human Resource department also looks after employee well-being, such as the administration of payroll and benefits programs. It screens employee performance and accordingly announces promotions and incentives. The Human resource Department takes care of the administrative demands of employees as well as many management and legal issues.

The basic aim of the department is to increase a company's productivity by improving the work-performance of the employees. It should be said that HR departments have to advocate, essentially, for both sides: employer and employee. For employers, HR professionals work in risk mitigation, legal compliance, employee motivation, and labor and talent cost optimization. For employees, HR often mediates between employees and management, advocates for benefits and retention programs, and serves to improve employees' overall job satisfaction.