5 things you need to know about your HR

HR departments are crucial for any organization’s success (or demise). But a lot of employees still don’t understand what HR does and how can it help them grow. So, here are 5 things you need to know about your HR

1. Company goals come first, people second

The first and the most important thing for any corporate professional to understand is that you work for a company. A company exists to achieve something (its goals). It needs all kinds of resources to achieve that goals (financial, technology, physical assets and human resources). A company can fail/die if anyone or a combination of these resources do not work the way they are supposed to work. If a company fails, none of the resources would be needed.

Long story short, for any organization the purpose of its existence comes first. And hence, even for the HR department of that organization, the achievement of organizational goals matters the most.

What is it that we want to achieve this year? How many people would we need to achieve this goal? What skills/capabilities of people would be required? Where can we find these people? What would keep them engaged at work? What would be an ideal compensation for such resources? How can we ensure each human resource performs to the best of their ability? How do we know who is performing and who is not?

That’s how a HR plans for its strategy for the year. What are the company goals and how can human resources help it to achieve its target?

2. They do things to help YOU achieve those company goals

Now, only if the answers to these questions were as simple as it seems. With the best intentions, a HR can hire the best resources and break down the larger company goals into smaller goals for them to achieve, but not everybody can achieve them.

You may find the culture of the company not fit for you, your boss may be a dumb guy and hence you don’t feel motivated to come to work, or you could feel you are being made to do things which you can’t and hence you may not deliver the goals assigned to you. HR knows of all these possibilities and hence works with you on your training needs (both functional and behavioral skills capability building), works to provide you opportunities that keep you engaged at workplace, works on a culture where you like coming to work and gives you facilities and freedom that you deserve. All this to help YOU perform better and better. That’s their KRA. Because if you achieve your goals, the company achieves its.

3. It’s a two-way street- You need them. They need you.

 Your HR cannot work in isolation. It needs you to know whether whatever they have been doing, is it actually working or not. If their programs are not helping people perform better, stay happy & engaged at work, then they need to re-work. But who provides them these feeders?  You.

HR keeps its eyes and ears open for all formal, informal channel of communication and the signals its employees are giving it. Sudden increase in absenteeism/late coming just the day after appraisal letters are given out? Low turn out to the monthly birthday bash event? 0 suggestions in the suggestion box? It’s all there to be read, interpreted and acted upon. And HR does that.

For you, HR should not be only a place for your payroll & taxation queries. These guys are capable of many more fantastic things. Go and talk to them about possible career options you could have internally, understand how promotions are decided, how a particular policy benefits you, speak to them about how they evaluate internal candidates for roles, or why were you selected for a particular training program. Every organization follows a different process for each of these steps, so don’t assume anything basis your past experience. Get your facts corrected from them and utilize your HR for your personal & professional development.

4. Sorry, but they work in verticals

Even the best of HR leaders wonder why they do that, but they do work in verticals. Under the HR head, there is a team that looks after Payroll & Taxation, another that manages hiring, another that’s responsible for your appraisals, engagement, training etc., one that manages compensation & benefits and then there are business partners which are supposed to be your one stop shop for all your HR queries. Depending on what your query is, you could be speaking to multiple people in HR.

It could look cumbersome and irritating because not everyone is as smiling as the ideal HR go-to person, but consider it like walking into a Big Bazaar store for your monthly needs. Each section has a dedicated sales rep, he/she knows what’s kept where, whether this box is available in non-plastic or whether the pickle comes in a smaller jar. They keep getting shuffled around so that their expertise also increases and they gain experience to reach the store manager position one day.

5. Demand more and they will give more

Now most of the times employees have this Bad Boy image of HR, which is like a black hole, which no one understands and can get into. But it’s not that. Most of you don’t interact with HR as much as you should. That could be because your manager gets scared when you talk to HR, or you don’t like what HR does, or because HR itself is not very approachable.

Try and separate out the facts before you make an impression of your HR department. Even till date, managers tell employees that their promotion was withheld by HR, or the rating was dropped by HR or HR decided not to send you for this training. Yes, HR could be doing all those things but not without a reason. Understand those reasons, probe more. Ask questions. Seek answers. If HR doesn’t hear noises, it assumes everything’s fine. And it repeats the same thing next time.

Many a times employees quit after a bad rating, or a promotion not given, without understanding what led to those decisions. Yes, changing jobs is easy these days, but this can’t be a cycle you do every few years.

An important thing to keep in mind here is, ask questions to seek answers, not to seek a change in what has happened.

Subscribe to our email updates (Top right screen of home page) and never miss on a story. You can also follow us on Facebook (storysideup) & twitter (@storysideup)