The Many Faces of the Human Resource Manager

The Human Resources functions are perceived by some as the last stronghold of an organization. Conventionally, the role of the Human Resource Managers in many companies has been to serve as the standardizing, law enforcement arm of the executive management. In this function, the Human Resource Manager served executive outlines well, but was commonly sighted as a road block by much of the rest of the company. While some requirements for this role intermittently remain (nobody wants every manager putting his own twist on a sexual harassment policy, as an example), much of the Human Resource Manager's role is transforming itself.

The function of the Human Resource Manager must correspond to the growing and changing needs of the organization. Successful companies are becoming more malleable, flexible, quick to change pattern and customer-centered. Within this corporate environment, the Human Resource Manager, who is deemed necessary by line managers, is a strategic partner, an administrative expert, an employee champion, a management adviser and a change agent.

This paper aims to explore the added value of the Human Resource Manager as a whole and more specifically in the decision-making processes. While in the past a great deal of focus has been devoted to the miscellaneous roles and activities of the Human resource Manager, today, many information has been going out about the involvement of the Human resource Manager in the organizations' decision-making process. These, will be discussed in this paper and so, we will try to see if one role is much greater than the other, or every role is equally important.

General Discussion

Before we can decide which of the many roles of the Human Resource Manager is his most important function, we need to examine each role one by one to weigh things fairly and reasonably.

Strategic Partner

Nowadays, Human Resource Managers need to think of themselves as strategic partners to guarantee their feasibility and capacity to contribute in the organization. In this role, the Human Resource Manager plays a part in the development and accomplishment of the organizational-wide business strategy and objectives.

The Human Resource trade objectives are set up to sustain the accomplishment of the total strategic business plan and objectives of the company. The strategic Human Resource representative must be deeply knowledgeable about the design of labor schemes in which people contribute and succeed. This strategic joint venture impacts Human Resource services such as the outline of job positions; hiring; recognition, reward, and strategic pay; performance enhancement and assessment systems; profession and succession planning; and employee growth.

Employee Champion

As an employee champion or advocate, the Human Resource Manager plays an essential role in company success through his knowledge about the sentiments, as well as the advocacy of people. This advocacy comprises expertise in how to build a work setting in which people will choose to be contributing, motivated and happy.

What builds an employee's "ownership" of the company is the nurturing effective method of objective setting, communication and empowerment through responsibility. The Human Resource Manager helps establish the corporate culture and atmosphere in which people have the proficiency, concern and dedication to serve customers well.

In this function, the Human Resource Manager provides employee advancement opportunities, employee support programs, gain-sharing and profit-sharing schemes, company development involvements, due process method to problem solving and regularly scheduled interaction opportunities.

Human Resource Manager as Employee Champions make them leap tall issues in a single bound because it will allow them to work to support, build up, facilitate, and empower the organization's employees; thus helping to create the optimum environment for productivity and contentment. Also, this will ensure the company that they have 100% of their employees thinking for the company, not just 5% of their managers.

Change Agent

The continuous assessment of the effectiveness of the company results in the need for the Human Resource Manager to frequently campaign change. The Human Resource Manager is exceptionally valued if he has both knowledge about and the capacity to execute victorious change strategies. The working knowledge of how to link change to the strategic needs of the company will curtail employee discontentment and resistance to change.

The Human Resource Manager contributes to the company by constantly evaluating the effectiveness of the Human Resource function. He also sponsors modification in other departments and in work practices. To support the overall victory of his company, he champions the recognition of the corporate mission, values, vision, goals and action plans. He also helps determine the quantifying factors that will tell his company how well it is succeeding in all of this.

A Human Resources Manager as a Change Agent knows that the only constant in the business world these days is change. The rate of change is not only speeding up, it is on all sides of new characteristics such as the emotional and remarkable dimensions involved with the customer experience. A Human Resource Manager needs to anticipate change but most importantly enable the company to build the capacity to change into its central competencies. He must be responsible for helping employees and the company as a whole to adapt in the best possible manner. As you he sees trends develop, his valuable insights will keep him ahead of the game. He must use skills to lead people and the company both through anticipated and unanticipated changes.

Administrative Expert

A Human Resource Manager makes important on-going contributions to the company's competitiveness through effective and efficient delivery of the Human Resource systems; thus, he becomes an Administrative Expert. He must be responsible for all his administrative functions such as staffing, compensation, performance administration, benefits, plus training and skills enhancement. He can be analogous to a glue which keeps the traditional Human Resource processes moving.

Management Adviser

Being a Management Adviser means becoming a business partner who works to recommend business strategies and enhance a varied workforce to sustain the delivery of those strategies. He must develop a solid understanding and working knowledge of all aspects of the business, including strategies, measures, competitors, and customers, so he can have a voice in the management environment as well as partner successfully with corporate leaders.

Conclusion

It was a well-known fact that when the scope for cost cutting and efficiency improvements stops to be the main supply of profitability growth, the company needs to focus on productivity generation through employee's innovation and the development of new ideas.

This focus on individual employees, their creativity, performance and innovation is the professional concern of the Human Resources function. However, it is also the business concern of line managers and foremost the concern of the leading executives. Managers seeking income growth need to engage their employees in a new quest for ingenuity in all aspects of provision for present and potential customers. The triumph of this mission depends largely on three essential factors:

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Effective leadership
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A skilled, knowledgeable and motivated people
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A company designed to enable people to achieve

Effective leadership is the uppermost priority to develop a company which can maximize outcomes in the competitive external corporate environment. This can be done by delivering excellent client experiences. Human Resources Managers can support the advancement of leaders who use power for the benefit of the whole company. This is an integrity issue. Help is also required in providing the proper balance of motivation and reasoned strategy. Human Resources Managers can help executives build the strong frameworks that will tie strategic goals with guiding values in support of the firm's purpose and direction.

Thus, it is of paramount importance that a Human Resource Manager plays a little of every role that has been discussed in this paper. His administrative functions are not enough for him to become effective in his work. All the roles discussed herewith are of equal importance, a Human Resource Manager must not sacrifice one role for the other. A wholly efficient Human Resource Manager knows very well that a table cannot support itself with one leg missing, as he cannot continue to stand firm in his position if one role is overlooked or improperly delivered.

I therefore conclude that all roles of a Human Resource Manager, from being a Strategic Partner, to being an Administrative Expert, an Employee Champion, a Management Adviser and a Change Agent must be given equal treatment for a Human Resource Manager to succeed and for him to become a valuable factor in the company's success.