In my experience, Human Resource Management (HRM) has been reduced to recruitment, as I highlighted in my most recent article in The New Times. HRM is the heart of organizations, as it manages their most important assets. Without the right talent to drive the business, there is no organization! Human Resources run the organization, they ensure its longevity, they generate the revenues to sustain it, they come up with the systems to allow it to run efficiently and the list goes on.

While most SME’s see HRM as an unnecessary and additional cost, some do not realize that they reduce their efficiency by passing on responsibilities of a Human Resource Manager to other  staff members (especially Finance Managers), taking them away from their core areas of specialty and what they were initially hired to do.

HRM is mutually beneficial to the employees and employers as it is a link to champion high performance of an institution through supporting, encouraging, and enabling employees–build capacity. HRM is there to create systems or work off systems that; empower and enable employees to grow and grow with an organization or institution to realize their internal vision and mission that they have set out to achieve.

It is through HRM that employees are positioned and well compensated for the right job; Job satisfaction is paramount to ensure job retention. When an employee is satisfied it allows them to focus on their work which is key to the organization. Let us take the example of family medical cover, when the fear of falling sick and medical bills are eliminated, the employee feels a sense of care and safety within the organization. In turn, this can increase their loyalty and dedication hence leading to staff retention.

The Human resource department is where the expectations and grievances of the employee and the organization are managed to benefit both parties.  In addition, it is important to have a body that ensures the labor laws are followed to protect all parties.

Without HRM the company is likely to face some setbacks, such as; high turnover of staff, high costs of recruitment, wrong fit in jobs, hence inability to reach business set targets. This becomes an unnecessary expense for an organization as they have to continuously re-train employees and that slows down the rate at which they will be able to achieve their goals.