HR Manager Interview Organization Information

HR Manager Interview

Organization Information

Washington Mutual provides employment services to companies. The company recruits, staffs, and trains employees. Washington Mutual's HR Deparment has 13 peers nationally, consisting of two teams, the North and South. Each team has a senior manager who, on the other hand, reports to the first vice president of the company.

Background of HR Manager

The HR Manager is the Senior Human Resources Business Partner of Great Lakes Group. He has a degree in Economics for his undergraduate course. For his graduate degree, he gained an MBA, focusing an expertise on change management and leadership. Furthering his skills and adding more credits to his credentials, the HR Manager has Professional Human Resource Accreditation from SHRM, the Society of Human Resource Management.

Washington Mutual's HR Manager joined the company on October 13, 2002. He has an almost 13 years of experience in Human Resource Department. Before focusing his career in Human Resource Management, he used to be a benefit analyst with GATX Corporation for 7 years. He was already a Senior Human Resources Representative, finishing a management training program when he left the company.

The HR Manager also ventured in sales in Robert Half International/Office Team. However, he realized that he did not like sales that made him leave the company after 6 months. He then spent 3 years, from 1997 to 2000, with Unilever Home and Personal Care as an HR Generalist.

It was there where he received his manufacturing and production experience. After Unilever, he took a chance and went to work for Homegrocer.com as an HR Manager. Unfortunately, Homegrocer did not succeed and was eventually bought out.

After Homegrocer, the Washington Mutual's HR Manager became unemployed for the first time. Two months after, before the end of year 2000, he was employed again. He started to work for at&T Wireless as an HR Manger for the Chicago District for almost 3 years. The HR Manager finally ended up at Washington Mutual as a Senior Human Resource Business Partner in October of 2003.

Rating of HR Activities

When asked on the question "How would you rate the HR activities?," the HR Manager promptly replied that HR activities is predominantly qualitative and hard to measure. This is perhaps due to the fact that hiring employees may focus on assessing different skills and qualifications based on the requirements of a company. In such assessment, the activities to evaluate the skills of applicants may differ.

Moreover, HR activities was perhaps said to be hard to measure because the responsibilities of a human resource department focus on the many needs of every employees of a company. Their responsibilities do not only include hiring employees but providing services to employees as well to sustain their stay and services for the company.

Role of HR Deparment

Following are based on the responses of the Senior HR Manager of Washington Mutual.

What is the role of HR Department in your organization?

According to the HR Manager, the role of HR Department in Washington Mutual is to handle the responsibilities relating to performance management and workforce planning. The company's HR Department also acts as a steward to the company's brand and change agents.

To what extent is the HR Staff/Deparment involved in strategic business planning? Please explain.

The HR staff and department is strategically involved from a workforce planning prospective. Whenever there is a hiring need, departmental change, or a position that needs to be created, everything starts from the HR department. They look at various factors internally and externally before proceeding on the processes that will meet the needs of the company. One factor that the HR department considers in their business planning is the budget of the company.

In your own opinion, what are some of the most pressing human resource issues faced by organizations today? Why?

The HR Manager considers technology as one of the most pressing human resource issues that is faced by organizations nowadays. According to him, keeping up with the systems that run the back office HR functions such as payroll, compensation, and benefits, is a responsibility that some companies are better in doing. The HR Manager mentioned this in relation to the damaging effects that outdated systems and automations would cause if a company, particularly the HR Deparment in this essay, will not comply to the maintenance of such technology. The HR Manager stated that You could have slow systems, manual as opposed to automated systems creating a higher headcounts and low employee morale if the systems are causing medical benefit issues or pay period problems. Technoloy will also allow your company a more efficient way to keep records, to track performance, and to reward good performance.