Human Resources Roles of Managers and Supervisors

¶ … Human Resources roles of Managers and Supervisors and the impact of the roles upon the management team?

Human resources managers traditionally handle a management team's specific personnel decisions. These decisions often include the hiring of new staff, the position assignment of existing staff members and the adjustments to the pay schedule and other forms of compensation for both existing and new organizational members. Human resource management decisions are subject varying levels oversight by human resource supervisors. For instance, a human resources professional at a smaller firm may be simultaneously involved in financial resource allocation, compensation, benefits, compliance with laws affecting employees and the workplace, and safety and health issues. A human resource professional at a larger firm will likely be assigned to oversee one of those areas. Thus, a human resource supervisor at a large organization may be responsible for coordinating the various efforts of many different managers within the department, and make sure that their various capabilities do not overlap, while at a smaller firm, the supervisor may have a more general observatory role of managers from a variety of departments. (Princeton Review, 2005)

Question 2

What skills will successful Human Resources Professionals of the future need to have to be an effective Strategic Business Partner with the organization?

A Strategic Business Partner is a member of the organization that adds needed, documented value to an organization. According to Victor Magdaradog, "an enterprise has two critical components" the "what and how" of business -- "both of which flow from the enterprise vision." The "what" much describes areas the business "needs to achieve and excel in (in terms of products or services, market, cost and quality) in order to provide outstanding customer satisfaction." The "how, on the other hand, reflects the practices, processes and methodologies the enterprise adopts in order to achieve its goals." (Magdaradog, 2003) A Human resource professional must be both flexible and goal-directed to achieve the overall vision of "what" the organization aims to do, and facilitate the human person's entry and development in the organization to achieve and realize the process of "how" the organization meets its goals.

The effective human resources professional thus must understand the purpose of the organization he or she is a part of so as to be able to hire staff that can achieve that vision, and ensure that quality people advance in the organization. The HR professional must be both people-savvy in a non-quantifiable fashion, yet still have a good assessment of the technical and financial needs of the organization.

Question 3

Why is it important for the Human Resources Professional to be a Strategic Business Partner (SBP)?