Managing an Effective HR Department

Running an effective HR department in today’s world can be very difficult to do, especially when you are new on the job. Be sure that you know how to run the department so you can have the office following federal regulations and company procedures as well. Many employees fear a human resources department, equating it to a school principal’s office, because they feel that most news from the department is bad news. You will want to create an environment in the office where the other departments trust and respect the HR department to the point where employees do not mind meeting with members of HR when necessary.

The first thing you will need to do when running an effective HR department is to get to know all of your HR employees. Even if your department has ten people working in it you should still learn who they are, what their job duties are, and what their responsibilities are. This will help you supervise, train, and develop the members of the department easier and more effectively.

Make sure you are working on a professional level with the managers of all the other departments in the company. The best thing to do is visit with each department on a separate day of the week. Follow the manager around to see how she or he interacts with the employees in that department. Make sure the department manager knows that you are not evaluating their job performance but instead finding out how the manager interacts with the employees. This will help you learn their functions and their job duties.

The next step is to meet with the executives of the company in an effort to get them to understand what your department does on a daily basis. This will help the executives write procedures and policies that can be put to use by the employees of the company. The executives will also be able to get a better grasp on the everyday duties performed by the HR staff.

A major step in running an effective HR department is to perform an audit of the company’s procedures, policies, and practices in an effort to make sure they meet state and federal regulations. If you find any problems you need to report them immediately to your superior or the executives of the company so the problems can be fixed. It is part of employment law for companies to hang posters in the office that describe the current minimum wage and equal opportunity laws that govern the country’s workforce.

The final piece of advice for running an effective HR department is to update HR policies with all of the members of the HR department so everyone is on the same page. You do not want to be the only one in the HR department who knows about new policies and knows what they entail. The more your HR colleagues know, the better the department will operate.