The main job of personnel departments is to provide the specialist knowledge or service necessary to enable other members of the management team to make the most effective use of an organization's human resources-its people.

Nature of Work

Personnel managers play an extensive role in their place of work. Responsibilities vary from salary administration, recruitment and training to staff welfare, industrial relations and the drafting and implementation of rules and regulations. 

They must be constantly in touch with the latest trends in human resource development, and are consulted on all matters concerning personnel recruitment and planning. The challenge here is to interpret conflicting views and objectives to people at various levels in the organization, some of whom have completely divergent interests.

Major Tasks Performed

Personnel departments carry out a vast range of tasks. In some cases these may overlap, with one or two people performing a number of different duties. In others, they could be assigned separately to specialists in the field. This would depend largely on the organization's size and employee strength. In general, some of the major activities in personnel/human resources management are:

RECRUITMENT, TRAINING AND MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT

Main aspects of this area include devising, monitoring and applying selection procedures and assessment methods for all levels of staff; identifying individual potential and on that basis, planning an employee's education, training and career development; reconciling employees' needs and aims with the employer's requirement for staff with specific skills at specific levels of responsibility; identifying, organizing, and sometimes conducting orientation and training programmes and refresher courses. 

This area is fast gaining in importance due to a growing emphasis on the need for a more highly skilled workforce at all levels of organization.

MANAGEMENT OF CHANGE

At times when new technologies or structures are introduced personnel people work closely with
systems analysts/designers, as well as other specialists and union representatives, to iron out problems that invariably arise when changes in traditional working patterns are proposed and implemented. This task requires an in-depth understanding of individual's current duties, their position in the organization, and of how the changes will affect their jobs.

COMPENSATION AND BENEFITS

Covers job evaluation and salary administration. It involves a systematic study of the elements that make up each job within the organization, in order to establish their grading.

INDUSTRIAL/EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Is concerned with establishing and maintaining lines of communication between an organization's various interest groups. It includes initiating and conducting negotiations to resolve worker-management disputes; planning and implementing employee participation' schemes; discussing, with those likely to be affected, the implications of new legislation mergers, implementation of new technologies; dealing with consequent redundancies; and planning reallocation of tasks and retraining programmes.

HEALTH AND SAFETY

Also sometimes called employee services, covering all welfare aspects. This area includes implementation of safety measures; health monitoring; staff welfare schemes; responsibility for canteens and other such facilities; as well as job satisfaction and improvement programmes; and cooperation with human resources planning and other personnel specialists.

Specialist Areas

There are four areas of specialization

1) Placement and Recruitment
2) Training
3) Industrial relations
4) Organizational structure