What Do Human Resources (HR) Professionals Do?

Your Human Resources job descriptions detail the HR functions and how they fit into your organisational culture. The Human Resources Department and its HR professionals ensure your company’s workforce consists of the best mix of experience and skills. HR departments also ensure training programs are available so employees can progress in their professional performance and help ensure business success.

Depending on the company type and size, HR professionals oversee:

• HR strategy and the company’s culture
• The recruitment process
• Compliance with employment law
• Working hours, pay, and rewards
• Absence management and absence procedures
• Employee wellbeing/support employees
• Employee relations
• Performance management and career progression
• Conflict resolution
• HR data reporting
• Writing job descriptions
• Administrative tasks
• Human Resource information systems

Human Resources Role

The duties of HR departments are completed by HR specialists with job titled such as:

• Human Resources Manager/Human Resources Managers
• HR Administrators/HR Professionals
• HR Generalists
• HR Advisors
• HR Directors/Human Resources Director
• HR Senior Managers/Senior Manager
• Human Resources Third Party Providers / HR Consultancy

Human Resources Responsibilities And Duties

HR officer duties are the must-do and high-priority responsibilities of the role. These are the job aspects that you will likely govern the person’s performance on, and as you can imagine, managing employee relations and ensuring legal compliance is high on the list.

Important job duties of HR roles might include:

• Business administration
• Recording working hours and administering pay and rewards
• Absence management
• Monitoring working conditions
• Introducing strategies to improve employee wellbeing
• Assisting line managers with conflict resolution
• Onboarding new employees
• Updating HR policies and HR records
• Managing and filing employment contracts
• Managing employee relations
• Ensuring compliance with employment law
• Performance management
• Setting or implementing the HR strategy
• Assessing training needs
• Maintaining employee records
• Implementing the company’s recruitment strategy

These duties are pretty generic, but you can make the job’s duties more engaging and meaningful by saying how the responsibility should be accomplished. For example, ‘You will implement the company’s recruitment strategy by creating effective job adverts, screening candidates, and recommending suitable candidates to line managers.’

Human Resources Skills

To ensure your Human Resources Department complies with employment law, adopts best practices, and cares for its employee’s well-being, you need to hire HR executives with the right skills.

To complete their HR duties and responsibilities, HR Staff need hard and soft skills that include:

• Business acumen and HR management skills
• Strong IT skills
• Planning and organisation
• Interpersonal skills for building working relationships and managing employee relations with staff at all levels
• Coaching skills
• Approachability, integrity, and confidentiality
• Team working and collaboration
• Working while under pressure and in stressful situations
• Prioritising tasks and multitasking
• Negotiating and influencing others
• A willingness to challenge the company culture
• The ability to discuss and relay employment law and provide HR support
• Knowledge of the hiring process
• Good communication skills
• Active listening
• Decision making
• Time management
• Receptiveness
• Problem-solving skills
• Objectivity
• Committed
• Adaptable
• Detail-orientated/attention to detail
• Motivational leadership (senior management)

Human Resources Qualifications And Education

The education and qualifications depend on the role and level of seniority, but might include:

• Human Resource Management Degree
• Business Management HR Degree
• CIPD Foundation Diploma
• Postgraduate Qualification
• Familiarity with HR systems and UK employment law
• MS Office proficiency

Required Human Resources Experience And Human Resources Training

Proven Human Resource management experience is usually required for Human Resources Director roles. A good Human Resources Officer may have completed Graduate Schemes or a Human Resources Consultant Partner Higher Apprenticeship or Senior People Professional Degree Apprenticeship.

Human Resources Job Description FAQs

Here we answer your questions on HR roles, job titles, and writing job descriptions.

WHAT ARE THE HR ROLES?

There are many roles and job titles for HR managers and HR professionals including business partner, consultant, job coach, and talent director, to name but a few.

WHAT DOES A HR PERSON DO?

An HR officer ensures UK law compliance and manages employee relations, recruitment, performance management, pay, and grievances. Typical employers will have at least one HR officer, with opportunities to enter the profession through graduate training schemes.

WHAT ARE THE 7 FUNCTIONS OF HR?

HR job roles and Human Resources functions include:

1. Ensuring job candidates have the right to work in the UK
2. Recruiting and interviewing job candidates, writing job descriptions, and posting job adverts
3. Helping line managers understand HR practices and implement HR policies
4. Promoting the organisation’s culture of diversity and equality
5. Administrative tasks using HR technology, such as maintaining staff records and processing payroll
6. Providing advice on promotions, pay, and benefits
7. Planning training programs

Further actions conducted by Human Resources Management and HR professionals include overseeing employee relationships, maintaining HRM knowledge, ensuring the company adheres to its legal requirements, introducing a general graduate scheme, proposing the HR strategy, monitoring current and emerging trends, and conducting a performance evaluation with employees.

WHAT ARE HR SKILLS?

HR skills include technical skills gained through HND or Degrees in Human Resource Management, Business Management and Human Resources, Psychology, or Business with Languages. The educational background and qualifications for Human Resource Management should be accredited by an organisation such as CIPD.
HR soft skills include general business acumen, numeracy, great communication skills, negotiation, leadership, integrity, and emotional intelligence.

HOW DO I HIRE A HR PERSON?

Job advertising for HR will vary depending on the position and HR skills you need. You will need to implement a recruitment strategy that encompasses advertising on general and specialist HR job boards, social media, and word-of-mouth referrals. Your human resource management hiring strategy might also include having a presence at Human Resources conferences and online with Human Resources Organisations.

Crucial elements that will affect hiring success include writing an effective job description and selecting the proper job title. For example, HR managers work and specialise in various areas, so you may want to title the role to Payroll HR Manager, Recruitment HR Manager, Training and Development HR Manager, Employee Well-being Manager, or Compensation and Benefits HR Manager, with a detailed HR Manager job description.

Flat fee recruitment solutions continue to deliver the best results when hiring HR Professionals.

WHAT IS AN HR JOB DESCRIPTION?

An HR job description is a document that sets out the role’s duties, tasks, and key skills. Putting these in black and white is vital and will help you find the ideal HR professional for a position that directly affects your workforce, compliance with employment law, and the overall success of your company.

An effective job description should be transparent and clearly set out who you are, who you want, what they will do, and why HR professionals might want to work for you. It helps tremendously to use language and jargon that connects with and engages your audience.

When you get all of this right and include the best words to use when writing HR job descriptions, you will get job applications from qualified candidates that closely match your ideal person profile.

HOW DO I WRITE HR OFFICER JOB DESCRIPTIONS?

When writing job descriptions for an HR officer or HR manager either for advertising a job or an internal job specification you need to focus on 5 main criteria:

1. What are the key jobs, tasks, and duties required for an HR position
2. Consider all the job responsibilities required for an HR role
3. What skills the person must have for the job
4. What personality traits the person must have to work in the HR department
5. Appropriate and relevant education and qualifications

These five criteria should help you build a picture of your ideal candidate. Good questions to consider that will help you write a concise HR job description that stands apart from others (essential in the current competitive job market), and attracts candidates of a high calibre, include:

• What value does this role bring to your HR department?
• How does the role align with your company culture, values, and mission?
• How does this role differ from other positions?
• How is this role similar to other positions?
• What are the minimum HR skills or transferable skills?
• What are examples of your HR management goals and standards?

Suppose you are not hands-on in the day-to-day HR functions or highly familiar with the company’s HR policies. In that case, it can help to interview one of your HR managers or experienced Human Resources professionals to gain a greater understanding of the role.

A word about jargon: The phrase ‘jargon’ has good and bad connotations, and if it isn’t carefully considered, it may deter suitable candidates from applying. Ask yourself if words and phrases are company exclusive or recognisable by individuals who may have valuable transferable skills refined in HR or an alternative business sector.

Furthermore, if you are hiring for senior-level or Human Resource management positions, you should expect candidates to have a greater vocabulary and understanding of HR industry jargon and employment law. However, if you are hiring for entry-level positions, consider being as straightforward and transparent as possible.

WHAT HR TASKS SHOULD I INCLUDE IN HR JOB DESCRIPTIONS?

The tasks of an HR manager or HR officer are any other HR activities that they complete occasionally or on a daily basis. These are usually subsidiary tasks such as administrative tasks or attending HR team meetings.

It is tempting to leave some of the more ‘mundane’ tasks out to make your jobs sound more attractive, but this can lead to trouble down the road as you may recruit an individual that is not a perfect match or willing to carry out certain tasks. If you hire the wrong HR professionals for your business, the HR department, company employees, and your business may suffer. The employee might leave your company, and you are back to square one, requiring another investment in recruitment and training.

If you get to the end of the process outlined here and find that your job description is too long and concise has gone out the window, it is time to review your first draft. To bring things back into line, you should delete unnecessary phrases and fluff, remove prepositional phrases, focus on what is role critical, and refrain from putting your entire ‘about us’ page in your content.

HOW DO I ENGAGE HR CANDIDATES?

As a final note for employers and hiring managers, it is crucial to remember that while a job description is about what and who you want, describing this alone will not create an inbox full of eager candidates willing to comply. A good job description and job advert must go beyond the duties, skills, education, qualifications, traits, and tasks that you want and communicate the position’s value to job seekers.

Your business or organisation should convey its employee value propositions to engage candidates, highlighting both monetary and other benefits. Benefits that will entice qualified job seekers to apply might include:

• Stating the average salary range rather than saying ‘competitive salary’
• Focusing on work-life balance
• Flexible working – is the role remote (work from home), standard office hours, or are hours flexible?
• General graduate scheme or further training opportunities
• HR career development opportunities
• The quality of facilities, equipment, or services
• How the organisation’s values align with those of employees or its customers