How To Setup An HR Department In A New Company

Building an HR department in a newly established or already existing company might be a difficult task, but not an impossible one. If we have a correct plan then it would help a lot in building one without much effort. Since there are different kinds of organizations, all the things which are mentioned below might not be necessary, but they are at least useful in building an HR department in your company. First of all before setting up an HR we should understand why there is a need for it? Human resources help in developing a company’s strategy as well as in playing an essential role in employee centered activities of an organization. Few companies who has a team of 20 employees think that there is a no need for an HR. But actually the size doesn’t matter. Here are few segments into which an HR can be classified:

1. HR operations or Personnel Department
2. Human Resource Development
3. Automation
4. Business Partner

HR operations consists of many basic operations such as managing attendance and leave, recruitment, disciplinary actions, reimbursement processing, insurances etc. These are referred to as the hygiene factors that every HR professional should take care of. This is important and without this HRD (human resource development) is not possible. We have to make sure that these factors are in place.

All the operations are stated below.

• Robust Recruitment Process: Recruitment is one of the critical parts in the HR operations. Hiring people is crucial because all the tasks to be executed depend on them. They are responsible for making and building the organization and development of it. HR should make sure that a timely hiring is taking place. For this we have consider a well-defined recruitment process.

  i) Getting details of position from the hiring manager.

HR and hiring manager should go hand in hand. Hiring manager should give correct details about the position he want to hire otherwise it might lead to hiring a wrong individual. But sometimes, hiring manager might not be serious about this hiring process. So, it is the responsibility of HR to create a detailed form which has to be filled by hiring manager. This form is called ‘Manpower Requisition form’ (or simply an MR form). This form lets the HR know about the appropriate details of the position.

1. ii) Finding suitable candidate and sending details to hiring manager.

   Resume of the candidate is to be checked with the MR form to make sure that the selected candidate is fulfilling all the parameters mentioned by the hiring manager. Once if all are satisfied then the details of the candidate are forwarded to the hiring manager.

iii) Mid recruitment process.

Wait for the feedback from the hiring manager after sending the details. If you don’t get feedback in time then it’s the duty of HR to contact the hiring manager and get the required feedback.

1. iv) Finalizing the candidate.

   Last stage is to finalize the candidate with the required salary proof and other documents.

• Pre-joining and joining formalities: Stay in touch with the newcomer in the initial days. You’ve to make sure that the candidate is not left in the isolation.
• Attendance and Leave management: Now-a-days, there are compulsions of 8 hours work at the company. These policies should be clearly informed to all the employees. You can use an automated clock-in /clock-out technology. Besides this, there are several other policies such as holiday policy, vacation policy, sick policy and so on. Make sure you have a technology to record all these.
• Insurance Policy: HR department need to approach various insurance policy makers who offer medical insurance services and put their hand in designing of medical insurance policy for their employees. Various features, constraints and benefits regarding the policy are reviewed, exercised and finalized.
• Measure performance: For the development of the organization, a well- performing team is necessary. We have to make sure this necessity is fulfilled by measuring the performance of the employee. While hiring an employee we have to note down the way to measure his success in his job profile. Create a performance evaluation program which is reviewed once in a while.

Next comes the HRD (Human Resource Development). The biggest valuable asset of an organization is an employee i.e. a human. The development of this individual is most essential. These can be done by concentrating on the following areas.

• Training need identification and Training: If you haven’t yet set up an HR in the company then it is pre-assumed that there might not be any Training and development department in your organization. Considering the budget and other details, you might not be able to bring a high profile speaker to motivate your employees but you can still get a training team and initiate a mentoring program. Check the problems faced by the employees and help them in overcoming them. Sometimes all they require is motivation to move forward. Make sure that you give that little push to them.

Next comes the ‘Automation’ segment. All the works or all the operations under the HR can be automated by using the present day technology. Use Recruiter box for starting up with your job profiles. Use Create.ly for creating a hierarchical structure of your company. Time Tracker will help in the automation in the Timing and attendance management operation. These are the automated tools available and can be found through Google. You can use them or create your own automated tool which makes it easy for the HR department to process its activities.

HR should be an active partner in creating the missions and reaching the goals of the organization. He should be a member of the executing team which can help in taking the team forward. It is mandatory that HR should be a strategic partner otherwise he’ll be trailing the business which is very dangerous for the growing companies. So, the bottom line is that you as a HR professional will have to learn how to be a business partner rather than just a support function.