What Are HR Services?

Human resources, otherwise known as HR, is an important part of most companies. This department helps manage one of the most essential assets of a company: its employees. And while small businesses may not have a need for a large HR department, they can certainly benefit from many different types of HR support services that can be obtained through hiring an HR employee or through HR outsourcing services. From day-to-day services to strategic HR initiatives and employee engagement programs, HR professionals can help companies of all sizes develop a people-first approach to operations. This article will explore what HR departments do as well as the seven main areas of HR.

What Does an HR Department Do?

An HR department is responsible for the many different HR roles that are concerned with the overall employee lifecycle. This includes tasks like recruiting, hiring, onboarding, training, performance management, and exiting an employee. In other words, HR departments handle the people-focused aspects of a company. 

These sort of people-focused tasks can promote employee engagement, productivity, and an overall positive outlook on work. And while HR services don’t directly boost a company’s bottom line, studies have shown that maintaining a positive company culture that boosts morale has some surprising benefits. For example, recent studies by Gallup indicate that highly-engaged teams can increase a company’s profitability by 21%. What’s more, highly-engaged teams have up to 24% less turnover than other teams, which can provide cost savings for companies over the short and long-term.

What are the Main Areas of HR?

In general, there are seven main areas of HR. We’ve compiled a list of HR services for small business owners with a quick guide to the HR areas of focus they may be interested in for their company.

Compensation and Benefits

Paying employees competitively and providing them with quality benefits is one way that companies can set themselves apart. HR teams are highly knowledgeable in payroll and benefits best practices, such as salary, health and dental benefits, paid time off, retirement, and other kinds of perks like employee subsidies for daycare, technology, or transportation. Experts also predict that mental health benefits will increase in 2021 and beyond. By late March of 2021, almost 70% of organizations polled by Gartner had introduced at least one new wellness benefit to help employees throughout the pandemic.

Data and Analytics

Today’s HR professionals have the knowledge and access to powerful technology tools that can help them analyze data to help improve business processes across every team at a company. Using information from current and past performance, revenue streams, and employee life cycles, HR professionals can help you make decisions about employee turnover, necessary changes in benefits and other compensation perks, policies, and more.

Employee Recruitment and Selection

Creating a job listing, collecting and reviewing resumes, and deciding who to interview is a time-consuming process for small business owners and other executives. Yet finding and hiring the best of the best can make or break a company—especially small- and mid-sized companies that only have the capacity for a handful of employees. That’s where HR experts can help. They’re pros at the recruitment process and can help you set up  recruitment software and applicant tracking systems to help you reach as many qualified candidates as possible. At a time when over 80% of employers struggle with attracting and retaining talent, an HR team can make all the difference.

Information Management and Documentation

As a business owner, there’s a lot of information you need to keep track of, like employee information, benefits details, performance plans, and more. There are also key pieces of information that need to be reported regularly to the government. Rather than trying to keep it all straight yourself an HR specialist can take control of the information management and documentation plan at a company. HR pros are also adept at keeping up with new and changing reporting information, helping to ensure your business remains in compliance.

Learning and Development

Lifelong learning is a huge trend in the business world right now, and for good reason. With new information and advances in technology coming out so frequently, we all need help keeping up. So whether employees want opportunities to skill up, have access to new kinds of training, or earn new credentials or certificates, learning and development can help. HR professionals can assist companies in building out comprehensive learning and development plans that reward high-performers with access to new learning opportunities and that help lower-performing employees build the skills they need to take their work to the next level.

Performance Management

Performance management sometimes gets a bad reputation. Negative reviews can harm employees’ views of their job. And the entire process can feel out of date. But if it’s implemented effectively, performance management can provide employees and their managers with the resources and information they need to do their best work. HR professionals can help companies adopt worthwhile performance management cycles that can provide healthy, productive feedback for employees and managers alike. One recent trend in performance management, for example, favors more frequent and informal review, rather than annual review that can feel out of date.

Succession Planning

While no one likes to think about executives or other key employees leaving a business, it’s bound to happen at some point—whether it’s through retirement or another employment opportunity. That’s where succession planning comes in. HR professionals can help businesses—and their teams—build out transition documents, identify an internal talent pipeline, and maintain a list of potential external candidates should key positions within a company open up. For example, if a senior manager retires, the company should have a replacement ready to guarantee that there are no dips in the overall business cycle due to this transition. This will save the company significant time and money.

Milestone: People-Focused HR Support Services

At Milestone, we strive to make a difference for each one of our clients. We believe in developing partnerships with businesses to provide them with the kind of peace of mind that comes with knowing that their employees are supported. Our clients get access to decades of executive-level experience at a fraction of the cost of a full-time HR team, with the added benefit of no long-term contracts or hidden fees. If you’re ready to see the difference that Milestone can make in your business through HR outsourcing, reach out to us today.