For years, the Personnel Department was the administrative arm of business. Employees typically went to Personnel for benefits issues, salary issues, and sometimes disciplinary actions and terminations. Personnel managed all of the "paperwork" associated with the "personnel "who worked for a given organization; The Department was also seen as an "advocate" for the employees.
During the 1980s and 1990s, there was gradual change from Personnel Management to Human Resources Management where professionals in the field began to be seen as business partners. HR professionals became more concerned with the bottom line. Today the field of HR management is concerned with key performance indicators, profit margins, and the overall financial health of the organizations that they support. In fact, a true HR professional must constantly show their worth to an organization in dollars and cents. Most organizations today measure turnover, retention, training, and employee satisfaction to name a few. More times than not it is HR that is responsible for driving these numbers. And HR's value is often measured by these performance indicators.
An HR professional in 2007 is a business partner. Not only must we be well versed in the Family Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, The National Labor Relations Act, The Civil Rights Act, and other laws and concepts typical of HR. We must also understand the businesses we support, and be well versed in business concepts in general. Not only is HR often the first line in the recruiting process, they are in fact partners in business that weigh in on issues daily that they would not have 20 years ago.
This section of the site will be dedicated to answering your HR questions. It would be nice to get your questions about filing a discrimination claim, or how to handle a difficult boss or coworker. However, we would also like to hear from you supervisors, managers, or entrepreneurs who have questions about the people that you manage. With that said, please understand that I am not an attorney. The nature of my job requires me to be well versed in employment law, and I may refer to laws often. However, I often consult with my company attorney when dealing with legal issues, and so should you.
RESOURCES
- Learning Point – http://www.learningpt.org/ Learning Point Associates applies research and evaluation, direct professional services, and policy knowledge to create change at every level of the education system—classroom, school, district, state and national.
- Professional Development Institute – http://www.webteaching.com/ The Professional Development Institute offers quality online courses for K-12 educators. For every PDI course, teachers have the option of earning graduate-level extension credit from the prestigious University of San Diego (USD) or continuing education units from the world-renowned University of Southern California (USC).
- Resume’s That Win – www.resumesthatwin.net Resumes That Win is a minority owned boutique resume writing firm that provides comprehensive resume and career services to those who desire extraordinary, specialized attention.
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