So yesterday I posted on a comment from a reader on a previous post. The person was obviously disgruntled with the HR people in their company, and I wanted to take the opportunity to respond here. Obviously I think HR in general has value for the company, leadership, and employees, but how does that play out in the real world?

How HR Provides Value

• Recruiting-Many managers don’t want to stop working to interview candidates, much less create strong job ads, prescreen candidates, hold multiple interviews, and select the best fit for both competency and culture. The HR/recruiting function uses those tools to help keep turnover costs down and productivity high, both of which can significantly impact profitability.
• Culture-Studies have shown that developing and communicating a strong workplace culture can drive companies to amazing levels of success compared to peers with no remarkable culture. I don’t think that HR is the creator of the culture (that’s a combination of the leadership and staff), but they are tasked with monitoring and communicating it, which is no mean feat.
• Health and Safety-If you’ve never worked in a manufacturing environment, you can’t imagine the level of responsibility that safety and health involves. In some cases, it’s a literal life or death responsibility that the HR professionals are saddled with. Even if nothing that dramatic occurs, a visit from OSHA that requires paying fines can put a heavy burden on employers, so it’s important to make sure that function is handled without incident.

These are some of my examples, but I’d love to hear some from you. How do you prove your worth on a daily basis? I talked about this topic in detail in the HR proposals post. You should be able to easily put your worth on a piece of paper if you take some time to consider your impact on the organization at all levels.

And if you can’t explain how you make the place better, then it’s time to pull up your big girl britches and start making things happen, or it’s time to go home.