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Human resources, or HR, is the department of a business or organization that deals with people, pay and training. It is the people or the department in a company in charge of all employees and employee-related operations.
Some areas that HR deals with are; recruiting and hiring new employees, onboarding and training employees, and administering employee-benefit programs. Additional responsibilities can include compensation and payroll, organisation development and culture, workplace safety, health and wellness related questions as well as updating policies and keeping up to date with any laws affecting the company and the employees.
All of these areas contribute to employee satisfaction, their motivation and development as well as performance. The goal of human resources is basically to manage and use the company’s people most effectively and having an HR department or people paying attention to these different areas, will help the company reach its objectives.
Many companies have moved away from traditional in-house human resources duties and started outsourcing administrative HR functions such as payroll, employee benefits and recruitment to outside vendors.