MEASURING THE BUSINESS VALUE OF HR
“Today’s human Introduction resource departments Human resources departments have evolved over the past several decades from can help improve mainly serving transactional business functions, like overseeing compensation and corporate performance benefits, to contributing heavily toward strategic planning and overall business efficiency through activities like talent recruitment, retention and development. As while also building industries become more driven by technology and innovation, competition for top competitive advantage.” talent is becoming ever steeper, and new employment standards and regulations continue to emerge. It’s critical for businesses to invest appropriately in HR to remain competitive and compliant. But how much should a business spend on its HR function?
It depends on several factors, including industry, number of employees and overall business objectives.
This article explores how and why HR evolved over the last century, what transactional and strategic functions are covered by HR and how to benchmark and evaluate HR costs.
How and Why has HR Evolved? During the industrial revolution and through the middle part of the 20th century, when companies relied more heavily on manual, labor-intensive processes, HR departments emerged to manage employee welfare and compensation and to ensure compliance with new labor laws and guidelines. Today, as advancements in technology help to automate manual processes, industries are becoming more knowledge-based, so identifying, recruiting and retaining top talent is critical for business success.
In addition to overseeing traditional functions like staffing, compensation, benefits, safety and legal compliance, HR departments are now also charged with employee retention as well as ongoing training and development. By reducing turnover, growing in-house capabilities and ensuring a steady pipeline of talent to meet projected needs, today’s HR departments can help improve corporate performance while also building competitive advantage. Evolution of Human Resource Management (HRM)