Research Paper on HR Function: Essential for Effective Organization Management & Goal Achievement

Introduction

The human resource function is vital in the management structure of any organization. It is an essential aspect of the creation and management of labour for the efficient and effective running of a firm's operations. The human resource management department coordinates and manages the staff and employee practices, thus enabling the firm to implement goal-oriented policies and strategies towards achieving set objectives. Although most notions, myths, and assumptions illustrate that the human resource department only gets tasked with recruitment, it has a myriad of tasks such as firing, motivating, and performing performance appraisals on an entity's employees. For the efficient and effective running of an organization, a firm should seek to maintain a standard staffing level that enables them to operate (Machado & Davim, 2016) fully. The responsibility includes ensuring that the firm has the right employees, tasked with doing the right job, and in proper timing. The human resource should continually assess the entity's labour needs, prepare the desired job description, and put measures in place to recruit the best-suited persons to the positions.

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The human resource department includes staff training and development. Whether new or existing employees, the management should provide training sessions as a form of either induction or employee development. The department facilitates workplace training to ensure adequate training gets provided as well and encourage employees through well-coordinated sessions. Further, the training and development duty plays a vital role in staff retention and gives the firm a better promotion criterion.

The human resource gets tasked with promoting employee relations. The success or failure of the company is highly dependent on the employee's function ability. The department, therefore, acts as a liaison between the employees and the organization. It ensures that employees are equipped with relevant updates and are abreast of any developments that directly affect ways in which they accomplish or meet their responsibilities. The human resource may achieve effective utilization of labour through regular circularization of a human resource newsletter or by creating forums in which employees get updated on recent developments.

The human resource department tasks include maintaining employee's proper health, safety measures, and checking on the employment law compliance (Sivabalan, Sawyers, Jackson & Jenkins, 2016). Economies develop a set of legislation and policies that govern employees in the country. The human resource department gets asked to ensure their respective firms comply with employment laws and take measures that facilitate compliance. Promoting health and safety on the employees at their place of work is a crucial role of the human resource department as it ensures they are comfortable while carrying out their duties.

The marketing department is vital in promoting an entity's sales through advertisements and branding. The fundamental goal of any business entity is making sales that result in profitable returns. One of the primary roles of marketing is in establishing a good relationship between customers and the organization. The function helps the firm in introducing new products in the market (Machado & Davim, 2016). Since marketers are closer to customers, they can create a better connection, convince and make customers feel purchasing a firm's product within the market. They can assess and collect the market needs and advise the management on the measures required in meeting these needs. Besides, marketing functions provide the best avenue through which communication can flow from the organization to the customers. The reception that a new product receives in the market determines how well it will create good returns to the firm.

Besides, marketing functions are deemed vital in improving the profitability of a firm. When an organization targets increasing the sale volumes and the profits, the marketing department takes up the objective and makes strategies to achieve it. The goal is often driven by measures such as expanding the product market or by increasing product awareness. The market departments boost sales by deploying marketing agents to create product awareness in new markets. The department identifies a zone where the products are not available and take measures to avail it. They then approach the prospective consumers and inform them about the product to make sales. Also, the department may opt for improving product awareness in existing markets by increasing and informing customers about the product mainly through product promotion and advertisement.

The market department has an essential function of the branding of the firm. The marketing department is solely responsible for making known the organization and its products or services. Advertising and product promotion efforts primarily aid in creating an image of the firm among the current and prospective customers. In carrying out their other roles, the department participates in core publicity and customer interaction forums that directly determine the brand reception and image that the public develops towards the firm and its products.

Financial management is another vital function in any entity that gets tasked with the acquisition and utilization of funds in an organization. Finances are the lifeblood and driving forces in the operations of any entity. One of the roles that the department gets tasked with is in making investment decisions (Sivabalan, Sawyers, Jackson & Jenkins, 2016). The function provides the firm with material information in making investment decisions that will provide the firm with the best yields. The finance managers ought to carry out numerous financial analyses and tests to assess the viability of any investment before advising the firm on the best course of action. Well researched investment result in good returns, which may get used as a measure of efficiency for the firm.

The finance department makes and decides on an organization's investment decisions. Entities need financial resources to facilitate their operations. The right blend of equity and borrowed finances, as well as the long-term and short-term sources of funding, profoundly influence the financial performance of the firm. The function provides for making quality decisions that would lead to the best returns in the firm. Finance managers also help in making dividend decisions. These are decisions on the amounts to be reserved for payment of dividends and advising on the best balance between the profit levels and the dividend pay-outs. Further, the function is crucial in making liquidity decisions, which ensures that the firm maintains enough liquidity levels to service day to day bills. It entails efficient current assets management strategies.

The success or failure of a firm gets determined by the efficiency of the systems put in place. The importance of the human resource, marketing, and finance department gets manifested in the essential roles that they play in the organization. The efficiency of the management gets primarily vested upon the three departments, which constitute the most vital functions. The firm ought to have well established human resource, marketing, and finance departments that can facilitate the achievement of the goals and objectives of the entity.

Collaborative Working Practices

Collaborative working practices refer to some variations through which two or more organizations can work together. They range from full mergers, informal networks, and joint delivery of projects or even alliances. They may be permanent or structured to operate over a set duration of time. These organizations usually have some exchanges that are designed for mutual benefit and are associated with a final bonus to the end-users. Collaborative working can involve engaging in charity activities, improving strategic efficiency as well as sharing support or premises functions.

Collaborative work can get structured in different ways. One of these is through separate organizations maintaining their independence while working together on some functions or activities. In other situations, organizations with expertise may also offer assistance to different firms, especially among large firms. Mergers are also a form of collaborative working arrangement where entities dissolve their existing firms and come together to form one new body (Savage & Symonds, 2018). Firms collaborate to achieve more efficiency in the use of resources to drive towards improved quality as well as arising from increased government emphasis on voluntary sectors' role in public service delivery.

The Role of Financial Management and Financial Reporting

Financial management refers to the effective and efficient organizing, planning, controlling, and directing economic activities that relate to the financial resources in an organization. Some of the vital roles in an entity, played by the finance department involve plays monitoring and making business decisions, capital management, cashflow management as well as disposal or surplus (Gitman et al., 2018). All these are essential aspects of the control of the finances in an organization. On the other hand, financial reporting involves the standard practice of giving the shareholders an accurate depiction of the company's finances through the preparation of formal financial statements (Gitman et al., 2018). As a subsection in the financial management function, financial reporting aids in the institution of proper debt management measures, trend identification, assets and liabilities monitoring, and assessment of compliance and progress. The two economic dimensions are vital in maintaining desirable financial levels and practices.

References

Gitman, L., McDaniel, C., Shah, A., Reece, M., Koffel, L., Talsma, B., & Hyatt, J. (2018). Introduction to business. OpenStax.

Machado, C., & Davim, J. (2016). Theory and application of business and management principles. Springer.

Savage, K., & Symonds, D. (2018). Economies of collaboration in performance. Springer International Publishing.

Sivabalan, P., Sawyers, R., Jackson, S., & Jenkins, J. (2016). ACCT2 managerial. Cengage AU.