United States human resources - Essay Example

1. The human resource department of any business solves issues pertaining to the problems faced by laborers in performing their jobs. In a small scale business setting, such as a grocery, the role of human resources department is primarily to train workers to improve their performance; to hire and retain good and effective personnel and to attend to the compensation and benefits package to ensure loyalty and satisfaction of laborers (Kautz). A common problem workers faces in this highly competitive era is the lack of training and development to improve the skills and motivation that workers need to improve their customer service and the performance of the business as a whole (Musselwhite).

Though this is just a small business, competition and other factors can take away customer share away from the business. Highly skilled and trained personnel drive a business to a higher level of performance. Aside from skills development, this business also needs recruitment and staffing crew that selects the right people for the right job and for the goals of the company. Though unlike big businesses where recruitment and staffing jobs are critical, small businesses still needs dependable personnel that will pick and maintain productive employees while possibly terminating unscrupulous ones (Henricks).

Worker's benefits and compensation packages should also be properly rendered and given in a small business like a grocery. With a few people to manage, fair and just compensation with perks is a tool for securing the loyalty of personnel. Changing of personnel greatly affects the morale and teamwork of a small crew. 2. If an entrepreneur is development oriented and is ambitious enough to ready his enterprise to great heights then the aim of a human resources (HR) department in a small business should be to coach employees to achieve this feat.

For this writer, coaching is an ideal HR design for small enterprises. Traditionally, coaching is an activity done by HR department to help top managers and executives deal with their people. This role has been transformed from the HR manager being merely a transmitter of information to being both a transmitter of ideas and information and receiver of feedback from the one he is coaching. With only a few people to coach, HR department in small businesses can coach employees more effectively than in big corporations.

They can easily provide high level of professional advice on how employees in this company should do to give their best in their jobs. Trust is easier to be built since one-on-one encounters are more feasible than giant multinationals. The coaching design provides employees room to air their concerns in a more informal yet very professional manner. In a service industry like a grocery, professional and personal problems can greatly affect the performance of employees. HR department should render impersonal and professional advice employees.

They should also clearly address the vision, goals, and plans of the company in the future to the personnel and how they should respond to the latter's incompliance to these business principles. They should also develop an environment conducive for an advanced communication for a smoother and more productive professional relationship between the management, as well as between them and the employees (Heathfield). These procedures and modes of action can be easily done in a small business like a grocery.

Works Cited Heathfield, Susan M. The Strategic HR Coach. 2007. About.com. 07 Sept 2007. Henricks, Mark. Making Employees More Productive. 2007. Entrepreneur.com. 07 Sept 2007. Kautz, Judith. Human Resources Management. 2007. Small Business Notes. 07 Sept 2007. < http://www.smallbusinessnotes.com/operating/hr.html> Musselwhite, Chris. Motivation = Empowerment. 2007. Inc.com 07 Sept 2007.