15 Key Roles and Responsibilities of HR Managers in Post Pandemic World

Last Updated: October 27, 2022

The human resource department connects employers and employees to ensure that both can thrive in the work environment. HR managers are responsible for managing employee life cycle from hiring to offboarding.

They also need to keep up with legal guidelines while drafting policies for running the company. With advancements in technology, the ever-evolving complex work of HR managers has become more accessible.

However, the Covid-19 pandemic has bought a new set of challenges for them. Gartner forecasts that remote workers will comprise 32 percent of all the employees globally by the end of 2021.

This means companies will have to manage a hybrid workforce with a new set of policies ensuring employee welfare, security, and development. 

What Does an HR Manager Do? Key Role of HR Managers

A company’s culture is mainly dependent on the way its HR department works. A good human resource manager is likely to work for the well-being of employees while keeping the organization’s goals in mind. So let’s have a look at other HR roles and responsibilities in today’s times. 

List of HR Duties and Responsibilities in Post Pandemic World

  • Handling Recruitment and Onboarding

With the growth of remote and hybrid work culture during the pandemic, the location is no longer a barrier. Companies can hire the best talent irrespective of any part of the world. HR managers need to set new recruitment and hiring strategies based on the changing needs. 

Besides creating job postings and conducting interviews for shortlisted candidates, they need to ensure smooth online or offline onboarding. They are also responsible for conducting background checks before hiring employees, no matter which country they work in. 

HR managers can use an applicant tracking system (ATS) to make the hiring tasks easier and effective. ATS helps filter out suitable candidates based on a job profile. This decreases the task of HR departments, and they do not have to go through thousands of resumes manually. 

Recruitment management software is also available in the market that helps with the entire process, starting from posting a job requirement across various sites and scheduling interviews to prepare offer letters. Even the onboarding tasks like document checklists can be set with the help of this software. 

  • Tracking Employees’ Leave and Attendance

HR managers are responsible for monitoring attendance and tracking leaves. Pandemic has led to many companies modifying their attendance and leave policies.

For example, many switched from fingerprint biometric to other attendance verification methods like facial recognition. 

Whether employees are working from home or office, HR managers have to decide the best way for managing the clock-in/out time, tracking overtimes, late arrivals, etc. 

Attendance management systems can be easily integrated with finger-based, face recognition-based, or iris-based biometric devices. Its geofencing feature further helps track the attendance of field employees. 

Further, leave, and attendance management software enables employees to request leaves, and managers/ supervisors choose to cancel or approve in a single click. 

  • Process Salaries and Remuneration

Efficient and accurate calculation and dispersal of salaries is one of the most important tasks of HR managers. This involves considering the details like attendance, leaves, reimbursements, bonuses, taxes, and more.

To ensure accurate payroll processing, HR managers must be aware of the latest government laws and regulations for efficient payroll management. 

Payroll management software can reduce the complexity of payroll management to a significant extent so that HR managers can focus on employee engagement instead.

The software can be easily integrated with attendance and leave management systems to calculate paydays automatically. The solution adheres to the latest policies related to taxes, among others, to avoid any compliance issues. 

  • Defining Workplace Policies

The workplace culture depends on the policies made by HR managers related to rewards and appreciation, working hours, leaves, regulations, pay, incentives, among others.

Therefore, HR managers must be aware of the latest policies by the government in their location to define the best policies for the modern-day workforce. 

To ensure performance and productivity growth, policies should be examined frequently and updated wherever required. The change in workforce management policies was widely visible during the pandemic as companies worldwide modified the policies that were no longer relevant for remote employees.

The update in workplace policies become inevitable again during the transition to the post-pandemic world as the health and welfare of employees take center stage. 

HR managers and the leadership usually use HRIS (Human Resource Information System) to manage a company’s policies. HRIS maintains, manages, and processes employee data, policies, and procedures.

Modern-day HRIS also integrates processes like talent acquisition, recruitment, and so on. Since everything is tracked and recorded in an HRIS, this tool makes it easier to make decisions regarding policy making. 

  • Organizational Structure and Planning

HR managers are responsible for building an organizational structure and maintaining its integrity. They develop strategies and models to meet the organizational goals related to each department.

Even after implementation, they take employee feedback to understand the success of different organizational strategies and how those can be improved. 

It is the responsibility of HR managers to ensure their plans are successful in the new environment. Also, company setups in new places require effective designing of organizational structure to optimize human capital. 

The organization chart software lets HR managers create large and complex organization charts easily. The software provides flexibility and customization options, making it easier to plan the structure accordingly. You can also replicate the organizational structure for different branches of a company. 

  • 360 Degree Performance Management

For higher employee engagement, HR managers conduct performance appraisals at regular intervals. Employees get 360-degree feedback on what they are doing and what is expected of them. Direct reports and peer performance reviews help identify strengths, latent skills, and issues with each employee. 

While 360-degree feedback is similar to traditional performance management and evaluates an employee’s performance based on their strengths and weaknesses, it is more effective. Feedback is given by multiple sources based on employee’s actions and not just by their direct manager.

The assessment can be done by subordinates, peers, HRs, clients, suppliers, etc. The benefit is that it eliminates any bias, and employees are held accountable on every front. 

  • Training and Development

HR duties for employee development involves initiatives like professional development programs, on-the-job training, webinars, etc. Training & development contributes to the healthy functioning of teams and the career advancement of employees. Such initiatives are critical for keeping your employees engaged in their roles. 

Popular LMS software solutions help create, assign, track, and manage training courses for employees from start to end. The software is quite helpful for the HR department to standardize and enhance the employee training experience. 

  • Creating Engaging Work Culture

HR managers spend a significant amount of time creating an engaging work culture. They share the company values and vision with new joiners at the time of onboarding. Also, different activities have to be conducted to help employees feel valued and connect with organizational goals. 

Team building and recognition programs can keep employees in high spirits. The environment should be such that employees can freely express their opinions.

Now that employees are returning to work after the long stretch of remote work, they are likely to feel social anxiety. Hence, the responsibility of HR managers increases. 

Good HR software can assist you in all the initiatives to enhance employee engagement. The software helps in organizing and conducting different employee engagement activities, both for in-office and remote teams. 

  • Conflict Resolution

Conflicts can arise between employees and management or among the employees due to the difference in opinion. An HR manager is expected to resolve such conflicts without biases. They can also take stringent actions if required.

HR software enables employees to raise issues online. It gives them a direct way to report their issues anonymously. HR case management software also enables HR managers to track the status of any ongoing conflict and suggest the best resolution. 

  • Rewards and Incentives

HR responsibilities and duties in a company often includes creating the best strategies to reward the performing employees and encourage them to achieve the best.

It can be simple words of appreciation, freebies, or monetary benefits like a bonus. An encouraging rewards program boosts the company’s reputation and helps in attracting new talent as well. 

Employee productivity tracking software plays a vital role in determining the performance of any employee in terms of work hours and deliverables. The software helps analyze how productive an employee is during working hours.

HRMS software further helps HR managers create an incentive program to reward high-performing employees based on pre-set metrics. 

  • Managing Employee Database

HR professionals are responsible for storing employee records, including their personal data, salary data, medical claims, and so on. The employee-related data helps during rewards & incentives, skill gap identification, IT returns filing and more. 

Employee database management software enables companies to store, manage, and track all employee-related data digitally. In addition, it provides a variety of employee personnel fields such as name, age, designation, salary, length of service, and more so that HR professionals can refer to them whenever necessary. 

However, HR professionals should ensure that the software vendor takes adequate security precautions. The vendor should enable role-based access, and every change must be authorized. Terminated employees must be immediately restricted from the system. 

The software can have timeout features, and employees can be asked to make frequent password changes. Keeping software up to date is necessary for firewalls and security patches to be effective. Educating employees on phishing attacks, the importance of security protocols, and the like is essential. 

  • Managing Employee Relations

Role of human resource manager help in maintaining a positive relationship between employees and the leadership. They work with the employer to determine ways to ensure fairness and growth in the workplace.

HR professionals also take adequate measures to ensure employee satisfaction in terms of compensation, benefits, flexible work hours, etc. These perks help in creating a relationship of trust and understanding between the organization and employees. 

  • Performing Succession Planning

HR managers play an important role in succession planning. They help business heads make the right decision in choosing a person for any role. Whenever there is a change in leadership due to retirement, sudden chronic sickness, immediate quitting, and the like, the workers trained according to the development programs planned by HR fill in those roles. 

Technologies like HR management software enable managers to review employee performance and readiness accurately. This can be done in various ways based on scorecards, comparative ratings, and talent matrices. 

  • Creating Safe Work Environment

HR managers ensure that every employee is safe at work with the help of risk management training and guidelines for potential emergency scenarios.

It is their responsibility to see that no employee gets harassed, discriminated against, exploited, or intimidated in any form. All employees, supervisors, and managers should feel free to report any such incidents to HR. 

HR managers often adopt HR case management software to ensure that every incident or complaint is addressed and confidentially resolved relatively and transparently.

HR case management software tracks and manages employee interactions, gives help desk/self-service options to employees and simplifies operations related to any grievances, investigations, and more.

Related Categories: Payroll Management Software | Attendance Management Software | Leave Management Software

  • Managing Employee Benefits

HR managers have to roll out mandatory and voluntary company benefits to deserving employees. While some are made necessary bylaws, others are decided by the company as an additional incentive to increase employee satisfaction.

These can include paid time off, gym reimbursements, health insurance, and so on. HR managers must have a clear understanding of all the benefit programs and their applicability. 

Benefits administration software helps HR managers efficiently manage employee benefits, such as health insurance, 401(k) retirement plans, and paid time off. The software can be easily integrated with HR & payroll to calculate net salary after considering the benefits. 

Conclusion

Employees form the backbone of any organization. Therefore, it is the role of HR managers to find the best talent and ensure that they can be highly productive in the work environment.

FAQs

  1. What are HR responsibilities?

    HR responsibilities include strategic planning, defining workplace policies, employee lifecycle management, occupational health safety and more. For employees, HR departments are responsible for handling recruitment, employee relations, training, payroll, and so on.

  2. What are the duties and responsibilities of HR manager?

    HR managers can be labor relations directors, employee relations managers, payroll managers, recruiting managers, and so on. Their tasks include developing organizational structure, recruiting employees, providing rewards and incentives, preparing training and development, ensuring compliance, among others.

  3. What are the 4 roles of HR management?

    Four main roles of HR management are acquisition of talent (hiring people), training and developing workers for better performance (preparing people), motivating employees for high productivity (stimulating people), and retaining them by ensuring employee satisfaction (keeping people).

  4. What is the role of HR managers in motivating employees during pandemic?

    HR managers must ensure that employees feel trusted, supported, and have the necessary equipment for their jobs. They can offer learning solutions and community spaces where employees can share anything they want with their colleagues.

    HRs should be able to ensure work-life balance for better health and employee productivity.

  5. What are the responsibilities of HR managers towards employees?

    HR managers are responsible for hiring new employees. From onboarding till the time an employee exits the company, HR managers serve as a link between the company’s management and employees.

    They store employee database, track their attendance, process their payroll, evaluate their performance, ensure that they have no issues, among others.

  6. How HR software helps in HR roles and responsibilities?

    HR software automates repetitive tasks related to various responsibilities like recruitment, onboarding, payroll processing, managing employee benefits, and so on.

    This saves the time of HR managers. It also provides analytics for better decision making and helps ensure regulatory compliance.

Published On: July 27, 2021
Ayushee Sharma

Ayushee is currently pursuing MBA Business Analytics from SCMHRD, Pune with a strong background in Electronics and Communication Engineering from IGDTUW. She has 2 plus years of full-time work experience as an SEO content writer and a Technology Journalist with a keen interest the amalgamation of business and technology.

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