The New Outlook- Added Benefits of HR?
Koupe, a 2017 ice cream startup, makes ice cream that has in their own words less sugar than a ripe apple, approximately 9.4 g sugar. It has more dietary fiber than a serving of broccoli. It is ice cream but much more. It is for the world that demands extra benefit with the products that were already there.
The same could be said about HR, a department which had been earlier only about the recruitment or payroll, has come a long way. It has come from sourcing CVs to providing candidate experience, from having some lunch party to full blown engagement activities.
The way HR is perceived has also changed. From a cost center, it has become a value center. The main reason for change is because now the employees are considered as human assets or capital rather than cogs in the machinery that runs company.
As Koupe did, creating something that gives added benefits to the consumer with their ice cream, HR does the same, retaining employees and providing ways to improve the productivity. It is not only mean for companies that have scaled up but any of the companies that have humans in their employee count and if you say, all of them are, then yes, all of them require human resource department.
Be it ever changing policies from innovative leaves like menstrual leave or paternity leave for new fathers, it could even be telecommuting for the new age people. A lot is changing in the job market and HR has a new outlook, it has data to make evidence based strategies, technology enabling it to implement the strategies, and experience through which keeping the human element in place.