Human Resource: A Career Process

Many things can factor into a person 's career choice. The skills and abilities that an individual acquires at a young age through adulthood can set the tone for their career path. Human Resources serves as the driving force behind acquiring human talent to achieve an organization’s goals. Hiring knowledgeable employees on the job is essential for an employer but keeping those employees even more important than hiring. The Human Resource profession has certainly been faced with many challenges in the past and continues to face challenges. Today, employee retention is becoming a critical issue as the result of shortage of skilled labor, economic growth and employee turnover. As a Human Resource practitioner, one is placed at the forefront

The first point of contact a prospective employee has with a company is generally through the human resources department. Human Resources management is defined as the process of managing human talent to achieve an organization’s objectives. (Bohlander & Snell) One of the major roles of human resources is to manage and develop the current employees of the organization. While managers and supervisor oversee the day-to-day work of the employees, Human resources deal with concerns such as benefits, pay, company policies and training. Human resources is also responsible for settling conflicts that may arise between employees or between employees and their managers as well as grievances filed against the company by

Historically, Human Resources was referred to as Personnel management. The history of personnel management begins around the end of the 19th century. Towards the end of the 19th century, women or welfare secretaries were only concerned with the protection of women and girls. The creation of welfare secretaries was a reaction to the harsh industrial conditions. World War 1 accelerated the development of personnel management, with women being recruited in large numbers to fill the gaps left by men who had to fight in the war. Personnel continued to evolve in the 1920’s when titles such as labor manager or employment manager came into being in the engineering industry and other industries where there were large factories, to handle leave of absence, recruitment, terminations, benefits, and the many other facets of personnel management. Personnel management continued to grow and by the time World War 2 occurred, Individuals were working in personnel on a full-time basis at all establishments producing war