Human Resource Management Duties Responsibilities:
Human resource management is that field of management which is concerned with the people who are employed by, who work for, an enterprise, and with their activities and relationships within that enterprise. 
Its primary function is to bring together all those employed, whatever their status, gender, race or creed, and without whose efforts the enterprise could not prosper – or indeed survive – and, whilst having regard to the individual and to work groups, to foster their united interest in the success of the enterprise. That is no easy task bearing in mind the huge variety of differing characters, temperaments, need, outlooks, opinions, (to say nothing of political persuasions) of the many individuals who may work for a particular enterprise; and the larger the enterprise, the greater is the task of developing unity and harmony likely to be. Nevertheless it must be attempted, and attempted well; and the importance of the personnel manager and of his department must never be under-rated.
In order to be able to achieve its aim, it is necessary for the personnel department to have responsibility for some or all of the following wide ranging activities, which may be handled by separate sub-divisions or sections of the department, some large and some small (perhaps just one person):-
Employment: this section will be responsible for maintaining an adequate labour supply. It will be in direct contact with each worker when he is selected and placed in his job. Other contacts will be made during induction and the ‘follow up’ to ensure that the original placing was correct. It will also be concerned with transfers and retirement of employees, and in addition will keep all records of employees (other that those, perhaps, of top executives).
Promotion: this section is usually a part of the employment section and is responsible for maintaining records and assessing the general suitability of a person for promotion. Recommendations will normally be made through heads of departments to the personnel promotion section, which will take the necessary action or make recommendations to higher levels.
Training and education: as its title suggests, this section has a dual role. On the one hand it must arrange for the training of all newcomers in the performance of their jobs. That may involve the establishment of special training scheme within the enterprise itself. On the other hand there is the responsibility to ensure that training and education in the wider sense are not neglected, especially of young employees, and that will involve decisions on the correct type of educational or training courses which the employees should undertake, the negotiating of day release or sandwich courses with technical colleges and outside educational centres, arranging correspondence courses, etc.
Medical: the responsibility here is to maintain the health of the workers. In collaboration with medical practitioners and by employing trained staff, there will not only be an initial and periodic examination of employees, but treatment will be available for all minor injuries suffered whilst at work, as well as facilities for removal to hospital in the case of major accidents.
The value of this section may not be immediately obvious, but it has advantages to both employees and employers. Under a good medical scheme workers will be well taken care of and their health will be maintained; they can be sure that their health will not suffer by virtue of their employment. The employer gains from such a scheme as it reduces the man-hours lost. There is less risk of infection if a minor injury receives skilled medical treatment at once, and the risks of the worker going absent due to injury are greatly reduced. One of the greatest causes of lost of man-hours is injury at work, and is a serious drawback to any enterprise.
Staff Welfare: this section is closely related to, and is often part of, the medical section. It can usually be divided into two divisions:
1. The Safety Division: the work here is carried out in close co-operation with all sections of the enterprise. The aim of this division is to locate areas of danger, and to eliminate them and to be constantly seeking improved safety measures and safety practices as they relate to the activities of the enterprise. Many large enterprises have safety officers to keep a check on all aspects of employee protection and to ensure that the accident rate is low.
2. The Employee Services Division: this is concerned with such matters as canteen facilities, social and recreational activities, and such matters as holidays, sports and legal facilities, etc. The extent to which an enterprise can offer employee services depends upon its size and resources.
The Industrial Relations Section: the work of this section is most closely bound up with the non-material aspects of a personnel policy. This section will be responsible for the setting up and maintenance of machinery for joint consultation, and establishing methods of procedures for the settling of grievances at shop floor level. (…to be continued)