Introduction
Many people believe that a company is only as good as its workforce, and making sure that the right people are recruited and well trained is considered a very important aspect of the business.
Employees are referred to as “human resources” because effective workers are just as essential to the success of a business as the machinery, equipment and good-quality raw materials.
The Human Resources (HR) or Personnel department looks after:
Recruitment
Job vacancies arise if someone leaves a company or if another person is needed to help an existing team or work on a new project. The HR team will work with people from the relevant department to recruit a new employee. Working together, they will write a job description and person specification and decide on the best way to advertise the vacancy. They will also decide how they would like potential candidates to apply (e.g. with a CV and covering letter or an application form).
The HR team receives the applications, works with the relevant departments to choose the best candidates and then produces a shortlist of people to interview. When the shortlisted candidates are invited for interview, the HR team is also involved in this process.
Training and development
Starting a new job can be quite daunting, as there is so much to learn in the first few days and weeks. To help make it easier for new employees and ensure that they can start working effectively as part of the team as soon as possible, the HR team gives all new employees induction training.
The general aim of all staff training is to produce skills that education could not (or did not) provide to employees. This training doesn’t stop after the first few weeks at the company. The HR team is also involved in training existing employees to improve their efficiency, to use new technologies or to give them more skills so that they can move into new roles within the company. Depending on their role, employees may also be asked to undertake health and safety training to avoid accidents in the workplace.
Welfare
The HR Team is responsible for ensuring that the organisation complies with laws on health and safety, working conditions and equal opportunities. This includes everything from making sure that people are working the right hours each week, through to ensuring that the production team has the right training to use machinery correctly.
Cadbury is a very big organisation which employs approximately 50,000 people in many different business areas. That’s a lot of people for the HR team to look after!
