The kind of one liner explanation or definition of HR that you’re likely to encounter is something like this “Human Resources is an umbrella term for a collection of functions that assist an organisation deliver value through its employees, contractors and agency staff”. However the way I view and define Human Resources is as a lifecycle – I recall quite vividly presenting ‘what is HR’ as a lifecycle (actually of a butterfly) to a group of quite senior colleagues at the time, and receiving some confused looked. However, stay with me on this one, and just like that group of colleagues, I promise you’ll walk away with a functional and useful understanding of what Human Resources is about.
The approach I’ve taken in explaining what HR does, is to follow an employee through being attracted to a role/organisation, day one on the job, their day to day interactions with HR, and then finally leaving the organisation. In other articles I focus more on the HR side, however in this explanation I’ve looked at HR through the eyes of the employee.