Human Resources Definition

Human Resources is the department or function responsible for managing and optimizing the workforce, including hiring, training, and personnel-related matters.

human resources definition

Starts at $0 + state fees and only takes 5-10 minutes

Excellent 4.8 out of 5 stars 17,967 reviews

If you’re a business owner, delegation is key — especially if you have employees. In fact, you might need to regularly delegate employee matters to your human resources department. What is that? For a quick summary, take a look at the human resources definition below. 

What is human resources? 

A business’s human resources department helps that business fulfill many of its obligations and manage the relationships between the business and its employees. The functions associated with the human resources definition include: 

  • Screening potential employees
  • Hiring employees
  • Handling workplace complaints
  • Educating employees about policies and procedures
  • Keeping employee records
  • Recruiting employees
  • Handling disciplinary actions
  • Training employees
  • Firing employees
  • Keeping the business current with fulfilling its employment law obligations
  • Handling employee compensation and benefits
  • Creating and handling employee records
  • Keeping the business current on its insurance obligations
  • Facilitating communications between the business and its employees

As you can see, a business’s human resources department juggles many tasks vital to the survival of an enterprise. 

Many people go to school to learn how to manage human resources matters. If you don’t have this background, you don’t have to let it stop your dreams. You can hire a human resources manager or team to do the job for you. 

Human Resources: The Advantages

If you have employees, you need to handle the matters listed above, one way or another. Hiring your own team to handle human resources has many benefits. There are so many laws you need to follow as an employer. To name a few, there are:

  • Anti-discrimination laws
  • Wage payment and work hour laws
  • Workplace safety and injury laws
  • Insurance laws
  • Payroll laws
  • Employee benefit laws

Also, you might have to follow different versions of these laws at local, state, and federal levels. Doing this on your own could take an overwhelming amount of time you don’t have when you’re running a business. It’s often best to have a separate human resources manager or team to take on this responsibility. 

Having a human resources team can also bring you needed protection if your business encounters a workplace harassment complaint. If a state or federal agency receives a harassment complaint from one of your employees, the agency is more likely to find you liable if your business didn’t have a separate human resources department to take complaints. Sometimes complaint resolution efforts of your human resources team can stop an employee’s state or federal harassment complaint from happening. 

Human Resources: The Disadvantages

Hiring a human resources team or manager costs money and requires more effort from you when you’re forming your business. But with all the hefty fines and legal troubles you could incur without human resources, it’s often better to spend money and time on hiring a good team from the outset.  

A human resources team can cost money but save you turmoil

If you’re ready to hire employees for your business, a human resources team can help you stay in line with your legal obligations as an employer. The presence of a human resources team can also help you avoid bigger legal issues if there’s a workplace dispute. Hiring this kind of team can cost you extra, but is often worth it in the long run. 

Recommended articles

We can help

A human resources team isn’t the only team that can help your business thrive and help keep it legally compliant. Our large catalog of business support services can make it easy to run your own venture. You can set your business up quickly with one of our ZenBusiness Formation Plans and then track your finances with ZenBusiness Money. And our Worry-Free Compliance Service can help your business stay legally compliant. 

Disclaimer: The content on this page is for information purposes only and does not constitute legal, tax, or accounting advice. If you have specific questions about any of these topics, seek the counsel of a licensed professional.

zenbusiness logo

Written by Team ZenBusiness

Start Your LLC