What are the Relationships between societal needs and the activities of a human resource department

What are the Relationships between societal needs and the activities of a human resource department.?
that is for a HR course, thanks for sharing ideas.
Sociology - 2 Answers

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1
Human Resoucre departments exist for one thing and one thing only - to protect the company by mitigating the risks posed by having the need to work with human beings.


2
The HR department of course exists to serve both the functional needs (hiring, training....) of the firm as well as the firms' legitimacy needs (the appearance of intent to act in an equitable manner towards employees to avoid legal sanction or a costly bad reputation). This grim view has validity, but is not the whole explanation of the relationship. HR departments are made up of individuals who for intrinsic reasons, and via norms instilled through our society, are motivated by sources outside of their firm's immediate goals. Like any employee, they have interests that transcend merely making money for the boss. Many folks, at least the biz students that approach me about working in HR, are also interested in creating positive and equitable workplaces for lower level employees (instead of merely appearing to do so as many firm would prefer). Given this, many individuals in HR departments do pressure larger societal needs, or at least pressure for more attention towards such concerns as education, community influence, compensation structure and employee procurement. No surprise that human resource departments arose from both the need for employees in the 1940's and the difficulties of dealing with unions during World War II. Some firms found that using an HR department mitigated employee's feelings that they needed to organize to influence workplace safety and compensation. Anyhow, long answer to a short question.