Today, a whole industry has sprung up to provide HR services on a contract basis. In either case, in-house department or outsourcing organization, HR administers an employer's relations with its employees. While managers do the hiring and firing, HR advises them on legal issues and provides the paperwork. HR is charged with ensuring easy transitions into and out of the company and a pleasant stay while there. HR work is shaped by several conditions in the workplace.
People change jobs frequently.
Benefit programs attract and keep employees in a competitive job market, so they are sophisticated and complex. All this has complicated the work of HR, increased its workload, and made HR important to employers. Today, the top HR officer in a corporation is usually a key member of the executive team, sitting right alongside his or her counterparts in research, finance, operations, and sales and marketing. This change has also affected the rank and file. How It Breaks Down For the purposes of this overview, we divide the opportunities in HR very broadly into in-house staff and service organizations.