Is growth and salary less in HR compared to marketing or other domains? I have been placed in HR role from a tier 1 Business school, but I am not sure whether I want to really do it because of the growth and opportunities.

These are only a few activities that competent HR managers ensure for the organization. So you see it is a knowledge intensive role.

HR carries some very knowledge intensive activities that not everybody gets exposure to namely:

  1. Rebadging when companies take over other companies the employees come over to the acquiring company. This is a tedious exercise and not everybody has exposure to it
  2. Audits: Answering Lawyers and Auditors when a company is being acquired or merging - audits are required and HR takes up a massive role in this exercise
  3. Retaining Employees: With attrition at an all time high, the HR role has come to the forefront. Retaining employees is a tedious exercise
  4. Budgets: In companies where HR is prominent function, the budgets are maintained by them
  5. Resource Allocation: This is obvious. You allocate the right skill to the right team
  6. Manager Audits: Not every people manager is successful. In good companies, I have seen HR taking lead and changing managers who have a poor NPS rating/ scores
  7. Shops & Establishments Act: Damn India is a continent and every state has its own laws. Although there is little variation but still needs to be taken into consideration. For example HR manager would come on RFP calls to warn you, that for every female employee you have to factor providing cabs if work exceeds a certain time limit. There are other factors as well like gratuity etc that only competent HR’s can cover
  8. Strategy: Which roles are optimal for which location? for example Mumbai has a lot of finance companies and Bangalore has a lot of tech companies. This intelligence is carried by HR strategists only
  9. Costing: If you opened an office in Budapest, what will be the costs of a candidate of a particular skillset? A question like this can only be answered by a competent Talent Acquisition personnel
  10. Procurement: What to order from the annual budget to keep the staff happy and engaged? HR procurement is not easy and complex as there is a lot of negotiation that happens
  11. Reporting: Which KPI’s are optimal? Are the teams maintaining optimal KPI’s ? Some Consulting studies can only be lead by a competent HR partner
  12. Compliance : Are we adhering to the government policies, state laws, and laws related to organized employment? Compliance has to be ensured by HR

These are only a few activities that competent HR managers ensure for the organization. So you see it is a knowledge intensive role.

And Knowledge intensive roles are rewarding provided you are working for a start up or a highly responsible position.