We regularly hear top business leaders declaring employees as the most important part of any business - so why aren't HR departments larger?

Whilst that is a nice idea - it's left open to interpretation and reliance on managers. some managers will be good others bad. A larger HR team that is focused on developing everyone in the org. with a core team of experts is - in my opinion - far better than relying on individual managers who might be too busy with their day job.

Because every manager, irrespective of which department he works, shall work as HR personnel.

HR is not getting larger because some companies limited the work force in HR because they want to limit the people know the confidential informations in HR

Dear Ghada,

Firstly, very good point you have placed!

HR is a thank less job, may it sound off professional but being into Human Resource I can point it as a fact.

For all business HR is essential for overall working but at the same it is difficult for other dept. also the top management to understand the working of HR dept. the best example I can point is  " How  rare scenario where HR person being promoted (or being heading a business)"   

Also it a primitive thinking that to keep a wide HR dept is costly and for business HR is not the one who is generating revenue, so if business is running normally with few HR, well who cares of HR Dept.

Hope it was of help,

Regards

Dev

IT DEPEND ON THE COMPANY REQUIRMENT 

HR is both a support and consuming department. Companies will therefore concentrate on having bigger production departments but lean support departments thanks to the current HR systems in place.

This statement may appear as a result of the paradox that exists in some organizations that do not actually believe in HR as they should, yet they publish such statement.

The significance of HR should be measured by its presence in the strategic business decisions / forum and its contribution towards strategic aspects of the organization and not only by the size of the HR department.

If the organization believes that HR enables value creation in their success, availability of a robust HR system could lead to a relatively lean HR team that focuses more on strategic aspects of HR than mere daily cumbersome operational level tasks.

It depends on the industry, company size, and ERP/HRIS in use.

Especially the HR Management Systems nowadays play very important role in defining the size of the HR Department.

However, in my opinion, companies should invest more in their HR and Training departments nowadays to maintain, retain, control, and develop their employees.

HR Dept is a support dept.

-The size depends on a lot of factors,

-No of employees

-organisation vision, culture, philosophy, governance,

-corporate social responsibility, ethics, management belief.

-How HR will enable business sustainability, cost efficiency,

         compliance, upgrading employees skills, constitution etc.

-Whether an organisation is at a local level,  multinational level. 

-Present technology applications existing in the company. 

-Organisation is remotely managed by inbuilt HR Centre or 

 regionally outsourced to a service provider.

-whether HR is merely a support or Business Partner?.

-additional capability to support in Business Development..........

HR Dept. is lubricant which has to provide viscosity

for high engine (business) performance. If the business

is already self-managed, smooth and operational 

HR Dept size will gradually be ?.

This declaration or statement is probably based on the usual way of human functionality; "one is what we think, second what we speak and what we do is totally different.

True is that the HR is one of the most important department in any company but also true is that this unit is very expensive because of the necessary education of the people and I don't talk just about the usual way of education, which means uni degree. Mostly people in the HR unit should be educated in a lot of other disciplines to solve the needs of the duty.

Then ext point of the complexity of the HR unit is the fact that they are not really busy all the time so, this is a very complex topic and the head of the companies have hard decisions to do about the number and quality of employees in the HR unit although as better the HR unit the better things works.

It is not necessary that HR Department should be larger, it should be efficient.

The important point to ponder about is the philosophy and values of the company. A company can have a written down vision, mission, philosophy and values which will be different that what is actually being practiced.

The owners and top management of many small and medium sized companies does not know the functions of the HR Department. Most often they are aware of the administrative functions of HR Department and have poor or little idea of Developmental aspects and the Strategic aspects where HR Department can play a monumental role. Secondly, these management view the direct correlation between profit/revenue and staff; they fail to understand that HR Department works hard to create an environment which facilitate the smooth functioning of organization.