Human Resource Management used to be considered as other conventional administrative jobs. But over a period of time, it has evolved as a strategic function to improve working environment, plan out human resources needs and strike a balance between the organization and employers in order to increase organizational productivity and meet organizational goals. Not to exaggerate but in today’s highly competitive world it has gradually become one of the most important functions of an organization.

It is really a huge challenge to understand the psychology of workforce, retain the best talents of the industry, motivate them to perform better and handle diversity while maintaining unity simultaneously, especially in countries like India, where it is still evolving. Globalization has resulted in many positive developments but it has left many concerns for HR managers.

In today’s tough world and tight job market, coordinating a multicultural or diverse workforce is a real challenge for HR department. Human resource managers are on their toes to strike a balance between employer and employees keeping in mind the recent trends in the market. They may find themselves in dire consequences if they are not able to handle the human resource challenges efficiently.

To remain in business, human resource managers need to efficiently address following human resource challenges:

• Handling Multicultural/Diverse Workforce: Dealing with people from different age, gender, race, ethnicity, educational background, location, income, parental status, religious beliefs, marital status and ancestry and work experience can be a challenging task for HR managers. With this, managing people with different set of ideologies, views, lifestyles and psychology can be very risky. Effective communication, adaptability, agility and positive attitude of HR managers can bind the diverse workforce and retain talents in the organization.

• Managing Change: Who wants to change their ideology or way of working? Neither you nor I. How can we expect others to change then? Bringing change in organizational processes and procedures, implementing it and then managing it is one of the biggest concerns of HR managers. Business environment is so volatile. Technology keeps changing every now and then. All thanks to globalization. Upgrading the existing technology and training people for them is a real headache for HR department. The success rate of technology change depends how well HRD can handle the change and manage people issues in the process.

• Retaining the Talents: Globalization has given freedom to working professionals to work anywhere in the world. Now that they have endless lucrative opportunities to work, hiring and retaining the best industry talent is no joke. Maintaining harmonious relations with them, providing excellent work environment and offering more remuneration and perks than your competitors can retain and motivate them.

• Conflict Management: HR managers should know how to handle employee-employer and employee-employee conflicts without hurting their feelings. Although it is almost impossible to avoid conflicts among people still handling them tactfully can help HR managers to resolve the issues. They should be able to listen to each party, decide and communicate to them in a convincing manner in order to avoid future conflicts.

HR professional must be proactive with all strategies and action plans in order to meet the changing needs of the organization. They must be thorough with the basic functions of HR including planning, organizing, leading and controlling human resources.