Human resources refer to the group of individuals who make up the workforce of industry, business, management, or administration. The concept revolves around human capital, education, and abilities, the individuals have a sound command over. Key terminologies to understand its working expanse comprise workers, laborers, personnel, partners, or simply humans. Today’s topic is HR Manager VS HR Generalist.
The human resources (HR) department of a company handles human asset management. This involves supervising different regards related to employment, some of which include assent with labor law and maintenance of employment standards, interviewing, regulation of perks extended to employees, planning of employee records along with adequate documentation (for further referencing), and employee recruitment plus off-boarding areas. The department acts as a bridge between the company’s management and the working employees.
Human resources (HR) managers and generalists have comparable aptitudes that aim at the management of the freshly hired and existing employees of a company. The basic difference lies in that HR generalists concentrate on more of the daily tasks concerning the Human Resource Wing, while the HR managers are responsible for the supervision of overall Human Resource employees, inclusive of HR generalists.
Difference between HR Generalist and HR Manager
What is an HR manager?
HR managers oversee human resources departments. They often manage a staff of HR generalists, benefits specialists, payroll coordinators and trainers to ensure they perform all necessary functions of the department. Some of their common responsibilities include:
What is an HR generalist?
An HR generalist is a professional who manages the daily needs of the HR department. HR generalists often perform all the duties the department requires while supporting a companys staff. Some of the key responsibilities of an HR generalist include:
HR generalist vs. HR manager
Depending on the size of the company or department, HR generalists and HR managers may share duties. Often, a generalist is the first HR employee a company hires, but as the company grows and its staffing needs to increase, the HR team may expand. Then the company may hire an HR manager.
Heres how the roles of HR generalist and HR manager compare:
Functions
HR generalists and managers may perform some of the same duties, but the manager oversees the department rather than executing individual tasks. For example, an HR manager might design their companys recruitment and interviewing process, while an HR generalist may schedule and conduct interviews with candidates. Similarly, a companys HR manager may create strategies for their department, like ensuring turnover is less than 5%, and a generalist may monitor the data to ensure the department meets its goals.
Expectations
HR directors typically expect HR generalists to maintain and analyze data, manage employee files and databases and communicate any issues or needs employees have. Although HR managers often have a high-level understanding of the teams duties and information, they might ask the HR generalist to provide details that they can communicate to other teams.
High-level employees like management and executives may expect HR managers to conduct training events and communicate company policies with them, while HR generalists often work with all levels of staff. In many organizations, employees can expect to contact generalists for questions or to resolve issues.
Qualifications
In some companies, the HR generalist role may be an entry-level position, while HR manager is a mid-level position. For each job, companies may require previous human resources experience. However, companies may expect HR managers to have more experience than generalists, such as three to five years of previous HR experience. HR directors also often require managers to have previous managerial experience. In addition to experience, both roles typically require at least a bachelors degree in human resources, communications or a related field.
Skills
Although HR generalists and managers share many skills, like interpersonal skills, empathy, communication and active listening, each role might require some unique skills. HR managers are typically skilled in:
In comparison, HR generalists may have these skills:
Hierarchy
The hierarchy in a human resources department often looks like this:
Depending on the size of the department, a company may only have generalists, or it may not have assistants or directors. HR assistants help generalists with administrative tasks, like maintaining employee files or distributing paychecks. In larger organizations, an HR director might oversee HR teams in several locations.
Salary
4 additional human resources jobs
Here are four other roles you may consider if youre interested in working in an HR department:
Primary duties: HR assistants help other members in human resources with daily tasks like recruiting, interviewing and managing employee files. They can update employee contact information, track employee turnover or distribute paychecks. HR assistants typically either report to an HR manager or HR generalist.
Primary duties: Benefits specialists support human resources departments and general staff by providing them with information about their benefits. This includes retirement, dental, vision, life insurance and medical plans, depending on what the company offers. Duties might include communicating with insurance companies, distributing benefits information and answering employee inquiries.
Primary duties: Payroll managers oversee payroll departments to ensure accurate and timely payments for all employees. They maintain employment payment information and a companys payroll management tools. Payroll managers may perform audits to ensure their staff updates all employee records and that theyre accurate with important details like termination and hire dates.
Primary duties: The director of HR is an employee who oversees the entire human resources department, including managers and generalists. They work with executives to understand a companys strategies and delegate tasks to managers to develop plans and processes for execution. HR directors share a lot of the responsibilities of HR managers and typically work for companies with large HR departments.
FAQ
Is an HR generalist a management position?
The HR department relies on generalists to manage human resources operations daily. They work with the HR manager or HR coordinator to organize training programs, policy administration, hiring procedures, and other administrative tasks in the human rsources department.
What is the highest HR position?
What is the difference between an HR specialist and an HR generalist?
