The concept of ‘Core HR’ - the processes that power an effective People function

As businesses have had to (rightly) become more and more human-centric, so too has the HR function evolved far beyond its administrative origins. Regardless of this, there’s still an engine at the heart of the department that powers an effective operation. This beating heart is what’s sometimes referred to as ‘Core HR’.

These foundational processes - for example, recruitment, employee onboarding, compensation & benefits, payroll - keep both the HR team and wider business ticking along. By ensuring that they all run smoothly, HR teams can become empowered to work on more strategic initiatives - health & wellbeing, learning & development, retention, digital transformation, and more.

In this article, we’ll explore the concept of core HR, look at the key processes, roles & responsibilities associated with it, common tools used to power core HR, and the part it plays in a modern human-centric strategy.

What is core HR, and what does it refer to?

Core HR is an umbrella term for all of the ‘business as usual’ tasks worked on within the HR department. It encompasses processes, functions, data and tools, and plays a vital role in supporting and developing the overall employee experience.

Alongside the central functions of the HR department, core HR refers to all workforce data, as well the tools and software used to make the first two happen. Streamlining core HR functions reduces the need for the processes to be done manually, and therefore frees up much more of your time to focus on what really matters - your teams.

What are the core HR functions & processes?

The core function of HR is to effectively manage the employee lifecycle, from recruitment right the way through to offboarding, and everything in between. Core HR is the everyday stuff that makes up the in between and, when properly streamlined with the right tools, allows the bigger strategic stuff (for example, workforce planning) to happen.

Let’s take a look at the core HR roles, responsibilities and processes that feed into the employee lifecycle, and help to keep the organisation ticking along in harmony.

Recruitment

Perhaps one of the most strategic aspects of core HR, the recruitment lifecycle involves a large degree of workforce planning, to assess gaps in skills, resources and perhaps even cultural fit across your company, and then all of the processes that go into finding the right person or people to fill those gaps.

This involves gathering information from team leaders to put together job descriptions, and then sourcing candidates through job boards, social media, referrals or internal recruiting. 

Candidates then need to be screened before being passed onto team managers for further interviews, and a collective decision on whether to make the hire or not. 

We can then move onto the next core HR process.

Onboarding

Onboarding can get going as soon as an offer is agreed by a candidate. Done properly, employee onboarding can contribute towards high levels of engagement, retention, and alignment with company culture.

Software can play a big role in onboarding, to help speed up some of the more repetitive tasks such as creating templated new starter questionnaires or checklists, document signing, uploading and storage.

A core function of HR teams in those first few days is to help embed the new starter into your culture and teams, get them trained up on your business, its products, software, and to work alongside managers to ensure that they have everything they need related to these, readily accessible.

Training and development

Developing your people’s skillsets, as well as training them in all of the software and tools that they’ll use as part of their role, is an essential way to improve performance.

In the long run, this can enhance their ability to progress internally, tackle new challenges, earn pay rises and promotions, and even be able to mentor or manage team members themselves.

Payroll

Paying your people, as one of our customers points out, is the most important thing that the HR function does. Because if people don’t get paid correctly and on time, it can have a catastrophic impact. It’s one of those core HR functions that can be stressful, manual, time consuming, and potentially with the risk for errors to occur. It’s also one that is being increasingly automated via software, to help eradicate all of this bad stuff.

Performance management

Tracking staff performance, and working on ways to improve it, is a core HR process that can reap huge rewards if done properly. Scheduling regular reviews, creating development plans, providing continuous learning opportunities, having a mentor or buddy system…these are all ways that performance can be managed and improved. 

This tends to be led on the process-led side of things by team managers (i.e.: they will organise 1:1s and quarterly reviews with their teams), and then software can be used by the HR team to analyse performance metrics, which feeds into the wider performance management strategy for the company.

Leaves & absence management

Again, this a core HR function that is led more by team managers, as they will be the ones approving or denying leave. Software can be used to make it easy for workers to request time off, and for managers to approve or deny it. HR tends to get involved in cases of long term sick leave, or for leave such as paternal, bereavement, and performance related time off. HR will once again assess leaves and absences data (using software), to spot trends such as when leave is being taken across which teams, and to manage resourcing or recruitment if needed.

Employee engagement

HR leads on the gathering of employee engagement metrics, for example through feedback surveys and performance reviews, and then works on ways to maintain and improve engagement. This feeds into a myriad of benefits, such as better productivity, less absences, higher quality work, and increased collaboration.

Compensation & benefits

Another quite strategic element of core HR, People teams work with company leaders, managers and sometimes external research companies to create compensation policies that are aligned with similar companies, and are consistent across the organisation. These tend to encompass not only salaries, but also benefits, bonuses, leaves and other elements.

Reporting

As the HR function continues to evolve and become more strategic, company leaders are looking to the People team to provide analysis and insight that will inform big business decisions. 

HR data can influence a change of direction around recruitment decisions, compensation, market positioning or indeed spending decisions. Some common examples of core HR data include absenteeism rates, revenue per staff member, total payroll costs, time-to-hire, average length of service, and much more.

Software plays a big part in helping HR teams to analyse and report on workforce metrics.

Core HR data - and the software used to manage it

The storage of information (and analysis of human data) is one of the most critical core HR processes. Personal data needs to be stored securely, with access rights granted only to the individual in question, the employee’s manager, and specifically selected members of the HR team.

This core HR data can include names, addresses, bank account and salary information, leaves, achievements, copies of ID, and educational certificates. The data gives managers and HR the visibility needed to manage teams effectively, and in some cases, to help make those big organisational decisions listed above.

Modern organisations use software (rather than, god forbid, spreadsheets!) to securely store and track core HR data.

This covers tools such as payroll software, which can often take care of leave and performance management, onboarding, data storage and reporting as well. HR leaders will also use tools that can analyse and benchmark salaries & benefits across similar companies, provide training for staff, or to assess employee engagement. 

Why core HR plays a crucial role in modern People strategies

The modern HR team simply won’t have the time to work on the likes of staff health & wellbeing, learning & development, retention, digital transformation, and more, unless they have streamlined core HR tasks. That means software that can support you, and automate the more repetitive, admin-heavy work to free up time for strategic initiatives.

Core HR is an essential part of the mix, because without it, any organisation with more than a handful of staff with intentions to scale and develop, would collapse. 

HR decision makers should be looking for tools and software that can empower people and processes, at the same time as taking the heavy lifting off your plate.

And that’s where we come in.