The mission of human resources may seem like a bland one to some–after all, why would the typical person care about the finer details of how employee skills are considered, rewarded, and utilized? It is a very crucial field, though, with a lot of interesting facets to it. Here are three things you probably didn’t know about the mission of human resources that you might actually find interesting:

1. Management of the Workforce Isn’t That Old

Surprisingly, human resource solutions are not that old of a concept. HR is a product of the the human relations movement. This was mainly in the early 20th century and basically involved researchers starting to document ways of creating business value through all sorts of strategic workforce management. In layman’s terms, researchers tried to figure out how they could make businesses worth more by how they were organized. It’s come quite a long way since then!

2. A Lot of HR is Automated

Over the years, HR has done a lot to try to make businesses more efficient. A logical progression of this was to eliminate some human resource positions in exchange for human resource management software. These things cover everything from record and appraisal to retirement to recruitment and training history, keeping detailed records of everything. Nothing is sacred in HR’s eyes, not even themselves. Despite this, it is important to remember that…

3. Human Resources are People Too

At the end of the day, the folks who work in HR are just another part of the workforce. They are doing their jobs to try to help the rest of the workforce work better and work smarter. They are the reason businesses can grow and sometimes even create more jobs than they eliminate. What do you think of HR?