A Guide to Writing in Human Resources

Introduction
Human Resources, or commonly abbreviated as HR, is a community of dedicated professionals that balances the needs of the company, federal and state laws, and the wellbeing of employees to create a safe and thriving workplace. This community maintains several aspects of the company and employee relations to help run the company more smoothly. These include but are not limited to Employee Benefits and Compensation, Recruiting, Record Maintenance, Safety, and Policy Development. Some human resource positions may require employees to manage several areas like those mentioned. What is important to understand is each member of the human resource community may have a different understanding of what writing in their field is like because of how broad the profession is. This guide will first attempt to explain the communitys goals. The communitys goals are quite similar across the specialized areas of interest. As expected, employee relationships are a large value among human resource professionals. Next, well look at the roles community members play within their environment. These professionals can be separated by job title, area of interest in human resources, or even socially inspired involvement such as mentor and teacher roles. After their roles, well explore how credibility is built within the community of human resources. These same professionals develop a level of credibility with each other over time that is highly scrutinized. Much of this scrutiny comes from a desire to build a strong community with attention to individual companies goals. This guide will also delve into the communitys language as well as technologies associated with the field. Each company may have its own specialized language or technologies associated with its human resource department, but most share common functions between technological programs and important terms. Finally, Ill describe how many aspects of the position come together in written works produced by the HR employees. Much of this guide is comprised of information gathered from interviewing those within the human resources community as well as the already popular guide to writing in human resources by Diane Arthur. All of this and more will be discussed throughout the course of this guide on writing in human resources.

Community Goals & Values

As youve already guessed by now, employees, those who produce the product for the company, are especially important to those among the human resources community. Dave, a Human Resources Generalist at Stanley Electric shared some of what he believed to be common goals in community. Employee relations, employee safety, employee compensation, employee benefits, community relations, and policy development are among what he believes to be the most common goals. Here, there is an apparent importance placed on the employee, truly holding the everyday worker at the core of human resource professionals. As one interviewee strongly believed employees are at heart of the values amongst human resource professionals, another believed the policies that structure the company are equally if not more important.

Employees are obviously one of the most important aspects of human resources because without them the company would not exist and therefore neither would another community within the field. Much of the focus on employees is broken down into different positions within human resources. One or two HR employees may focus solely on the benefits and compensation awarded to employees where as another set of professionals within the community may be in charge of recruiting and hiring individuals for the company. It is especially important for these individuals to keep employees at the core of their own goals within the community.

Policies and laws were believed to be extremely important to one interviewee, Eric working as a Human Resources Generalist at Abrasive Technology. He said, Its really important to stay up date on any new laws that could change the way our companies conduct ourselves. Ultimately, new laws can change how employees receive benefits or a newly defined aspect of company safety. When new laws are written or old laws change, they can have an impact the associate handbook. These new laws may require human resource professionals to revise or write a new section for the handbook.

Community Roles
For some in the field of human resources, community roles are seen as different positions within the company, but others view roles as a socially interactive entity. Dave offers his opinion in support of the former. Formally, roles such as Director, Senior Manager, Manager, Assistant Manager, and Supervisor are assigned accordingly within the community, but these positions can also become mentors and teachers for newly appointed members.

Certain positions in the companys human resource department are assigned specific writing tasks because of their title. Dave from Stanley Electric discussed how the companys Managers and Assistant Managers work together to develop policies for use in the workplace and associate handbook. Some other relationships that exist between writing in human resources include that of Manager and Supervisor in constructing a strong termination letter or employment advertisement.

In a teaching role, as Eric from Abrasive Technology believes, there is a duty to construct writing guides for new professionals to help carry out their work and accomplish the communitys goals. Some specific writing guides Eric mentioned included, how to write an affirmative action plan, questions to use in an interview, or how the affordable care act will affect employees benefits. Many articles with topics like the ones mentioned above can be found on the SHRM (Society of Human Resource Management) website. When more experienced members of SHRM create and post informative articles with topics specific to job functioning, it helps create an online community between old and new human resource professionals employing that teaching role.

Authority
Authority is especially important in any aspect of a business. When youre dealing with lives of several hundred or several thousand employees youre required by your peers to not only seem competent, but be competent in different aspects of the company.

Certainly for someone recruiting future employees, they should be approachable as well as knowledgeable about the company. This same person may be handling emails from interested parties applying for jobs. Therefore, it is important the individual have a firm understanding of writing conventions such as correct grammar and terminology.

Grammar is important when communicating with other human resource professionals, but it becomes vital when composing specific writings for current and future employees. It conveys a message of credibility that is necessary when handling specialized matters. For instance, if an employee received a termination letter full of grammatical and punctuation errors they may feel as if they were fired by someone who seems less qualified than themselves. With that said, Dave believes it is also important to construct letters and emails as clear and concise as possible with very little lawyer language.

Terminology is just as important in conveying a writers authority and credibility as grammar. Terminology can be also be viewed as political correctness within human resources. With recruiting personnel, they may receive an application from an interested party whose name is popular among both sexes. If this were the case, it is important to not address a specific gender or create a non-sexist tone throughout the response letter. When addressing anyone in an email, its essential to include their title, but some titles were created during a time when males were the predominant breadwinners of the household. An example of this could be instead of referring to a client as a businessman instead using the more universal term businessperson (Arthur, 1997, p. 33).

Specialized Language
Much of the language used among those developing policies and handling employee benefits is described as having a significant learning curve. Mainly, this new lexicon is comprised of acronyms or initialisms for federal laws and legislative acts. Its important to note that a great deal of attention must be paid to these federal laws since they control how employees receive benefits as well as how companies manage their employees.

Eric explained the finer points to several of these laws. Of those Eric discussed, most people have heard while sitting in their high school government class or asked questions about such programs while completing job applications. Of course, it is when these laws and regulations are abbreviated that their meaning is lost among those outside of the community. Below is a list of just a few federal laws designed to protect employees against discrimination, unsafe working conditions, and/or cruel and unusual punishment. Many of these laws have paperwork for social services and government offices associated with them. These laws are often used as acronyms in paperwork and conversation.
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)
Sets minimum wage and overtime pay for hourly employees working over 40 hours. Also limits hours and work duties of teenage employees. Eligible employees can take up to 12 weeks per year unpaid, jobprotected time off for a the birth of a child or to care for a sick child, spouse, or loved one.

Age Discrimination in Job applicants over 40 years old cannot be discriminated based on age. Employment Act
Prohibits job discrimination against qualified people with disabilities. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Equal Pay Act (EPA) Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)

Employers cannot pay female employees less than male employees for equal work on jobs that require equal skill, effort and responsibility. Requires employers to run a business free from recognized hazards.

Prohibits job discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth and related medical conditions.

Technologies
Technological advancement has significantly improved how human resource departments handle different aspects of employees. Email clients and word processors are by far the most used technologies in any companys department of human resources. They have eliminated the need to have mail directors at several companies and can provide immediate responses. In some instances, the use of online tools like Newton and ADP have also increased the efficiency of human resource departments.

In Newton, unfilled positions at companies are tracked, but the service automatically posts employment ads to multiple recruiting websites with very little effort from a single human resource professional. Not only does the service lighten the load of examining where the company has open positions, but it also allows for the human resources personnel to write only one description of the job that is automatically posted to recruiting sites. This service has eliminated the need to write several job listings over and over.

ADP, or Automatic Data Processing, is a company whose software helps human resource departments continually stay organized in terms of their employees. It creates a profile of each employee that professionals can search, refer back to, and edit to keep track of various benefits the individual may be receiving, their payroll, and notable work information. Although much of this information is completed merely by filling in blank spaces within the computer program, it creates a documented history of an employee important for those individuals in the human resources.

Genres
There are several genres in the discourse community of human resources. Most have been discussed throughout the guide like job postings, letters of termination, and basic communication emails. Other genres require multiple staff members or possibly the entire department collaborating on a large project. For example, the associate handbook is an enormous undertaking that requires knowledge of laws and regulations as well as communication with higher up employees of the company. Mentioned before, the articles posted to SHRM are mostly informal works that provide guidance in human resource management positions.

Letters of termination, disciplinary emails, and business emails have a lot in common as far as form and content are concerned. Though of the purpose of these three genres may be different all should be formal, clear in thought, and direct. With termination letters and disciplinary emails, a descriptive narrative is helpful in communicating such important messages (Arthur, 1997, p. 243/p. 253). Business emails

may maintain a more friendly tone as compared to the termination letter or disciplinary email because human resource personnel must maintain a sense of authority.

The associate handbook is designed to inform employees about all of the companys policies, procedures, and expectations. With changes in laws and regulations, the handbook too has to change with either the addition of new material or the alteration of a previously written copy. Having seen Stanley Electrics handbook, it utilizes bolding and underlining headlines to create separation between sections. Important information is bolded or underlined and may be spaced to draw the readers eye to it. At the very beginning of the document, there is a Contents Section that helps the employee search for answers to questions about various roles of their company or within their company. The entire document is designed to set the tone of company while provide the necessary information for the employee to succeed in the workplace. The associate handbook strongly relates to the value of employee relations in human resource management because it is designed to help and inform the employees of the company.

SHRM articles are voluntary posted for those looking to guide others about the course of human resources. Many articles focus on everyday questions related to new laws and policies, but other articles talk about relationships and problems within an individual companys human resource department. By posting to the Society of Human Resource Managements website, less time is spent attempting to figure certain practices out by each HR department, but instead can be quickly searched online. This contributes to the value of understanding policies and the responsibility to minimize the risks a company legally takes with their employees.

Conclusion
Understanding the concepts discussed in this guide will help those interested in obtaining a deeper appreciation for human resources. Together, these topics help readers to better understand how writing affects various aspects of the a position within the human resource community. Without this basic understanding of the profession, human resource professionals would not be able to serve the employees or company in its attempt to maintain a safe and fair working environment for all.

References
Arthur, D. (1997). The Complete Human Resources Writing Guide. New York: American Management Association.

Demuth, Eric. Personal interview. 28 October 2013. Email.

Miles, Dave. Personal interview. 28 October 2013. Email.

The 10 Employment Laws Every Manger Should Know (2013). In White Papers. Retrieved from http://www.thehrspecialist.com/2783/ The_10_Employment_Laws_Every_Manager_Should_Know.hr? cat=tools&sub_cat=white_paper

Appendix
Interview with Eric Demuth
1. How do you define the community of human resources? I would define the community of human resources as fellow workers in my field that you can share your experiences with and help you stay updated on the new laws and regulations. SHRM is a good example of a HR Community. 2. Please share some of the common goals and values of this community? Its really important to stay up to date on any new laws that could change the way our companies conduct ourselves. This could be through articles, discussion boards, conferences, mentorships, teaching classes, ect. 3. What are some of the different roles within the community? *Not necessarily formal titles, but social roles as well. Some of the roles included being a mentor, teacher, and giving back to the community. There are many professionals that have been in the HR field for a very long time and its important to continue to pass along their knowledge to the younger generation. There is a lot you learn from on the job experience that you just dont learn in college. 4. What types of writing tasks are assigned based on role or position? If you are in a teaching role, your tasks could include writing papers on subjects such as how to write an affirmative action plan, questions to use in an interview, or how the affordable care act will affect our employees benefits. In these roles you need to know the proper terms we use in HR and must be up to date on any new laws that have been passed so you are sure you are passing the correct information along to your peers. 5. What types of writing conventions (i.e. grammar, structure, etc.) need to be followed by writers to be taken seriously in the community? I think you need to use the correct terms and grammar when writing. Especially since in HR you always need to be politically correct and detail orientated. Peers in the HR field will scrutinize your work very closely. There isnt much middle ground in what is allowed in the field or not you have to make sure you fully understand what you are talking about. 6. What are a few specialized words that someone joining community might not know at first? Please discuss a bit about these terms. There are many laws and regulations, or types of reports that someone not in our field wouldnt know what they are or how they work. Some of these terms could include: FMLA, HIPPA, EEO, Affirmative Action Plans, Protected classes, and more. Especially when dealing with benefits and insurance plans there can be a steep learning curve in understanding those terms and they can be different depending on what plan your company uses.

7. What are some technologies (computer programs, etc.) used in the field? At my current company we use ADP to track all of our associates payroll, benefits, profiles, and much more. It is very convenient to run reports from when needed. An example of running a report off of it would be if I needed to know who was considered exempt and non exempt in my company, I could run a report to see this. Another service we use is called Newton. It tracks all of our open jobs we are recruiting for. It also automatically posts our jobs to different recruiting websites and allows hiring managers that we are hiring for their process to stay updated and make comments on applicants as we run them through our recruiting process. 8. Please discuss some common genres (any produced writing, formal or informal) and the function they serve. I read a lot of articles on the SHRM website. It has many articles from professionals that work in the HR field and have been certified with either their PHR or SPHR. They are usually informal but have great relevance to something I may have a question about at work. An example of this would be if I had a question of how to run an investigation at work that would hold up in court and what I needed to do to make sure I am following the correct procedures while doing so. I can search for an article of how to do that and usually someone has written an article about it. 9. How do they reveal the communitys values/politics amongst the workplace? I think everyones values are usually the same in that everyone is trying to minimize the risks a company legally takes with their employees, and there are many laws and regulations that help keep us in check. Where you will see different politics will depend on what kind of work environment you are in. Working in a manufacturing environment compared to working in a professional office will bring up many different situations and issues. The article will generally use examples from their experience and that is when you will see the issues they have that you might not have yourself.

Interview with Dave Miles

1. How do you define the community of human resources? An organizations most important asset, which oversees its most important asset, its employees. 2. Please share some of the common goals and values of this community? Employee relations, employee safety, employee compensation, employee benefits, community relations, and policy development. 3. What are some of the different roles within the community? *Not necessarily formal titles, but social roles as well. Vice President, Director, Senior Manager, Manager, Assistant Manager, Supervisor, Staff. 4. What types of writing tasks are assigned based on role or position? Policy development (Manager/Assistant Manager), Termination Letter (Manager/Supervisor), Employment Ad (Manager/Supervisor). 5. What types of writing conventions (i.e. grammar, structure, etc.) need to be followed by writers to be taken seriously in the community? Correct grammar of course (proof reading/spell check). When communicating with employees, dont use lawyer language, simple but to the point grammar.

6. What are a few specialized words that someone joining community might not know at first? Please discuss a bit about these terms. Coop student (student paid for services rendered), Intern student (student not paid for services rendered) with both having possible full time hire possibilities. 7. What are some technologies (computer programs, etc.) used in the field? Kronos (timekeeping), Abra (employee database). 8. Please discuss some common genres (any produced writing, formal or informal) and the function they serve. Associate handbook (to inform all associates of policies, procedures, etc.). 9. How do they reveal the communitys values/politics amongst the workplace? Employee relations (communication) and training.