Tribal Human Resources: Recognizing the Unique Role, Opportunities, and Challenges

Tribal Human Resources is a challenging, yet rewarding career. There are many opportunities and challenges that you’ve faced and will face in your unique role. It’s likely that you’ve selected this career path to help your fellow Tribal members or perhaps because you’re passionate about serving Indian Country. Regardless of why you chose your path, you know that in order to become the very best professional, that you need to have a solid foundation of knowledge of where your contributions can best serve the organization.

Tribal Human Resources in the Management Process

Tribal Human Resources professionals serve as a strategic partner to leadership as they carry out the functions of the organization. You steward employee resources, which are the organization’s most valuable resources. You serve a critical function in every step of the management process:

  • Planning: In the planning function your role includes labor analysis, training needs analysis, market wage comparison, and benefits negotiation.
  • Organizing: In the organizing function, you may create and maintain job descriptions, job analyses, employee handbooks, operating procedures, internal controls and compliance.
  • Controlling: In the controlling function, you may provide insight into organizational charts, organizational analyses, training, chain of command, and communication channels.
  • Directing: In the directing function, your role is critical to performance management, evaluations, employee surveys, progressive discipline, return on investment analysis, turnover data analysis, retention data analysis, and engagement programs.

Tribal Human Resources also play a fundamental role in all aspects of the Employee Lifecycle. From recruiting to separations, to onboarding and performance management, Tribal Human Resources professionals organize and assess the health of the organization while simultaneously executing to systems, processes, and tasks in the variable and complex Employee Lifecycle.

Overcoming Tribal Human Resources Challenges

The first course in the Foundations of Tribal HR series: Tribal Human Resources: Recognizing the Unique Role, Opportunities, and Challenges, will help you with unique challenges that HR professionals face in Tribal government, administration and enterprise management. You’ll learn the management process, employee lifecycle, and how HR fits into the organization’s overall strategic plan.

You are invited to enroll in the Foundations of Tribal HR today. Click here to get started. This training is provided as a free service to you. It’s part of how we live by our values. Please share it with a peer.