Human resource management salary

by Cristian on January 25, 2012

Human resource management, often abbreviated HRM or simply HR, is the entity that manages the people working in a company or organization. The main activities of the human resource management department include, but are not limited to: personnel selection, recruitment, training and rewarding, managing the organizational culture and values of the company and but also ensure that the conditions imposed by the labor law are met. Human resource management specialists should have very strong interpersonal skills.

Depending on the size of the organization, in start-ups for example, HRM might be done by smaller teams of trained people (even non-HR), while in bigger organizations it is done by a specialized department, totally dedicated to HR related activities only.

Human resource management is a fairly popular and established domain (with its roots back in 1913) that is seeing a modest growth in demand when compared to other jobs like health information management. The highest title in human resource management is Chief HR Officer, which is reporting the Chief Executive Officer of the organization.

Human resource management salary

Human resource management salary – Averages

The average annual human resource management salary is close to 60,000 dollars, for the US. The salary range, taking in consideration factors like personal experience, degree, location and employee starts from 25,000 dollars a year and can goes up to over 100,000 dollars. In extreme cases a human resource manager can earn over 150,000 dollars a year, but these are isolated cases.

Human resource management salary – Bonuses and benefits

Bonuses are not that popular in this field, so there is highly unlikely to get any. A few HR people have reported bonuses of 1,000 to 12,000 a year.

The most popular things on the benefits list include health care, retirement plan and paid vacation.

Human resource management salary – By experience

If we break it down to the number of years of experience a human resource manager salary can vary quite a lot, as you can see form the salary ranges reported below.

Entry level human resource managers, with less than one year of experiences have a salary between 25,000 dollars and 75,000 dollars. Managers with up to 4 years of experience can earn between 30,000 dollars and 73,000 dollars. Notice that the upper salary limit is not that different between the two, while the lower salary limit is a bit higher for managers with at least 1 year of experience.

As we move on to middle level, human resource management salaries increase proportionally with the years of experience. So, for managers with 5 to 9 years of experience the salaries can vary from 40,000 dollars up to 82,000 dollars, while for human resource managers with 10 to 19 years of experience, the salaries vary from 45,000 dollars to 95,000 dollars a year.

Finally, for senior human resource managers with more than 20 years of experience under their belt, salaries start from 45-50,000 dollars and can go over 100,000 dollars a year.

Human resource management salary – By location

As usual, location is an important factor that affects salaries in any domains and human resource management is no exception. Things like the cost of living and unemployment rate are essential aspects that vary a lot on the location.

The best states to work in as a human resource manager are:

  • California, with a salary range from $ 45k  to $ 95k a year
  • New York, with a salary range from $ 40k  to $ 95k a year
  • Illinois, with a salary range from $ 40k  to $ 86k a year
  • Texas, with a salary range from $ 38k  to $ 86k a year

Human resource management salary – By gender

The large majority of human resource managers are women – 82% while only 18% are men. However, the salary ranges are lower for women human resource managers – $ 46k to $ 72k, while for men human resource managers’ salaries ranges from $ 50k to $ 80k.

Human resource management job description

A human resource manager oversees all aspects related to the human resources in an organization. This includes activities like recruitment, training programs, departments planning, developing the organizational culture and company values, employee relations, personnel administration, compensation and benefits administration and so on.

Human resource management is in charge with administration of all employee related issues.

Human resource management courses

Education plays and important role in career development and in case of human resource management, there are many training programs and courses to choose from.

You will most likely need a Bachelor degree for any position in a human resource management team, even though it does not to be a degree in personnel administration or human resources. Human resource management is an interdisciplinary domain and a some organization might prefer people with degrees in various specializations like engineering, law or finance.

However, if you decide to build a career in human resource management, you will most likely need to join a specialized training program in HR which will help you achieve better positions and a higher salary. On average a human resource management course will last six months and will get you a HR diploma.

These are the most important things you need to know on human resource management and the salary you can get in this field. If there are other things you would like to know or if you are working in a human resource management department and want to share your salary please use the comment form below.

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