WHAT DOES A HUMAN RESOURCES CONSULTANT DO?
Updated: Oct 10, 2025 - The Human Resources Consultant provides comprehensive HR support across the employee life cycle, including performance management, compensation, training, and terminations. The role involves assessing organizational practices, recommending HR best practices, ensuring compliance with employment laws, and supporting leadership through strategic initiatives. The consultant also develops recruitment strategies, manages HRIS reporting, updates employee handbooks, and delivers company-wide training programs to enhance organizational effectiveness.
A Review of Professional Skills and Functions for Human Resources Consultant
1. Human Resources Consultant Duties
- Benefits Administration: Serves as the agency's primary benefits administrator to include health, dental, vision and life insurance, retirement benefits and leave
- Payroll Processing: Responsible for accurate and timely transactional processing in the SCEIS SAP HR/Payroll system, leave, and file/records maintenance
- Leave Management: Manages the agency’s leave program to include record keeping, accruals, and training in leave processes
- FMLA Coordination: Coordinates the agency's FMLA process
- Talent Acquisition: Coordinates agency recruitment initiatives for FTE and temporary staff and manages the Intern Program
- Full-Cycle Recruiting: Responsibilities include full-cycle recruiting from the drafting of job postings through onboarding
- Workplace Communication: Supports a positive and efficient work environment that produces continuous, effective communication
- Conflict Mediation: Participate in the timely, discreet counsel of staff employment concerns, including workplace issues, policy violations, mediation, grievances and communication
- Training Development: Helps to plan and schedule training and employee development
- Process Improvement: Participates in projects and initiatives to advance the operational effectiveness of the State Treasurer’s Office (STO)
- Report Assistance: Assists with business objects reporting
- Report Management: Develops, distributes and stores HR and administrative-related reports
- Procedure Creation: Creates procedures for pulling reports
2. Human Resources Consultant Details
- HR Support: Provides mainly tactical HR support on a fractional, interim or project basis in areas of HR
- Benefits Liaison: Acts as a Liaison to Benefits, Payroll and HR Technology Providers across clients, which range from small/emerging-growth to mid-size organizations
- Culture Promotion: Promotes HR practices and objectives that provide an employee-oriented, high-performance culture that emphasizes quality, productivity and standards, and goal attainment
- Client Relations: Develops and maintains relationships with assigned clients’ management team and employees
- Project Collaboration: Team up with other HR Consultants to work on projects or other team assignments
- Business Alignment: Actively participate as a functional resource on the business team, ensuring human resources is an integral part of the business strategy
- Policy Guidance: Provide direction to leaders in the interpretation and application of employee-related policies, practices and procedures, as well as international laws, governmental regulations, and internal investigations to enhance consistency
- Workplace Improvement: Maintain and improve the work environment of the team
- Personnel Services: Provide employment and personnel services including hiring new employees, administering benefits, providing appropriate training, and ensuring a safe work environment
- Training Coordination: Develop and coordinate training and development
- Staffing Management: Ensure proper and effective staffing, personnel selection and practices, manpower planning and succession planning, skills development, training, policy and practice interpretation and application
- Work Planning: Sets priorities and establishes a work plan to complete broadly defined assignments and achieve desired results
- Quality Standards: Establishes quality standards consistent with overall quality goals
3. Human Resources Consultant Responsibilities
- Recruitment Planning: Business partnering with Centres in the Supply Division in the recruitment and monitoring of staff in the Supply Division, including conducting recruitment planning meetings with Hiring Managers
- Timeline Coordination: Discuss recruitment timelines, guidelines and other important aspects before the initiation of any recruitment process
- Surge Hiring: Implementing surge recruitment processes for the COVID-19 response and OMP recruitment processes
- Candidate Management: Advertising positions, sourcing candidates, shortlisting, scheduling interviews, attending the interviews and making recommendations
- Offer Processing: Following up on references, facilitating approval processes, feedback sessions and academic verifications, and initial offer letters
- Cultural Support: Support cultural and behavioral changes in the organization, in the context of decentralized recruitment, strategic HR partnership approach and the implementation of revised staff selection policy
- Roster Management: Assist the Supply Community Learning and Development Unit in updating the Supply function Rosters and the mobility exercise for Supply Division Posts
- HR Data Analysis: Support in analyzing HR data to help inform decision-making on HR processes and strategies
4. Human Resources Consultant Job Summary
- Risk Management: Works collaboratively with HR staff to manage risk and deploy best practices in the administration and delivery of HR services
- ER Consulting: Serves as a consultant to local HR and operations leaders on employee relations matters, where content and subject-matter expertise
- Workplace Advocacy: Advocates for fair and appropriate workplace practices by the mission, values, and legal parameters
- HR Technology: Promotes and utilizes HR technology, metrics, and systems to support the overall needs of the business
- ER Assessment: Assists in ER assessments and/or investigations where additional resources are needed
- Issue Resolution: Works collaboratively with local HR and others, including Labor/Employment counsel, to address findings and make recommendations
- Conflict Mediation: Assists in identifying opportunities for problem resolution and mediation to resolve issues between management and employees
- Disciplinary Support: Collaborate with the local HR to provide consultation to managers on corrective action and discipline
5. Human Resources Consultant Accountabilities
- HR Consultation: Provide HR consultation and leadership for the client(s), supporting the entire employee life cycle
- Performance Management: Performance reviews and corrective actions, training, compensation, and termination
- Stakeholder Partnership: Consistently partner with company stakeholders on employee relations, budgeting, professional development, and strategic initiatives
- Concern Resolution: Proactively address potential employee concerns and assist leadership with communication strategies
- HR Assessment: Assess the organization's HR Departments through employee/manager interviews, surveys, shadowing and policy/process analysis
- Best Practices: Recommend and implement HR best practices based on those assessments
- Regulatory Support: Support clients when assessing new and/or updated federal, state and local laws and regulations
- HRIS Reporting: Create and process reports within multiple HRISs
- Recruitment Strategy: Develop and implement recruitment strategies for companies looking to reduce time to hire or alleviate positions with high turnover rates
- Handbook Management: Analyze, develop and roll out employee handbooks for clients, and review on an annual basis
- Compensation Planning: Create competitive compensation strategies that align with the business’s mission and vision
- Training Development: Develop and implement company-wide training such as interviewing, leadership, constructive feedback, diversity and inclusion, harassment, etc.