What Does a Human Resources Assistant Do?

A human resources assistant (HR assistant) supports a company's or organization's human resources specialist or specialists. They tend to clerical tasks such as writing correspondence, answering telephone calls and scheduling appointments.

One of the most important parts of an HR assistant's job is maintaining personnel records. This involves keeping track of confidential information like employees' address changes, performance reviews, benefits, and salaries.

HR assistants may also help with therecruiting process. This could including posting job announcements, pre-screening applicants, administeringassessments to candidates and informing people of their acceptance or rejection for the job for which they applied.

They may also explain health, disability, and life insurance as well as other benefits to new hires, collect completed paperwork, and help current employees who wish to change their benefit plans during open enrollment periods.

Human Resources Assistant Duties & Responsibilities

As part of their day's regular duties and tasks, a human resources assistant may perform some or all of the following:

• Work closely with the HR Manager to provide support as needed on highly confidential human resource matters and special projects.
• Interact with benefits providers regarding enrollments and changes in status, track employee enrollment timing, monitor benefit billing, etc.
• Respond to employee policy inquiries.
• Assemble, distribute and track candidate offer packets and required actions.
• Maintain all electronic personnel/benefits files.
• Work with new hires to collect necessary paperwork.
• Explain medical, dental, life insurance, disability, 401(k), etc. benefits to employees.
• Participate in all corporate led training initiatives.
• Assist HR specialist with the processing of terminations.

Human Resources Assistant Salary

A human resources assistant's salary varies based on the area of expertise, level of experience, education, certifications, and other factors.

• Median Annual Salary: $33,405 ($16.06 /hour)
• Top 10% Annual Salary: More than $43,098 ($20.72/hour)
• Bottom 10% Annual Salary: Less than $25,376 ($12.2/hour)

Source: Payscale.com, 2019

Education, Training & Certification

The human resources assistant position involves fulfilling education and training requirements as follows:

• Education: Human resources assistants need at least a high school diploma or a General Equivalency Diploma (GED) although some employers prefer to hire candidates who have an associate or bachelor's degree.
• Training: Successful applicants also have training in performing general clerical tasks, using computers, maintaining filing systems and in human resources practices.

Human Resources Assistant Skills & Competencies

In addition to education and other requirements, candidates that possess the following skills may be able to perform more successfully in the job:

• Communication skills: The candidate must have strong communication skills including good listening, speaking andwriting skills.
• Organizational skills: Because an HR assistant is responsible for handling a lot of information, he or she needs goodorganizational skills.
• Confidentiality: Integrity is another required attribute since much of this information is confidential and must not be shared with others.

Job Outlook

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that employment of human resources assistants will not change (neither increase or decrease) through 2026. This compares to the projected growth for all jobs in all occupations, of 7% for the period from 2016 to 2026.

Work Environment

Most people in this occupation work in an office setting within a human resources group or department.

Work Schedule

HR assistant jobs typically have full-time hours, during normal business hours.

Comparing Similar Jobs

People interested in a human resources assistant career also consider the following career paths, listed with their median annual salaries:

• Customer service representative: $33,750
• Human resources specialist: $60.880
• Insurance sales agent: $50,600

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018