These days, there are several core key areas every HR department should be in charge of in order for a business to be effective and successful. Without an HR department that knows what it’s doing, roles like recruitment, on-boarding, and managing compensation packages will fall on your managers, taking them away from their day-to-day operations and essentially hobbling your company’s ability to grow.
It’s also good to remember that for many companies, the HR department is the first point of contact. Professionalism and efficiency are necessary traits, whether your HR department is made up of one person or ten.
Think of your HR department much like the liaison between you, your top-level execs, and your employees. So, in order to optimize your HR department for success, you need to make sure you’re covering all the bases and that your HR department is equipped to fulfill its roles. What are those roles, you may ask?
Recruiting and Staffing
An HR department is vital when recruiting new employees and hiring staff. Who you hire has a huge impact on your company’s performance. You have to make sure the people you’re hiring fit your company and culture, which is exactly what your HR department is designed to do. It should help streamline your hiring process and handle everything from writing up job descriptions to examining and narrowing down potential new hires, to drafting up an offer letter.
Onboarding New Hires
Onboarding is a strategic process used to help acclimate new hires to your company’s culture. It’s designed to help them adjust to the performance and social expectations of their new role within the company and helps reduce turnover. In the onboarding process, you help your new hire understand their role, introduce them to relevant resources to help make their transition go smoothly, and get them set up for induction and training. It’s also the job of HR to initially monitor a new hire’s progress and make sure they are fully equipped to do the job they were hired to do. The more streamlined this process, the faster your new hire can begin working and contributing to the company’s core mission.
Managing Talent
A talent management process helps to engage and motivate your top employees and improve their overall performance on the job. By foreseeing changes and adapting to challenges, you can help your business thrive and out-do others in your industry in a way that’s uniquely your own. That gives you a very competitive edge. One way to creatively manage your talent is to offer resources for them to increase and hone their skills and create a company culture that everyone feels a part of. Applying strategies like this will dramatically increase employee retention and help fuel company growth.
Complying with Regulations
Every business has systems, procedures, and policies they must adhere to in order to comply with laws and regulations. Your HR department can help ensure your company is on the up and up when it comes to your employees, as well as health and safety regulations, and ensure your employees are all properly certified. Both employer and employee should be appropriately protected under your state’s laws. Ideally you will want to assign a point person for this role and make sure to incorporate an efficient HR software to help this person keep track of everything.
Handling Compensation and Benefits
This is a primary role that your HR department must excel at. This person is your communicator with vendors and third-party partners, and the person who develops benefit plans and compensation packages that fit your company’s budget. They make sure everyone gets paid properly and on time, that accounting stays on point, and also keeps up with salary requirements for top talent that the company can’t stand to lose. If payroll is a mess, accounting is a mess, and benefits are a mess, your company suffers, and your employees walk.
Engaging and Retaining Employees
Some of these tasks would apply to managing talent as well. But ultimately, you want to make sure your HR department has a finger on the pulse of your company, so they can successfully gauge morale and know what incentives best motivate your employees. Improving overall engagement and retention of your staff members is critical to a company’s long-term success.
Continued Education and Development
This can again tie in with talent management, but you need to make sure your company offers support for career development. That might be mentor programs and initiatives, training courses, resources for additional certifications, and other things that make your employee a more valuable asset to the workforce.
Terminating Employees
Unfortunately, terminations are a fact of life in the world of business. Some employees just aren’t up to snuff for the role they were initially hired for or broke rules that can’t be unbroken. Your HR department handles hiring as well as firing. Be sure whoever is assigned to this role is good at showing empathy and never forget to conduct an effective exit interview. An exit interview helps you cover your bases and avoid problems later with an employee who may not be happy with termination and isn’t afraid to lie to cause trouble.
Remember that HR departments are essential in a well-run operation. By ensuring your HR department is utilizing best practices and operating effectively, you help to ensure happy employees. Happy employees make for good business. Good business makes for excellent growth.
If your business is currently struggling and you need a fractional COO or HR manager, reach out to us today!
See Also:
Fractional COO’s and Why You Need One
Knowledge is Power: The Importance of Developing a Knockout Employee Handbook
