Top Five Things Business Owners Need to Know When You Don't Have HR

Organizations need to align HR with the overall business strategy to maintain a competitive advantage. Essentials of an effective HR Plan include:

• Attract, Hire and Onboard the Right People
• Develop a Compensation Philosophy & Structure
• Performance Management
• Workforce Laws & Regulations
• Staff Development & Succession Planning

Finding the best people for your business should be approached proactively. Before you need to hire, you need an employment brand for your business that excites prospective employees and articulates what benefits you offer an employee. What is meaningful and rewarding about what you do and how is it going to be meaningful and rewarding for an employee?

Hiring Tips to Improve Your Business

Hiring is a strategic opportunity. Think about how this person is going to help you achieve your goals. Your goal is to get the right candidate to accept the right offer. You do not want candidates to accept offers that aren’t right for them. Working in an organization where values are inconsistent with your own can be stressful, deflating and not conducive to engagement. You can develop skills post-hire, but you will be hard-pressed to change values and beliefs.

Studies show a correlation between engaged employees and a company’s profitability, turnover rate, safety record, absenteeism, product quality and customer satisfaction ratings. Effective onboarding will foster a relationship that reinforces the company’s commitment to helping employees’ professional growth and recognizing talent.

Deciding what to pay and what benefits to offer is a very important aspect of any business recruitment strategy. Determine the “why” around your compensation structure and create a framework to ensure pay equity. What does your approach to compensation say about your business? How does your compensation and benefit structure help you achieve your business goals? What are your competitors doing? What can you afford?

Organizations need to have an established process to handle performance management issues. Performance reviews can be done in a very structured process or informally. Either way, you need to give your employees feedback. Managers need a way to evaluate employee performance. Organizations need a way to determine pay increases and documentation of performance, including what has been done to address performance issues that may lead up to disciplinary action or termination.

It’s in your organization’s best interest to develop an understanding of federal and state employment laws and regulations to manage risk. These are the sparks that can start a fire, and what you don’t know can hurt you. Every situation is different and complying with legal requirements can paralyze managers and business owners. Organizations should have trusted HR resources and legal representatives to help.

Succession planning is the process of identifying long-range organizational human capital needs and cultivating a supply of internal talent to meet those future needs. Succession planning is used to anticipate the future needs of the organization and to assist in finding, assessing and developing the human capital necessary to realize the strategy of the organization.

Training programs are not a one size fits all program. You may need to use a combination of different methods such as apprenticeship programs, lectures/workshops, computer-based training and public seminars. Employees need to feel the information and skills provided in training link directly to their goals and have a real work practical application. Have open discussions with employees about what training and development options interest them.

Training should be tailored to the employee's experience. Create an Individual Personal Development Plan for each employee to develop knowledge, skills and competencies that will help in the employee’s current job and with their long-term career goals. It’s important to not only provide development opportunities, but to hold employees accountable. You should see noticeable improvements in performance, skills and behavior.

Watch the entire Top Five presentation below:

 

Find these tips useful? Learn more tricks on how to maximize the potential of your business through The Partnership’s Top Five series or through the Small Business Resources Hub.