Five HR Consultant Tips
Tip 1: Create a people strategy that reflects your business strategy
Start by looking in depth at your business strategy and undertake an audit to understand the type of people plan and tactics you need to put in place in order to fulfil this. A commercial goal of growth will require a different set of people processes to a commercial goal of stability. Likewise, if your business is all about change and efficiency this year, then you’ll need a different people plan again. Whatever the strategy, you need to think how your people plan can support how you achieve it.
This goes for values too. The experience your employees have at work should match up to the external brand identity they are asked to support. As an employer, think about how your brand values translate for your employees and ask yourself if you are living up to the promises you make. What type of employer do you want to be? Can you sustain this given your commercial goals?
Tip 2: Build solid foundations
Small and medium businesses often feel that employment law is a difficult and ever-changing minefield to navigate. It is important to put solid foundations in place to ensure legal compliance. This should consist of a simple employee handbook, appropriate employment contracts and sound HR processes in relation to recruitment, selection, performance etc. Some of these can be bought “cookie cutter” style, off the shelf but having identified the type of employer you want to be, you can use this as your true north to create a legally compliant set of policies, contracts and processes which still reflect your employer personality and work well for your commercial business needs.
Tip 3: Address your people issues
One of the most common mistakes small employers make is to shy away from dealing with challenging people issues. Putting things off only serves to compound the issue over time and leads to bigger and more disruptive outcomes than would otherwise be necessary. If you have a poor performer, bad conduct or excessive sickness issues and are worried about mishandling them – seek support from an expert. Address it with respect and fairness but don’t put it off.
Tip 4: Engage and involve your whole team
Engaging your team is not always an easy task. People generally start new jobs 100% engaged, they are energised, optimistic, excited and collaborative. But depending on their experience at work, over time they can become disengaged and turn tired, negative, bored, cynical and unobliging. Companies introduce all sorts of measures to help engagement from “cake day Friday” to “in-house yoga” and so on. The main mistake that businesses make is to come up with solutions before the problems have been properly diagnosed. It’s no use having weekly yoga sessions when all people want is to be clear about their goals. Sometimes, the main cause of disgruntlement is a broken printer! The place to start is with a good conversation with your employees. This can be in the form of a survey followed by action planning, or just good, honest and non-defensive team discussions. By involving your employees you solve the right problems together rather than waste investment on potentially the wrong solutions.
Tip 5: Find a trusted partner
The most important thing about putting any HR plans in place, is to do it with a trusted partner. HR professionals need to understand the full company perspective – warts and all and need to hear all of the confidential stuff. You need to be able to trust them to keep confidences and trust their abilities to deliver the right plans. There are three things your HR partner needs to be:
A subject matter guru (HR expert)
Commercially astute (understand how business works cross functionally)
A trusted partner (a sounding board, someone who can challenge decisions or offer different perspectives).
Don’t assume that what you think you need is what you DO need. Get an expert strategist involved who will help you make sense of it and create a plan that is right for your business.