Ask any layperson about what an HR professional does and you’ll likely hear that they are involved in the process of hiring people or firing people, processing payroll, managing benefits and vacation days. Or you’ll hear that they deal with workplace training or conflict or legalities. And this is true — all of it, and because it’s all true, HR professionals have a lot on their plates. With full plates come a few digestive issues.
HR professionals have many challenges with which to contend, not only because their job descriptions cover a smorgasbord of responsibilities, but because today’s job market and workplace culture is more complex than ever before. The difficulties facing HR are likewise complex, though not insurmountable. Not if you know how to deal with them. While every HR department will face its own unique challenges, they will all experience shared obstacles in the more general arena of HR.
What obstacles? These ones. Here are five of the most common HR problems, and how to fix them.
Businesses need to be able to adapt to technology changes. HR departments in particular need to not only adapt but to use these changes to implement better hiring and training solutions. Whether it’s an ATS system like Total Hire to help you manage and process new applicants, or a performance tracking system that will inform compensation like SAS from Mitrefinch, it’s important to use robust and cutting-edge tech to help make HR — and the whole business — run more efficiently, effectively and ultimately, lucratively.
Let’s say you do decide to utilize Mitrefinch to track employee performance. Don’t just set up the system and expect employees to love it. Communicate why you are making changes so they understand why taking on a new approach benefits them. For instance, with Mitrefinch, you’d explain that tracking software allows the employee to have more control over their own time since it can facilitate remote working, easy scheduling, and it can allow management to see how employees are spending their time, which not only can help management better address employee needs, but also see when people need to be rewarded for a job well done.
Good help can be hard to find. That’s not because it’s not out there, but because the job market is saturated and the right people for the job may not be aware of your job. Again, employ the power of agile tech to get your message out to the right people. Total Hire helps you attract the right people, right away, so you can save time and money you would have spent looking for and finding the talent you need.
You’ve got the good employees, now you have to keep them. To do this, you have to engender employee engagement. Not to be confused with being happy with your job, which can be accomplished with free access to snacks and a beer fridge on Fridays, employee engagement is when your employees feel they are emotionally invested in the company. The promise of pay raise wouldn’t be enough to tempt them away: they feel they are valued and appreciated where they are. They feel they have control over their career and a say in the business. They feel like what they do matters. This is what creates an engaged employee who will stick around, as opposed to a contented employee who won’t.
So how do you do this? Use that tracking software to make sure you are rewarding people who work the hardest — these are your top performers. You can even implement an employee reward system. Also be sure to recognize hard work with incentives, benefits, and lots of gratitude. Saying thank you doesn’t cost a company a thing, and it can do wonders to boost the employee morale that’s part and parcel of employee engagement.
Ask any kindergarten teacher: teaching tiny humans to play nice is one of the fundamentals of a happy, productive classroom. Sometimes big kids need a refresher, too. Unlike small children, adults also come with solidified prejudices and poor interpersonal skills that need to broken down and refined. Enter diversity training. The good news is many of your employees won’t need these lessons, but it will benefit those that do while showing the ones that don’t the company cares about their feelings — and this will help bolster that all-important employee engagement.
HR professionals already know that employees (not customers) are the lifeblood of their business. What we can all lose sight of in the daily grind is how to remain connected to these employees so that we can all enjoy the better life that comes from a better career.