5 HR Best Practices You Should Adopt

Human resources departments play a critical role in the success and growth of companies. However, as budgets shrink and cutbacks are made, HR seems to be one of the first areas to take a hit. Leading an HR team takes knowledge of laws, a deep understanding of how to communicate and motivate a large workforce, and what the best systems are to employ in the company based on experience and education. If your HR department is staffed or led by HR generalists, there may be some important best practices that you’re missing out on. Here are 5 HR best practices you should adopt to help your HR department become more proactive and help grow your business.

Align needs with expectations

Is your HR team invited to participate in all of your strategic planning and implementation meetings? When you’re making important decisions about the future of your company, it’s important to include the people who will be hiring your future workforce to help support those goals.

To function at its best, your HR team must be able to identify and understand each department’s current and future needs. Planning for and engaging in long-term recruiting can help your company save a lot of wasted time and money from making poor hiring choices, especially if you wait to inform your HR team at the last minute that you need to hire new people.

Additionally, HR and managers should work together to identify and understand any problem areas before they become too much of an issue. Being proactive with employee engagement, such as helping them understand their roles and how they fit into the larger goals of the business, can help you avoid turnover, employee burnout, and disengagement in the workplace. It can also help create a more engaged, loyal, and productive workforce.

Invest in training

With technology rapidly advancing and the education needed to perform job functions changing frequently, finding the right people for your current vacancies should only be one part of your strategy for success. Learning and development programs that ensure that your top-tier employees stay at the top of their game is critical to their and your success.

Investing in training, learning, and development programs can give you an advantage over your competitiors, helping you innovate and grow faster. In addition to offering employees access to formalized professional development and on-going education opportunities, many employers have created mentor programs that allow more experienced workers to share their experience and knowledge with newer generations entering the workforce. Training programs offer an excellent return on investment – increasing current employee retention and drawing the attention of potential future job candidates. Check out Bridging the Skills Gap: Training and Development to learn more about the importance of training programs in the workplace.

Think about compensation

When was the last time you and your HR team really evaluated how you compensate your employees? Beyond budgets and the bottom line, your HR team should stay on top of current salary trends to ensure that your company remains competitive in a hot job market.

Word quickly spreads about companies that don’t pay well (or what employees in the roles you need to fill expect to earn). Top talent in the job market look for employers that express their commitment and appreciation for the work performed with a balanced workplace, good benefits, and a compensation package that reflects the value of the work being performed. If your company isn’t keeping pace with your competitors, you may miss out on the best applicants.

HR, owners, top managers, and your CFO should sit down together to discuss your employee compensation plans frequently. When vacancies are identified, particularly those that require more experience or education, your team should react quickly to identify an appropriate total compensation package, including salary and benefits, to help you attract the best candidates. Remember, employees who are paid well are more loyal and less likely to look for employment elsewhere. Read No Cost Recruitment Tool: Total Compensation Statements to learn more about the importance of showing your employees exactly how their compensation totals up.

Feedback is key

Do you frequently show your appreciation for the hard work your employees do? When was the last time that your HR department gave employees any feedback beyond the perfunctory annual performance review? If you’re having trouble remembering, it may be time for your HR team to up their feedback game.

Employee appreciation isn’t just a buzz phrase in the HR world. Salaries are important, but a paycheck shouldn’t be the only form of motivation you use. Employees want and need to know that they are valued as people and that their work is valued for its contribution to company goals. Expressing verbal appreciation and recognizing employees’ efforts can help increase their confidence in their skills, increase engagement, and create an overall healthier and happier work environment.

Get organized

Let’s face it, HR has always been overwhelmed with paperwork. For an HR department to function at its best, all of that paperwork must be organized. A good signal of a well-run HR department is that it is detail-oriented and prompt with all paperwork. If a member of your HR team has to search through stacks of paperwork to find the form they need, it’s time to buckle down and get organized.

One of the top suggestions for HR departments is to streamline the amount of paperwork they have to handle by doing as much as possible digitally with software solutions. Sheakley’s Human Capital Management application comes complete with Payroll Processing Services, Time and Labor Management, Employee Onboarding tools, ACA Management and online Benefits Enrollment. This complete payroll administration solution offers everything from basic payroll processing to electronic tax filing while helping you to manage costs and stay compliant. The Human Capital Management system allows employers and employees to access and update employee information at any time from anywhere. W-2s are automatically available to employees at the end of the year and employees can access up-to-date PTO accruals at any time. To learn more about Sheakley’s HCM application and other benefits of working with a professional employer organization, check out Feeling Stressed Out: Six Ways a PEO Partner Can Take Some of the Stress Out of Running Your Business.

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