by To achieve the maximum level of profitability and success, an HR professional will align each employee’s work with the strategic goals of the firm and also ensure that the staff is well aware of the required actions and behaviors by setting clear-cut performance expectations in job descriptions. Take a look at some of the key HR objectives that apply to SMEs and startups:
1) Develop a Competency Model
The main objective of an HR department is to hire the right people for the right jobs keeping in mind their skills, expertise, and education. This objective is achieved by setting clear job descriptions, establishing job competency models for each department in the company and benchmarking roles against similar jobs in the industry.
In order to ensure smooth running of the business, HR professionals will take into account studies and data related to staffing, transactions, and costs and then create a competency model accordingly.
2) Define Organizational Dimensions
HR strategies are developed according to the aspects of the organization. It is also interesting to note that the prevailing culture of the company not only has a critical impact on the HR strategies devised but also represents the management style and values of the organization. Defining the organizational dimensions will give you an idea on how the organization is going to be more or less – will it be an organization that expects employees to ‘do more with less’ or will it be overstaffed in order to give way to innovation and experimentation?
Some other key factors that directly impact the HR strategies devised are the nature of business done by the organization, the chain of command and the structure of the organization itself. In order to effectively hire and retain staff to achieve strategic goals of the organization, human resources systems, policies, and practices are also taken into account.
3) Define Role of Mission, Vision, and Values
The mission, vision and values of the small business or startup play a crucial role in shaping the HR strategies and objectives for the future ahead. The mission of the organization will help you understand why the business exists and who it serves while the vision statement basically provides insights on what the organization hopes to achieve and where it sees itself in the future.
The values of the organization are beliefs that serve as a driving force behind the operations and actions of the organization. All three – the mission, vision and values of the organization directly impact the type and number of employees needed to meet the organizational goals.
4) Perform Workforce Analysis
A workforce analysis is considered a key part of the human resource strategy and focuses mainly on the organization, its culture, people, and the systems that have been implemented. Doing a workforce analysis is helpful in analyzing the current situation of the company in terms of the elements discussed above and where they ideally want to be in the years to come.
Identifying the gaps in these areas will enable the HR professionals to come up with specific objectives designed especially to bridge these gaps.
5) Evaluate Implemented Strategy
All HR strategies are guided by evaluation based on specific, measurable factors. A small business or startup will consider a wide variety of factors for developing, implementing and evaluating the effectiveness and performance of its HR strategy. Usually, doing an evaluation will give you accurate facts and figures on employee turnover, number of vacant positions, customer complaints, and employee grievances along with the satisfaction and dissatisfaction levels of both customers and employees.
HR Role in Management
Hiring employees: A human resource manager has to recruit employees for various departments. But not all candidates are competent for a vacant post. This is why the manager needs to create his/her own hiring process. If you are a hiring manager, you can easily automate and make your own hiring process with a recruitment software and you will be able to effortlessly source eligible candidates through posting jobs, screening the applicants, setting the interviewers and so on.
On-boarding of the hired: Not only does the HR manager recruit new employees but inducts them with the organizational culture and the ground rules. The preparation of a great onboarding and induction process may need a great amount of time but once it is applied, you will notice that the newly recruited staffs are getting on the same page with the older ones swiftly.
Communicating with the employees: The company directors can abruptly change a policy (for example, the ground rules, office time and other stuff). The human resource manager disseminates this information properly among the company workers through announcements and SMS notifications.
Optimizing compensation costs: The compensation experts in the HR department conducts extensive wage and salary surveys to develop a pragmatic compensation scheme. They ensure the company status remain intact compared to the industry standard or the employees working in similar companies when it comes to compensation costs or employee benefits.
Managing attendance: Attendance management is a key function for every human resource department. To this end, the HR manager has to deal with the recording of check ins and check outs, calculation of total worked hours, overtime and many more. Fortunately, an attendance management software can be deployed to minimize this pain point with ease.
Settling disputes among employees: There is barely an organization where no conflicts take place. In fact, conflicts can take place between the management and employees or even among the employees. However, the HR manager works as the middleman between the management and employees to solve any issue that arises within the company and thus maintains a sound relationship.
Providing work safety: There are three Department of Labor agencies in each country who are responsible for the safety and health-related issues of the workers. The HR personnel ensures the compliance of the government laws and regulations so as to provide a hygienic and congenial work ergonomics. This way, the human resource manager reduces the number of injuries, casualties, and fatalities of workers while they are maneuvering dangerous apparatuses, hazardous equipment and lethal chemicals in the workplace.
Managing company assets: It is a quite common scenario for some business enterprise that distributes laptops, cars, bikes, and other stuff to its employees for varied purposes. However, it is very important for the HR not only to allot these assets but also to take back those assets and record that information in the company database. This can easily be done by an asset management software.
Juggling with diversified methods: Every organization is unique. So, there is no “one size fits all” solution out there for every organization of the world. Thus, the HR has to juggle with multiple methods of managing his/her employees and finally has to determine which one works best for his/her organization. For example, some employees can be motivated by the ‘X’ theory while the others can easily be encouraged by the ‘Y’ theory.
Looking after the company database: It is none but the human resource manager who takes care of all sorts of important company data and information. He always has to maintain an updated database which includes job responsibilities, personal data, performance evaluation or assessment of the employees. However, employing a document management software can reduce the strain of maintaining an enormous amount of company papers. This type of software can help the HR manager share and get the desired papers instantly using the advanced search options when it is required.
Maintaining public relationships and company image: The human resource department actively organizes business meetings, seminars, symposium, giveaway ceremonies, and others in order to build a sound relationship with the target audience, government, and fellow companies within the industry. This act of engagement with the company stakeholders really upholds the company image.
Managing payroll and incentives: Frequent changes in federal and state taxes and employment law make it literally complicated and time-consuming for the HR to adjust those changes over and over again. If this payroll process can be automated by a payroll management software then this complication can effortlessly be solved with the minimalistic efforts.
