One of the most important departments that any business can have is its human resources department. The HR department is responsible for a variety of very important tasks including recruiting, hiring, and managing employees.
To ensure his run properly, there are a variety of best practices that are commonly used by top companies around the world that will help to make the HR department and overall company more effective.
1. Open Book
One of the most important things that a HR department can do is be as open with employees as possible. For an employee to feel valued and safe at work, they will need to understand how the company makes money, where the direction is heading, and a variety of other factors about the organization. Being open with your employees and providing necessary information will go a long way towards building trust.
2. Reward Performance
One of the most important ways to encourage employees to be happy and work hard is to reward good performance. You should always look for ways to link part of an employee’s bonus or other compensation to their direct impact on the organization. This will help to ensure that an employee understands how their hard work will correlate to more competition and will encourage them to continue to work hard.
3. Acknowledge Leaders
While it is important to pay people who do well at their jobs, you should also do a good job of acknowledging people who do well. Practices such as the predictive index, amongst others, are very helpful for determining the future role of an employee. Whenever a employee is given a promotion, reaches a certain milestone with time served, or a variety of other successes, you should look for ways to make sure that it is known to other people in the organization. This will help people to feel more accomplished.
4. Career Development
When you are looking to hire new employees and retain existing ones, you will need to be able to ensure that employees feel like there is room for improvement. Some of the best ways to do this will include having a full career development and training program. If you have a career development program in place, it will give new employees an indication of where their careers could head over the next few years. This will help to encourage people to stay and continue to develop while working for your company.
5. Feedback
When you are looking to build a good HR department, you also need to receive feedback from your employees. Part of this process will include having regular surveys completed by employees. This will give them the chance to feel heard and appreciated and will also give your HR department things that it can focus on to improve.
6. Surprise Employees
Finally, you should always look for ways to surprise employees with additional perks and benefits. In many situations, they do not have to be monetary at all. Some great options can include letting people leave work an hour early before a long holiday weekend, giving employees the right to dress casual on Fridays, or other similar perks that will make employees happy.
