1. Retention- Many people think that the main task of Human Resources is to source and employ new talent. However, the truth is that most HR activities revolve around retaining existing talent. Employees are the lifeblood of every company, providing the skills and experience required to keep productivity levels up. Your business will also have invested significant time and money into ensuring maximum productivity wherever possible. And the key HR responsibility is to protect this valuable asset.
Employee retention is a fine balancing act between
company culture, remuneration and incentives. The HR department needs to
provide each employee with the right combination of all three to satisfy the
employee without compromising company interests in the process. They also need
to keep accurate records of these combinations to ensure that the agreed
packages are being delivered to employees.
2. Recruitment - Whether to complement the existing workforce or to
replace staff lost through natural attrition, the second major challenge facing
the Human Resources’ department is recruitment of talent. Finding staff with
the correct blend of skills, personality and motivation is difficult, even when
the pool of available candidates is relatively large. Whether recruitment is handled solely by the internal HR
department, or with the assistance of a third party, it is essential that the
process is managed centrally and effectively. Where there are dozens of
applications, the details of each will need to be recorded for review and
comparison.
An HR software platform allows for storage of
applications, CVs and contact details for easy analysis and comparison.
Depending on company data retention policies, applications can be stored for
months or years in anticipation of new roles becoming available in that period. As an added benefit, having the details of a selection of
suitable candidates available for easy consideration cuts future recruitment
costs and shortens the time taken to plug a skills gap. Speeding the
recruitment process in this way prevents drops in productivity and morale.
3. Productivity - With the workforce headcount issues sorted, the Human
Resources team must next look at productivity levels to ensure that the
business is operating efficiently. Where productivity is low, HR needs to know
whether the problem is caused by poor working practices or lack of resources.
This determination is often made by carrying out a Time
and Motion (T&M) study to define who does what and how. This study can then
be used to identify potential efficiency gains and pave the way for future
capital investment to improve productivity and conditions.Using an integrated HR software platform, senior
management and the HR team can store and analyse the T&M data
collaboratively. The HR system can also retain this data to provide historical
context for later studies to provide a benchmark and to accurately measure
improvements made.
4. Training and
Compliance - Training is an essential aspect of employee development,
both for their own education but also to ensure you continue to get the best
from your workforce. Certain roles demand official training and certification,
such as CORGI registration for gas installers, many of which also have a lifespan
for renewal. Although the employee bears some responsibility for
keeping a track of their own professional registrations, if your business
relies on their certified skills, it makes sense to track this information for
your own records. If your business has agreed to pay for exams or registration
fees, you can keep track of when these payments are due. You can also alert the
employee involved, schedule cover for absence during exams, and arrange
payments to prevent lapses.
Even where training takes place in-house, recording
course attendance in a central HR system allows for at-a-glance assessment of
workforce skills and regulatory compliance. Has every member of staff received
their full induction training? Has anyone missed the annual fire alarm training
and needs a refresher? Have internal promotion candidates completed all the
relevant courses for the new role? Keeping details of training can help answer
all these questions and more.
5. Health and Safety - Your company is required to record details of health and
safety information for legal reasons, similar to maintaining records about
professional qualifications and membership of trade bodies. Health and safety
records help keep your employees safe at work and ensure that the company is
meeting its legal obligations towards both them and the public.
Whenever a health and safety issue arises, HR is called
upon to demonstrate that the business has done all that is expected of it.
Where proof cannot be shown, the business is at risk of legal ramifications and
fines.
Once again, the way to mitigate such problems is through
the use of accurate records of courses attended, documents issued, and anything
else specific to health and safety legislation that your business does as a
matter of course. If an employee attends any course aimed at increasing their
personal safety and that of the people around them, the details need to be
recorded in case of query or dispute in future. Because course attendance and training is closely linked
to general employee records, the HR department is the best equipped to record
this information. And the HR software used throughout your business unifies
health and safety data with employee records for quick and easy retrieval and
analysis.
6. Discrimination and
Diversity - If your business has any involvement with public sectors,
or has a company policy regarding diversity, you will need to be able to
demonstrate your commitments with hard facts from time to time. Where a company
advertises commitments to diversity and a desire to reduce discrimination, they
will be required to demonstrate their progress towards these goals.
To avoid these requests turning into a rushed census of
the workforce, it makes sense to record demographics data when a new recruit is
hired. As part of the employment contract, a simple set of tick-boxes can be
added to record demographic and diversity data, which should be stored with
employee records in the HR system.
It is also important to record any workplace incidents
that appear to involve any form of discrimination. Your business can then carry
out disciplinary actions based on company policies and further demonstrate a
commitment to these core principles. Your HR software should also help quickly
verify whether any staff suspected of participating in discriminatory
activities have agreed to act in accordance with company policies as part of
their employment contracts.
7. Discipline - Discipline is always one of the least popular issues to
tackle in the workplace, and also the point at which the HR department can help
resolve incidents satisfactorily for employer and employees. The disciplinary
process requires plenty of evidence, and the HR department will often need to
obtain statements, records and other supporting data to resolve issues legally
and ethically, all of which is time consuming.
It is therefore important to keep accurate records of any
disciplinary issue, to ensure that the issue is dealt with properly. This
includes minutes of meetings, letters between employer, employee and trade
union representatives, and any follow-up activities that need to be undertaken.
These records also provide a point of reference to ensure that all parties are
meeting their agreed obligations in the event of further disputes. As before, these records need to be easily stored and
retrieved, along with any relevant contract details. By using an integrated HR
system that supports your process, much of the evidence gathering is
simplified, helping to reduce much of the legwork and time associated with
resolving discipline issues.
8. Outsourcing - Freelancers and contracts provide an attractive way to
augment your company workforce skills and abilities, without the need to
permanently hire new staff. This is particularly relevant to projects and
contracts that require specialist knowledge, but which are unlikely to become a
routine part of your company requirements.
However, outsourced employees present new challenges when
trying to ensure they meet internal standards and requirements. Do they hold
qualifications or industry body memberships? Have they undergone standard
company induction training? You may need to know this kind of information at
some point in the future, even if it does not seem particularly relevant at the
start of their contract. In the same way that you record the employment details of
permanent staff, it is essential to keep the same information about
contractors, consultants and outsourced employees. Your ideal HR system should
let you maintain clearly labelled records of temporary staff for easy retrieval
in the event of a future dispute. Or even just to make it easier to re-hire the
same people in future.
9. Payroll
Responsibility for payroll falls between the remits of
the accounts and HR departments, often leading to problems with accurate
payments to staff. HR maintains records about salary, benefits, bonuses and
attachments of earnings, whilst accounts are tasked with actually making the
payments. This creates a potential disconnect that can lead to the payroll
being run late or employees receiving the wrong sums in their wage packet.
To maintain morale and prevent future pay problems, your
business should investigate the potential of using a dedicated payroll solution
that interfaces directly with your HR software and account system. By uniting
both departments electronically, most of the manual headaches associated with
pay can be resolved automatically.
Dedicated payroll software helps ensure staff get paid
what they are entitled to, when they expect it. Your HR department will also
benefit from a reduction in queries, helping to better spread the workload
throughout the rest of the month.
10. Employee queries - The HR department provides the interface between “the
company” and the staff. This means that when it comes to employment issues,
disputes or queries relating to work, the HP department is the point of first inquiry. Dealing with queries on pay, perks and performance
management reviews on a reasonably regular basis is routine, but also extremely
time consuming, particularly where data is not readily available. Every time a
member of the HR department needs to chase down a payment detail, or the
specifics of a contract variation, they are unable to focus on any of their
other responsibilities.
A dedicated HR system keeps employment data centralized ready for easy retrieval and significantly reducing the time taken to answer
each query. More advanced system allow “self-service” style access to some
data, allowing staff to answer many of their own more basic questions
themselves.
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