In this covid-19 economy, most departments in a company setup are asked by the management to reduce expenses as much as possible while at the same time maintaining the value they provide to the business. Human resource departments aren’t left out in this scaling-down scheme.
The HR department mainly do the oversight job. They oversee various aspects of employment e.g., complying with laid down labor laws, administering employees benefit, recruiting new employees, etc. Basically, the human resource department is the engine of any company, and therefore, they should adopt healthy practices to minimize their cost of operations particularly for small businesses.
A business can be categorized as small if its workforce is less than 500 people. However, the category of small businesses varies in different countries but one thing is for a fact, they are one of the major drivers of most economies. One must also grab contractor insurance to safeguard the business.
Statistics show that small businesses employ more than 2 million people and, therefore, the key management decisions are a major economic factor. With such a great workforce, it is important to look at some of the HR practices this business should adopt.
Let’s delve in…
1. Don’t Waste Time When It Comes to Hiring Good Talent.
Small business owners have poor interviewing habits. They take a whole week, a fortnight, or even a month to conduct interviews. They conduct interviews in intervals or rather they interview one candidate in a day or in a week. After finishing, they then review the resumes and make a hiring decision. This usually takes longer; it can take a month to do the hiring.
Instead of a one-man-one interview, the small businesses should move with speed, conduct an interview for a position on the same day, have the same question for the purpose of comparison and evaluation of the candidates. With this technique, you will make a decision and hire on the same day. It helps in hiring the right candidate without delay.
2. Go Paperless
Most small businesses still use paper-based systems to run their day-to-day activities. This analog type of operation has been proven to be time and resource-wasting. Human managers should avoid this type of operation at all costs. With the advancement of technology, human resource managers should use technology-based solutions to run their day-to-day activities.
Some of these technological solutions would be online signatures when creating documents, exploring the use of helpdesk software instead of ordinary customer service, and adopting virtual meetings.
3. Employees Evaluation
Employees’ evaluation is very important. As an employer, you should craft a document of what you expect of your employees in terms of job performance and how you evaluate their performance.
Many small businesses don’t have these documents. On many occasions, employers fire their employees without looking into what causes the problem. When this happens, an employee can sue you for firing him without justification.
To avoid going through these costly employment-related cases have these documents prepared, give them to a consultant for review, and save yourself and your business from these costly legal processes.
4. Reward and Give Feedback to Your Employees
Most small business owners give much attention to the income stream and expenditure, often forgetting about the employees. If you want to get the best out of your business, always have your employees in mind. Give them on-the-spot feedback, motivate them, and make them feel important.
As a business owner, it’s always of value to set performance goals for your employees and reward whoever meets the goal abundantly. With this, you will set a norm of which everyone would want to work hard and achieve the target.
5. Immediate Onboarding of Employees After Hiring
Most small businesses take time to onboard new employees. Because of this, they lose very important business opportunities. Once you are done hiring, provide your new employee with the necessary resources and let him hit the ground running. The new employee should be given a schedule of a days’ work immediately after being hired.
With this, you will avoid time wastage.
6. Get Handbooks for Your Employees
As an employer, you should have a written attendance policy. Funnily, about 42 percent of businesses around the world do not have this document. Not having this document can be costly.
The attendance policy document should have workplace policies. This proves to be important when an employee file a complaint. And the employees are encouraged to go through the handbook at the comfort of their homes to ensure they grasp everything in a bid to be on the safe side of labor laws.
7. Compensate Your Employees
As an employer try to compensate your employees to avoid the legal process when you are sued, it’s very costly and can hurt your business. Have you heard of the term “independent contractor”? Well, this is how some employers classify their employees to avoid compensating them under Workers Compensation Insurance.
You can be heavily penalized for not compensating employees. Try avowing it at all costs for the prosperity of your business.
8. Invest in Technology
With everything going remote, small business owners should adopt the use of technology for efficiency and efficacy. Signing contracts online to avoid unnecessary travels and having virtual video conferencing are some of the new technologies small businesses should incorporate.
As a department that involves in hiring and the well-being of the employees, human resource department is very vital to an organization whether it is small or big. They are to ensure that they hire competent workers, they take care of the employees need, and put everything in order.
In general, the success of an organization entirely depends on the decisions made in the HR departments, so as a business owner, your focus should be on this department. You should make sure that you hire the best in that department to help you adopt these practices that will save you and your business.