When it comes to managing a business, some of the main things you might think about our marketing campaigns, budgets, business branding, and providing quality customer service. These things are all important, but you must also remember to take care of your employees if you’re going to run a successful company. This is why you need to make sure you have an HR department, big or small, so your employees can get the best experience working with you and protect your company from potential problems. So, what is HR exactly? It stands for Human Resources, and this covers various things such as recruitment, employee training, payroll management, and perks for employees and making sure your company policies are fair and followed by your staff. Below are a few more details about why HR is important for every business in these areas and beyond.
Recruitment
If you want to make sure your business is a success, you need the right team of employees to help you reach your goals. Recruitment can be a long, time-consuming process that isn’t always easy to manage in-house, especially if you’re a small business owner with a million and one other things to do. If this applies to you, you can outsource your HR management to firms like this one that offers HR outsourcing Salt Lake City. They can help you filter out the best candidates for your job vacancies and help you with the interviewing process and manage new employee records when you find the perfect person to fill the role.
Employee Training
Not only will a HR department help you to recruit new employees, but they will also be able to take care of training them, too. It’s very important that all employees, whether they’re new or not, have access to relevant training programs and refresher courses. This will help them do their job properly, and to the standards you set as a company. However, developing these training courses and materials is another big project to undertake, which is why having a dedicated team to handle this will be greatly beneficial.
Employee Progression
Training is a big part of helping your staff progress, but there are other things that you can get your HR department to help you out with for this, such as appraisals. They can provide your managers with records to back up their points (for example, if an employee has had a lot of absences or has done particularly well on a training course). It might also be useful to have a member of the HR team present at these meetings to take notes and help outline agendas and goals set out in this discussion to refer back to at the next appraisal and see how well an employee has progressed.
Payroll Management
A sure way to keep your employees happy is by making sure they are all paid in full and on time. An accountant can help you with certain aspects of your business finances, but getting your HR department to manage your payroll systems will be just as efficient and help you to keep track of things like annual leave, absences, maternity leave, etc. If you have an in-house team, make sure you have invested in a quality payroll HR system to help them keep on top of this task, as it can sometimes get complicated when factoring in things like taxes, pensions, and so forth.
Compliance
Another thing a lot of businesses need to have in place is a list of company policies that they expect their employees to follow. How your staff conduct themselves in the workplace and even outside the office has a direct impact on your company’s reputation and the well-being of each person in your employment. Things like being careful about what people post on their social media accounts regarding the business might be one thing included in your policies, guidelines on sexual harassment, bullying, and discrimination, and how these things will not be tolerated is also something that must be included. A HR department will help ensure your employees receive these policies when they start working with you and help you make sure your staff remains compliant. If an employee makes a breach, your HR team can help you handle the appropriate disciplinary action that needs to be taken.
Support with Employee Grievances
As well as helping you manage disciplinary hearings if the situation occurs, HR is also there to help support employees with any grievances they might have with another member of staff of your company. One or two people from your HR team will be present to mediate conversations between the involved parties and record these meetings in case they need to refer to them at a later date. They will liaise with your legal team as well if any situation can not be resolved in these earlier stages and lawyers need to get involved. Not only will your HR team help your employees, but they are also there to help protect your company from potentially damaging scenarios.
Help to Arrange Employee Perks
A good salary, career progression, and job security are all things people look for when seeking employment, and if you can offer your staff this, they are more likely to stay with you for a long time. However, while all of these things are important, offering your team, some additional perks are always a great way to show them how much you appreciate them. An HR team can help you to organize these, whether it’s arranging for your staff to go out for a fun day with their family to a theme park, offering them discount vouchers for popular brands, or booking a venue for the office Christmas party. They can also help to run team-building exercises to improve the communication between employees and boost morale. All of these things will help to keep your staff happy and strengthen your reputation as an excellent employer.
Whether you outsource your HR or hire an in-house team, you must have something in place to help protect your employees and your company. Think about the points above and how you can improve your HR to make your business stronger and a safer place to work.
