There are still some senior managers who see human resources more as human remains. Those who fall into this category may be described as short-sighted or apathetic – in as much as they accept poor human resource practitioners. Now I don’t doubt that there are some HR practitioners who struggle to make an effective contribution to the organisation but many do. In fact, where there is limited or poor HR contribution the organisation is unlikely ever to be fully productive and make sustainable and adequate profits.
So what should you expect from your HR staff? Well plenty and some of the key contributions are spelt out below.
Vision and strategic plans: these cannot be developed or realised successfully without fully understanding what is needed from the people employed in the organisation. Such plans should benchmark against competitors, promote best practice and encourage change management programmes aimed at continuous improvement.
Recruitment: HR should prepare good job descriptions and person specifications to aid the recruitment process and contribute objectively through the selection stages. Poor hiring is costly in time and lost productivity. There is also much proactive HR can do to improve staff stability.
Pay: HR practitioners should ensure a company has an effective reward system which both attracts new talent into the business and ensures that extra effort and results are rewarded.
Engagement and motivation: Staff doing their job is OK. Good HR practitioners will work with management and staff to ensure that they do the job brilliantly and at sustained levels of high performance through effective training and personal development.
Managing change: proactive HR practitioners should be great change agents. Organisations which are not making change are in effect going backwards as the better ones pass them by.
Managing out: there isn’t an organisation which does not have staff that are not performing at the right level. Good HR practitioners will help convert low performers to acceptable levels of performance and where that conversion is unable to be achieved will ensure terminations are fair and timely.
I recall some time ago I asked the CEO of an SME, which employed about 200 staff, what he thought the difference was between a good and poor HR practitioner and he responded immediately by saying – £1,000,000 of profit a year. That is the case for having good HR support and advice. If you need that support and advice please call me and I will make sure you get it.
Dr Hugh Billot
Director HR GO (Recruitment) Limited
HR GO Recruitment offers solutions to all your staffing needs, temporary and permanent, please call 0845 130 7000
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