The 9 Essential Skills of Human Resources Management
How Many Do You Have?
Human Resources Management Key Skill 1: Organization
Human Resources management requires an orderly approach. Organized files, strong time management skills and personal efficiency are key to the Human Resources function. You’re dealing with people’s lives and careers here, and when a manager requests a personnel file or a compensation recommendation that lines up with both the organization and the industry, it won’t do to say, “Hold on. I’ll see if I can find it.”
Human Resources Management Key Skill 2: Multitasking
On any day, an HR professional will deal with an employee’s personal issue one minute, a benefit claim the next and a recruiting strategy for a hard-to-fill job the minute after. Priorities and business needs move fast and change fast, and colleague A who needs something doesn’t much care if you’re already helping colleague B. You need to be able to handle it all, all at once.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 3: Discretion and Business Ethics
Human Resources professionals are the conscience of the company, as well as the keepers of confidential information. As you serve the needs of top management, you also monitor officers’ approaches to employees to ensure proper ethics are observed. You need to be able to push back when they aren’t, to keep the firm on the straight and narrow. Not an easy responsibility! Of course, you always handle appropriately, and never divulge to any unauthorized person, confidential information about anyone in the organization.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 4: Dual Focus
HR professionals need to consider the needs of both employees and management. There are times you must make decisions to protect the individual, and other times when you protect the organization, its culture, and values. These decisions may be misunderstood by some, and you may catch flak because of it, but you know that explaining your choices might compromise confidential information. That’s something you would never do.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 5: Employee Trust
Employees expect Human Resources professionals to advocate for their concerns, yet you must also enforce top management’s policies. The HR professional who can pull off this delicate balancing act wins trust from all concerned.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 6: Fairness
Successful HR professionals demonstrate fairness. This means that communication is clear, that peoples’ voices are heard, that laws and policies are followed, and that privacy and respect is maintained.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 7: Dedication to Continuous Improvement
HR professionals need to help managers coach and develop their employees. The goal is continued improvement and innovation as well as remediation. And looking to their own houses, the HR professional also uses technology and other means to continuously improve the HR function itself.
Human Resources Management Key Skill 8: Strategic Orientation
Forward-thinking HR professionals take a leadership role and influence management’s strategic path. In gauging and filling the labor needs of the company, devising compensation schemes, and bringing on board new skill sets leading to business growth, they provide the proof for the often-heard management comment, “People are our most important asset.”
Human Resources Management Key Skill 9: Team Orientation
Once, companies were organized into hierarchies of workers headed by supervisors. Today, the team is king. HR managers must consequently understand team dynamics and find ways to bring disparate personalities together and make the team work.
1. Know yourself and seek self-improvement - By properly evaluating your own weaknesses/strengths and looking to improve those areas daily, you will continually improve your ability & performance - Make sure your staff follows this also.
2. Be technically and tactically proficient - Keep current with the latest technical developments in your field of expertise and know how to deploy your resources for the maximum return on investment - another great development principle for your employees.
3. Develop a sense of responsibility among your subordinates - Drive accountability down to the base level among your staff - Make sure they are aware that you will hold them accountable for their actions and assignments.
4. Make sound and timely decisions - Make sure that your decisions are well thought out and take into account all relevant information - Don't act rashly or out of anger, desperation or any other emotional state.
5. Set the example - Lead from the front - make sure that your staff sees you as the role model Be visible in your daily activities - hold yourself to a higher standard - this will motivate subordinates to improve themselves.
6. Know your people and look out for their welfare - Only by demonstrating that you are interested and concerned for their welfare will you win their loyalty. A good leader is a compassionate listener and understands what motivates his/her staff.
7. Keep your people informed - Information is the life's blood of any organization and only good if it is shared across the widest possible spectrum. Share your ideas and knowledge with your staff - this will make them feel included and valuable.
8. Seek responsibility and take responsibility for your actions - Be prepared for your next assignment and take charge of all areas of responsibility - if a mistake is made, stand up & take the heat. By doing so, you will demonstrate a key principle of leadership - We all make mistakes, we are all fallible but it is how we respond to our mistakes that separate the professionals from the pretenders.
9. Ensure assigned tasks are understood, supervised, and accomplished - You need to trust your people but verify - Trust your employees to do their job but verify it has been done to your standards. By doing so, you will make sure that you are involved, accountable and creditable with your superiors.
10. Train your people as a team - Have your staff work together as a team and cross train on each others responsibilities. This allows them to utilize each other's strengths and to feed off of the team synergy. Teamwork develops a sense of shared responsibility and commitment to the objective.
11. Employ your team in accordance with its' capabilities - Know the limitations of your self, your people and your department. Don't look to take on more than you should. By knowing your limitations, you'll know when to call in the reinforcements.
The Changing Human Resources Role
The role of the HR professional is changing. In the past, HR managers were often viewed as the systematizing, policing arm of executive management. Their role was more closely aligned with personnel and administration functions that were viewed by the organization as paperwork.
When you consider that the initial HR function, in many companies, comes out of the administration or finance department because hiring employees, paying employees, and dealing with benefits were the organization's first HR needs, this is not surprising.
In this role, the HR professional served executive agendas well, but was frequently viewed as a road block by much of the rest of the organization. While some need for this role occasionally remains — you wouldn’t want every manager putting his own spin on a sexual harassment policy, as an example — much of the HR role is transforming itself.
New HR Role
The role of the HR manager must parallel the needs of his or her changing organization. Successful organizations are becoming more adaptable, resilient, quick to change direction, and customer-centered.
Within this environment, the HR professional, who is considered necessary by line managers, is a strategic partner, an employee sponsor or advocate and a change mentor. At the same time, especially the HR Generalist, still has responsibility for employee benefits administration, often payroll, and employee paperwork, especially in the absence of an HR Assistant.
Depending on the size of the organization, the HR manager has responsibility for all of the functions that deal with the needs and activities of the organization's people including these areas of responsibility.
· Recruiting.
· Hiring.
· Training.
· Organization Development.
· Communication.
· Performance Management.
· Coaching.
· Policy Recommendation.
· Salary and Benefits.
· Team Building.
· Employee Relations.
· Leadership.
With all of this in mind, in Human Resource Champions, Dave Ulrich, one of the best thinkers and writers in the HR field today, and a professor at the University of Michigan, recommends three additional roles for the HR manager.
HR Role: Business and Strategic Partner
In today’s organizations, to guarantee their viability and ability to contribute, HR managers need to think of themselves as strategic partners. In this role, the HR person contributes to the development of and the accomplishment of the organization-wide business plan and objectives.
The HR business objectives are established to support the attainment of the overall strategic business plan and objectives. The tactical HR representative is deeply knowledgeable about the design of work systems in which people
succeed and contribute. This strategic partnership impacts HR services such as the design of work positions; hiring; reward, recognition and strategic pay; performance development and appraisal systems; career and succession planning; and employee development.
To be successful business partners, the HR staff members have to think like business people, know finance and accounting, and be accountable and responsible for cost reductions and the measurement of all HR programs and processes. It's not enough to ask for a seat at the executive table; HR people will have to prove they have the business savvy necessary to sit there.
HR Role: Employee Advocate
As an employee sponsor or advocate, the HR manager plays an integral role in organizational success via his knowledge about and advocacy of people. This advocacy includes expertise in how to create a work environment in which people will choose to be motivated, contributing, and happy.
Fostering effective methods of goal setting, communication and empowerment through responsibility, builds employee ownership of the organization. The HR professional helps establish the organizational culture and climate in which people have the competency, concern and commitment to serve customers well.
In this role, the HR manager provides employee development opportunities, employee assistance programs, gain sharing and profit-sharing strategies, organization development interventions, due process approaches to problem solving and regularly scheduled communication opportunities.
HR Role: Change Champion
The constant evaluation of the effectiveness of the organization results in the need for the HR professional to frequently champion change. Both knowledge about and the ability to execute successful change strategies make the HR professional exceptionally valued.
Knowing how to link change to the strategic needs of the organization will minimize employee dissatisfaction and resistance to change.
The HR professional contributes to the organization by constantly assessing the effectiveness of the HR function. He also sponsors change in other departments and in work practices. To promote the overall success of his organization, he champions the identification of the organizational mission, vision, values, goals and action plans. Finally, he helps determine the measures that will tell his organization how well it is succeeding in all of this.
· Beginning a Career in Human Resources
· Mid-career Change and Mid-career Development
· Later Career Change and Later Career Development
· Career Success
Recruiting - Employee Recruitment: Recruiting Talented Employees
You are recruiting the best employees for your organization's needs. You want talented employees who fit your culture. Your recruitment strategies are critical in attracting these people. Learn more about effective recruiting.
Simply Hired Helps Employers Find Employees
Simply Hired offers more than 5 million job listings worldwide. As the largest job search engine and recruitment advertising network, Simply Hired aggregates jobs from across the web to help job searchers find employers. Simply Hired posts the jobs on its website and on the sites of 5,000 social network, media content, blog, and niche website partners. The company partners with MySpace, LinkedIn, and Facebook and helps employers find employees.
How to Recruit and Hire the Best: A Checklist for Success
Want to recruit and hire a superior workforce? This checklist will help you systematize your hiring process. The checklist helps you keep track of your recruiting efforts. It communicates both the recruiting and the hiring process and progress in recruiting to the hiring manager. Take a look and provide feedback
Recruit and Hire the Best - Free Email Class
Recruiting the best employees for your organization is an ongoing challenge for every manager, supervisor and Human Resources professional. If you're looking for solid, proven best practices and up-to-the-minute ideas in recruitment, interviewing and selection, you've found the right course. Find useful forms and a Forum in which to discuss your hiring challenges. Sign up today!
Recruiting Stars: Top Ten Ways to Get Great Candidates
Looking for talent? The smartest employers, who hire the best people, develop a pre-qualified candidate pool before they need to fill a job. You can develop relationships with potential candidates long before you need them. These ideas will also help you create a large pool of candidates when you have a current position available.
Social Media Should Rock Your World
Social media participation is an essential tool in networking with professional contacts, making new contacts, recruiting employees, and keeping in touch with the world. If you’re not participating in the top social media and networking sites, the world is leaving you behind. Become involved on the social media Web sites while your participation can advance your career, help you obtain superior employees by enlarging your candidate pool, and enable you to easily stay in touch with ex-coworkers.
Recruitment of Employees - What's Your Best Strategy?
The recruitment of employees has become both easier and more challenging. The advent of the online world of job boards, recruitment websites, and social media increases your likelihood of finding world class candidates. The online world also gives you so many candidates to consider that weeding through applications is time consuming.
Recruitment
Recruitment is the process of finding candidates, reviewing applicant credentials, screening potential employees, and selecting employees for an organization. Effective recruitment results in an organization hiring employees who are skilled, experienced, and good fits with your corporate culture. Recruitment methods should ensure engaged employees who are loyal to your organization.
Indeed.com for Recruiting
Indeed.com is a search engine for jobs that drives job searchers directly to jobs on corporate career websites, employee recruiting job boards, online newspapers, blogs, and association websites. Indeed.com searches thousands of websites that employers use for employee recruiting to post jobs and gives the job searcher a comprehensive list of jobs that meet or closely match his or her specifications.
Ideas for Recruiting Employees - Develop Your Employee Recruiting
You can develop relationships with potential candidates long before you need them. These ideas will also help you in recruiting a large pool of candidates when you have a current position available. What works for you in recruiting great employees?
Conduct Powerful Job Interviews
Want to hire great employees? How to conduct a safe, legal job interview that also enables you to select the best candidate for your open positions is important. The job interview is one of the significant factors in hiring because so many employers count on the job interview to help determine their best, most qualified candidates. Learn about job interviews in my free email class.
Use LinkedIn for Recruiting Employees
LinkedIn and other social networking sites are advantageous for employers who use them for both networking and recruiting. I am increasingly receiving email notes from my LinkedIn contacts asking me to refer potential employees or help them make a contact for hard-to-fill positions. The potential for LinkedIn and other social networking sites to play a major role in your employee recruiting strategy increases as millions of potential employees profile themselves on these sites each year.
Top Ten Recruiting Tips
Finding the best possible people who can fit within your culture and contribute within your organization is a challenge and an opportunity. Keeping the best people, once you find them, is easy if you do the right things right. These special features will help you recruit and retain all the talent you need. Here's more about recruiting.
HR’s Role in Promoting Corporate Social Responsibility
When companies are global, an important challenge in garnering success is to respect other cultures and workforce environments and start forming a global profile or social consciousness. Recognize these differences with a sound Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) plan that can simultaneously increase shareholder value, boost employee engagement and increase employer brand recognition
Your 401k Plan is a Recruiting Magnet
Competitive base pay, medical insurance and a 401(k) plan are the must have benefits necessary to attract and keep talent in your company. Read more about retirement resources and your 401(k) plan, including how to use it for recruiting.
Use the Web for Recruiting: Recruit Online
Are you tempted to recruit talent online? If you haven't started recruiting on the web already, you're behind the curve. You've heard that web recruiting will yield hundreds of untargeted resumes from around the world? Most job sites allow you to reject resumes with unwanted keywords and locations. Do you think executive recruiting is best done in the off-line world? Think again. Executive recruiting is happening online. Here are tips to help you use the power of the web to recruit online.
Plan Your Recruiting to Ensure Successful Candidate Selection
Do you select new employees based largely on an attractive resume and the candidate’s performance at the resultant interview? If so, you are missing the opportunity to use additional recruiting and screening methods that will ensure a superior hire. Learn how a recruiting planning meeting can ensure you hire candidates who will perform successfully in your work place.
What Turns You Off the Fastest?
To make it to an interview, a candidate has already passed a review of his resume, a review of his cover letter, a comparison against all of the other current candidates applying, and possibly, a telephone screen. Consider the odds of an individual's candidacy making it this far. Under these trying circumstances, you'd think the candidate's interview would shine. Wrong.
Working With Recruiters: What Is a Recruiter ... Really?
Curious about the role of the recruiter in your job search? Who pays the recruiter? What do you want to look for in a professional recruiting firm? What recruiting scam do you want to avoid? These questions and more are answered about recruiters.
Use Your Team for Recruitment: A Retention Strategy
How would you like to increase your candidate selection pool, add value to interviews, heighten employee loyalty, build supportive peer relationships, and improve retention rates simultaneously? By implementing a team recruitment strategy, you can achieve this. Find out how.
It's Not About the Resume: Creative, Successful Job Search Tips
Believe it or not, finding a quality job isn't only about your resume. It’s about freeing yourself from the shackles of the resume and becoming aggressive in your search. Read more about the importance of your own actions in your job search.
Three Tips for Business Blogs
While 43 percent of online weblog or blog readers visit political/news blogs, the percentage of the online audience reading blogs is skyrocketing. Why does this growing blog readership matter? A business blog is an ideal way to highlight your successful company and products to prospective employees, vendors, customers, and your industry. Convinced you need a business blog? Use these three recommendations to write your business blog so that it attracts readership, superior candidates, and sales.
How to Post Jobs Online: Post Jobs Inexpensively - Get Job Posting Results
Are you convinced about the usefulness of the Internet for employers? You can post jobs online and get the attention of hundreds of potential job candidates. Post jobs online inexpensively and reap the value that online job posting can provide. Post jobs online easily and get results as the online applications roll in. Find out how.
Ten Deadly Mistakes Job Searchers Make
Sometimes the simplest mistakes make all the difference in the potential joining together of an employer and a job searcher. These opportunities to fail occur before the first phone call is ever exchanged. If you’re an employer, these simple, yet serious, job searcher mistakes tell you volumes about the candidate. These ten deadly mistakes matter. Check them out.
Why "Blink" Matters: The Power of First Impressions
Professional speakers and trainers have long asserted that people make up their minds about people they meet for the first time within two minutes. Others assert that these first impressions about people take only thirty seconds. As it turns out, both may be underestimates. According to Malcolm Gladwell, in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking, the decisions may occur much faster.
Eight Hiring Mistakes Employers Make: From Application to...
Hiring decisions that result in "bad" hires sap your organization's time, training resources, and psychic energy. These are the top hiring mistakes to avoid during your recruiting and hiring process. Do these eight activities with care; your recruiting, interviewing and hiring practices will result in better hires.
Recruiting and Retention Special
Finding the best possible people who can fit within your culture and contribute within your organization is a challenge and an opportunity. Keeping the best people, once you find them, is easy if you do the right things right. Take a look at the helpful features in the Industry and Business Recruiting and Retention Special.
Headhunter, Recruiters, Executive Search
Looking for a headhunter, recruiter, executive search firm, executive recruiter, recruiting services, or a recruitment agency? Whether you're recruiting employees or seeking help to find a new job, these headhunters, recruiters, executive search firms, executive recruiters and recruiting services will help. Check them out.
Time to Hire Talent
Small business has an advantage in hiring talent. Wonder when it's time to hire? Darrell Zahorsky, About's Small Business Information Guide, provides the indicators you need to check to answer that question.
The Battle for the Best: Recruitment
What's new in compensation trends for recruiting and retaining talent? Check out this article for variable pay plan trends, stock option opinions, and what's cool in benefit strategies.
Diversity Recruiting: The Compelling Business Case
Dr. John Sullivan makes the business case for recruiting and employing a workforce with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and ideas. He claims that a diverse work force has a positive impact on the business’ bottom line.
How to Recruit and Hire the Right People
In recruiting and staffing, a positive corporate image may help you find great employees. Check here for a couple of good ideas about recruiting and staffing.
Waging the War for Talent
The Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at Cornell University finds that large companies recruiting executives are competing with small and mid-sized companies in a more complex work environment in which loyalty may no longer matter.
Employee Selection and Employee Hiring
Learn how to select and hire the best employees for your open positions. Selection and evaluation techniques are explored that help you pick among qualified candidates. Employee selection and employee hiring processes are critical to hiring a superior staff. Learn to improve your hiring practices.
Employment Letters
These sample employment letters will assist you to reject job candidates, make job offers, welcome employees, and more. Use these sample employment letters to develop the employment letters you use in your organization.
How to Recruit and Hire the Best: A Checklist for Success
Want to recruit and hire a superior workforce? This checklist will help you systematize your hiring process. The checklist helps you keep track of your recruiting efforts. It communicates both the recruiting and the hiring process and progress in recruiting to the hiring manager. Take a look and provide feedback.
Plan Your Recruiting to Ensure Successful Candidate Selection
Do you select new employees based largely on an attractive resume and the candidate’s performance at the resultant interview? If so, you are missing the opportunity to use additional recruiting and screening methods that will ensure a superior hire. Learn how a recruiting planning meeting can ensure you hire candidates who will perform successfully in your work place.
Nine Recruiting and Selection Tips to Ensure Successful Hiring
These nine tips will help you in recruiting and hiring a candidate who will become a successful, contributing superior employee. Learn how job analysis helps you in recruiting and hiring a superior staff.
Eight Hiring Mistakes Employers Make: From Application to...
Hiring decisions that result in "bad" hires sap your organization's time, training resources, and psychic energy. These are the top hiring mistakes to avoid during your recruiting and hiring process. Do these eight activities with care; your recruiting, interviewing and hiring practices will result in better hires.
HR Tool: Ask Right to Hire Right
Looking for a simple, yet effective way to immediately improve your interviewing and staff selection process? Here's a way to hire employees that will make sure you hire people who will contribute positively to your organization.
Hiring Freeze
in a hiring freeze, an employer decides to stop hiring employees for all non-essential positions. A hiring freeze allows an employer to consolidate current employees and potentially restructure departments, to complete the work that is essential for serving the customers of the business.
Human Resources Letters (Samples)
These sample Human Resources letters provide guidance for common letters you encounter in business and human resources. Use these sample human resources letters to make job offers, thank rejected job candidates, resign from your job, review resume cover letters, review interview thank you letters, and provide effective employee recognition. Find sample human resources letters.
Video Resumes
If you haven't received your first video resumes from candidates yet, you will shortly. The buzz is growing and video resumes are the next "cool" thing to do. In fact, the conversation has already moved from whether to make a video resume to how to make a professional video resume to enhance job applications. So, employers will be seeing video resumes - whether you want them or not.[p]
Gone in Thirty Seconds: How to Review a Resume
The work of resume review starts well before applicant resumes fill your inbox. Reviewing a resume starts with a job description or role profile so you know broadly what the job entails. Part of the job description, in an effective job description, details the qualifications and experience of the candidate you seek to fill the job. Find out how to effectively review resumes to select superior candidates.
Why This Resume Rocks
When employers receive 100 resumes in response to a job posting, the resume that catches your eye has to stand out from the crowd. This sample resume was accompanied by an exemplary cover letter. Here, I'll show you the resume that accompanied the cover letter that did capture my attention and tell you why. This sample resume sets a standard employers need to seek and candidates need to emulate.
Resume Cover Letters Matter: Why Resume Cover Letters Should Matter to Employers
Job searching specialists and career counselors recommend that job applicants write a customized resume cover letter to accompany each resume sent to an employer. They’re right. As an employer, a customized resume cover letter matters. A resume cover letter saves you time, connects the candidate’s relevant experience to your advertised job, and provides insight into the candidate’s skills, characteristics, and experience. Look for a resume cover letter from a good applicant.
My Favorite Resume Cover Letter
Resume cover letters ought to matter to employers. As an employer, you are seeking the resume and resume cover letter that describe the candidate who will best fill your position. A thoughtful resume cover letter tells you that the candidate took the time to customize his application to fit your needs. Perhaps the applicant with a superior resume cover letter, will make a superior employee.
Background Checks
Background checks are a critical component in hiring. When it comes to your business, you cannot afford to make a poor hiring decision. In fact, for most businesses, one bad hire can make the difference between success and failure. According to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 30% of small business failure is caused by employee theft. Effective background checks mitigate your risk of hiring objectionable, or even dangerous, employees. Find out more about background checks.
In Sales and Marketing Hiring, You Can't Always Get What You Want
Hiring employees is becoming more challenging as employers are hiring employees from a shrinking pool of qualified candidates. Hiring employees is easier of you are willing to settle for 80% of your requirements and training the employee in the rest. You don't have to wait for the perfect sales and marketing candidate when you're hiring employees.
Believe What You See: How to Use Nonverbal Communication in Hiring
Have you ever made up your mind about a job candidate based on the way he sat in your lobby? Did you confirm that opinion when he walked across the room and shook your hand? Awareness of nonverbal communication and the messages job searchers send does influence your evaluation of job candidates – and it should. Aside from protected characteristics such as gender, race and weight, you can learn a lot about your prospective employee from their nonverbal communications. Learn more.
Ten Deadly Mistakes Job Searchers Make - And Why They Should Matter to Employers
Sometimes the simplest mistakes make all the difference in the potential joining together of an employer and a job searcher. These opportunities to fail occur before the first phone call is ever exchanged. If you’re an employer, these simple, yet serious, job searcher mistakes tell you volumes about the candidate. These deadly mistakes matter.
Here are ten things that employers need to watch for as you review job searcher resumes and applications. Beware of job searchers who...
Tips for a Successful Salary Negotiation
a salary negotiation window exists from the time you offer a job to a candidate to the acceptance of the job by your selected candidate. The results of this negotiation can leave a candidate feeling wanted or devalued. The results of this negotiation can leave the employer excited to welcome the candidate or feeling as if he lost. A positive employer and a positive employee are the result of a successful salary negotiation. Here are some tips for conducting a successful salary negotiation.
Internal Job Application for Career Opportunities
Looking for a format to use for your internal job application process? You do post job openings for your internal staff first, right? This form will give you a head start as you develop your internal job application and career opportunities process for current employees. Take a look and feel free to use or modify the form to meet your organization's needs.
Job Candidate Evaluation Form
You want samples and examples, so, this featured tool is a Job Candidate Evaluation Form. Useful for comparing candidates, it also gives your interviewers information about the skills they need to assess in each candidate. Take a look and remember, you can print a printer-friendly version.
Applicant Tracking Software
Researching business technology can be a daunting task and finding a Human Resources Management System (HRMS), that meets the unique needs of your business and offers ease of acceptance by your employees, can present a challenge. To begin this process, I suggest exploring a Web-based HRMS solution, which avoids the pitfalls of a costly software purchase, internal IT involvement or a lengthy implementation process.
Reference Checking
Checking job or employment references is time-consuming and frequently unsatisfactory, as many employers, despite recent legislation, refuse to offer more than dates of employment, salary history and job title. Here is the format I use to check references. Take a look; it provides a format for reference checking that you'll find helpful.
Job Offer Letter
Looking for a sample job offer letter? Your candidates appreciate the job offer terms spelled out in detail. Use this job offer letter as a base for developing your own employment offer.
Why Job Descriptions Are Good Business
For recruitment and staffing, the job description is a communication tool significant for your organization's success. A poorly-written job description creates workplace confusion, hurts communication, and makes people feel as if they don't know what is expected from them.
Read words of wisdom and warning for your recruiting and staffing process and employee retention, about job descriptions
Training, Development, and Education for Employees
Want to know more about employee training, employee development, and employee education? Start here for information about employee training, employee development, and employee education. Employee training promotes employee satisfaction and employee retention.
Tips for HR Training
In every company, Human Resources (HR) training in many employee-related and legally-related topics is mandatory, especially for managers and supervisors. We need to equip our employees to handle their employee relations responsibilities competently. But, for maximum positive impact and learning, we need to make the HR training motivational and engaging.
Training: Your Investment in People Development and Retention
The right employee training, development and education at the right time provides big payoffs for the employer in increased productivity, knowledge, loyalty, and contribution. Learn the approaches that will guarantee a return on your investment in training.
Change Management, Organization Development, Culture
The development of your organization and, particularly, how you manage change impacts the success of your business. Organization development activities intervene in the interactions of your people systems such as formal and informal groups, work culture and climate, and organization design to increase their effectiveness using a variety of applied behavioral sciences.
Laughing Your Way to Organizational Health
Workplace wellness is a serious issue. With stress-related-illness and burnout becoming household words, you are increasingly looking for ways to keep your workforce happy, healthy and productive. David Granirer's humor insights tell you how.
Build Support for Effective Change Management
Change can succeed. Effective change management helps change succeed. The role of building support for change prior to the change and during the change in change management is explored. Your change management efforts can succeed. Learn more about building support for change.
Communication: Email, Newsletters, Meetings, Presentations
Face-to-face or person-to-person interpersonal communication is the most frequent communication method most people use at work. Additionally, people communicate via email, newsletters, phone messages, presentations and meetings. Poor communication is the most frequently cited problem in organizations. Learn how to communicate effectively.
How to Make Your Messages Memorable
When a piece of communication is to the point, relevant, worthwhile, and compelling, it moves you—the listener or reader—to action. Moving people is not magic—it’s all about effective communication. Anyone can achieve effective communication by using a simple tool that has an uncanny ability to pinpoint why any message works or doesn’t work, and how to improve it. Find out more.
Twenty Dumb Things Organizations Do to Mess Up Their Relationship With People
Even the best organizations periodically make mistakes in dealing with people. Here are twenty mistakes that organizations make - mistakes that mess up their relationship with their employees.
Performance Management, Evaluation, Review, Improvement
Managers cite performance appraisals or annual reviews as one of their most disliked tasks. Performance management eliminates the performance appraisal or annual review and evaluation as the focus and concentrates instead on the entire spectrum of performance management and improvement strategies. These include employee performance improvement, performance development, training, cross-training, challenging assignments, 360 degree feedback and regular performance feedback.
Goal Setting (12) Performance Measurement (10) High Performance Employees (1) Performance Appraisals: No (6) Manage Daily Performance (21) Disciplinary Action (18) Performance Development (7) Technology (20) Success in Work @ 360 Feedback (12) Employee Job Termination (18)
Use an Employee Self Evaluation
Want to encourage more participation in performance evaluation and career planning from employees? Does your company use a traditional performance appraisal system? Or, does your company pursue a forward thinking performance management process? Whatever method your company uses for employee performance development, consider making an employee self evaluation an integral component in the process.
Why Organizations Do Employee Performance Evaluation
Interested in why organizations do employee performance evaluation? Employee performance evaluation is both an evaluative process and a communication tool. Done traditionally, employee performance evaluation is universally disliked by supervisors and employees.
Coaching / Mentoring / Consulting / Learning Organizations
Find coaching, mentoring, consulting, knowledge management and how to build a learning organization resources.
Knowledge Management (1) Consulting (32) Networking (4) Dealing With Bad Bosses ...
Group Mentoring
Effective relationships and learning are the mainstays of organizational success today. Organizations that find meaningful ways for their employees to connect are more likely to realize greater productivity, enhanced career growth, freely flowing innovation and overall improvement in employee performance. Group mentoring is a value-added tool for connecting employees and advancing learning within the organization.
What Do You Mean My Company’s a Stepping Stone?
With baby boomers – all 80-plus million of them – starting their exodus from the workforce and into retirement, the labor pool is shrinking. No, Chicken Little, that doesn’t mean the sky is falling. But it does mean that organizations that distinguish themselves as destinations for talented and valued employees will see their stock rise - and not just on Wall Street. Find mentoring to be an employee recruitment and retention strategy.
How to Develop a Policy
Do You Need a Policy?
Identify the Need for a Policy
You want to have the necessary policies and procedures to ensure a safe, organized, convivial, empowering, nondiscriminatory work place. Yet, you do not want to write a policy for every exception to accepted and expected behavior. Policy development is for the many employees not for the few exceptions.
Consequently, you do not want to create policies for every contingency, thus allowing very little management latitude in addressing individual employee needs. Conversely, you want to have needed policies, so that employees never feel as if they reside in a free-for-all environment of favoritism and unfair treatment. These ten steps will take you from determining the need for a policy through distributing and integrating a policy.
Check Out These Guidelines to See if a Policy Is Needed
For each of the reasons provided about why a policy might be necessary, I have provided examples of the policies that might fall into that category of need for a policy. A policy is necessary:
· if the actions of employees indicate confusion about the most appropriate way to behave (dress codes, email and Internet policies, cell phone use),
· if guidance is needed about the most suitable way to handle various situations (standards of conduct, travel expenditures, purchase of company merchandise),
· when needed to protect the company legally (consistent investigation of charges of harassment, non-discriminatory hiring and promotion),
· to keep the company in compliance with governmental policies and laws (FMLA, ADA, EEOC, minimum wage),
· to establish consistent work standards, rules, and regulations (progressive discipline, safety rules, break rules, smoking rules), and
· to provide consistent and fair treatment for employees (benefits eligibility, paid time off, tuition assistance, bereavement time, jury duty).
· There may be other reasons, additionally, for why you may want to develop a policy. Remember, though, that one employee's poor behavior should not require a policy that will affect all other employees.
Articulate the Goal of the Policy
Once you’ve determined that a policy is necessary, determine the goal you want to accomplish in writing the particular policy. When possible, you will want to tell employees why the policy is being implemented.
You need enough details in the policy to make the company’s position clear, yet you can never hope to cover every potential situation addressed by the policy.
Consequently, my goal with a policy is short and simple. I recognize this may not be possible with policies about areas such as the company's approach to the Family Medical and Leave Act, discrimination or complaint investigation, or the progressive discipline system. But, how much can you really say about driving while talking on a cell phone? So, use common sense as you determine the outcome you want from your policy
Salary, Benefits, Variable Pay: Bonuses, Profit Sharing
Are your salary, benefits and bonus fair? Will your salary and benefits help you retain excellent staff? Will your pay package attract great candidates? What opportunities exist for increasing benefits at reasonable cost? These resources answer these questions about salary, benefits, profit sharing, bonuses and 401(k) s.
Non-standard Benefits (23) Executive Compensation (4) Standard Employee Benefits (34) Salary Research (18) Employee Safety (11) Salary Surveys (5) Retirement: 401(k) (13) Role of Salary and Benefits (7) Variable Compensation (3) Salary Negotiation (6)
How to Ask for a Pay Raise
How do you ask for a pay raise when your company has put most pay raises on hold this year? Or, what if your employer is offering a 2% pay raise across the board, and you believe you have earned more? The answer? It depends. If pay raises are on hold, keep in mind that you risk looking like you’re not a team player when you ask for a pay raise under those circumstances. Especially if your company is in any kind of trouble or laying off employees, wait a few months to ask for a pay raise.
Make More Money: Your Lifetime Income Potential
Work is about the money. Work only becomes not about the money when you have sufficient income – however you define sufficient income – to support your chosen life style. With sufficient money, work becomes about other motivations. Maximize lifetime income potential by the choices you make for your career and how you work with your employer. Learn how to maximize your lifetime income potential.
Human Resources Job Prospects and Earnings
Many people are eager to start a career in Human Resources, as it is a fast-growing field with many lucrative opportunities. Career analysts expect the number of Human Resources jobs to increase in the projected future and the median annual income is above the national average. For these reasons and more, you are probably wondering how to start an HR career of your own. Find out more about breaking into a career in Human Resources.
Salary Trends for Forward Thinking Organizations
How to research salary, salary calculators, salary surveys, salary comparisons, basically, all things salary, online, is one of the most frequent requests for information received by the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). This makes sense when you consider the importance of salary to attract talented people, retain key employees, and maintain an excited, motivated workforce.
Tips for Determining a Motivating Salary
Information online makes researching salary ranges easier than setting salaries has ever been in the past - but, also trickier. The role of salary in helping you create a motivated, contributing work force is inestimable. These tips will help you address pay and salary issues in a way that contributes to employee motivation in your organization.
Paycheck
A paycheck is a check issued by an employer in order to satisfy the compensation commitment the employer has with the employee. The paycheck is most frequently issued by the employer, every two weeks, but some employers issue the paycheck weekly or monthly. The average employee receives 26 paychecks a year.
The COBRA Subsidy and Alternative Healthcare Options
Providing COBRA and alternative healthcare options for departing employees assures your employees that you care about them. Although the COBRA subsidy makes COBRA a more tempting, less expensive alternative for some employees, others may be better served by private insurance options. Learn about the COBRA subsidy and how employees can find private insurance while limiting the employer’s risk, and slowing the increase in administration fees and costs in your corporate healthcare spending budget.
How to Select Human Resources Information Technology
HR information technology is essential for companies to manage their benefits plans and their employee information. Benefits management technology is no longer a “nice to have,” but a necessity to help HR manage. But how do HR and other executives know they are selecting the best HR information technology to manage all of the details, and that the solution they select will stand the test of time?
Sales Compensation: Retain Sales Super Stars
Keeping salespeople motivated can be a real challenge. What motivates one might not motivate another. Good sales managers know this and are always aware of where their individual salespeople are on that "motivational" scale. Sales compensation is a crucial factor in motivation. Learn more about keeping great salespeople with successful sales compensation.
Benefits
Benefits are a form of compensation paid by employers to employees over and above the amount of pay specified as a base salary or hourly rate of pay. Benefits are a portion of a total compensation package for employees. A comprehensive, common set of benefits includes the following components.
Variable Pay
Variable pay is used generally to recognize and reward employee contribution toward company productivity, profitability, team work, safety, quality, or some other metric deemed important. Variable pay changes depending upon the circumstances. Learn more about variable pay.
Profit Sharing
Profit sharing is an example of a variable pay plan. Profit sharing is taking a percentage of a company’s annual profits and then dividing the pool of money generated across all employees using a formula for distribution. Profit sharing payments are only made if the company has been profitable for the time period specified. Find out more about profit sharing.
Severance Pay
Severance pay is money that an employer might want to provide for an employee who is leaving their employ. Normal circumstances that might warrant severance pay include layoffs, job elimination, and mutual agreement to part ways for whatever reason. Severance pay usually amounts to a week or two of pay for each year of service to the company. In some instances, a severance package might include extended benefits and outplacement assistance.
The Impact of the Minimum Wage Increase
The increase in the minimum wage on July 24, 2007 from $5.15 to $5.85 an hour, is expected to have minimal impact on most employers nation-wide. That's because 32 states and the District of Columbia have already established minimum wage levels higher than the new federal level. The minimum wage will increase again to $6.55 on July 24, 2008, and to $7.25 per hour on July 24, 2009. It is the first increase in the federal minimum wage in a decade. Find out more about the minimum wage.
Labor and Compensation Issues
People work for many reasons including love, money, and creating a successful future. Celebrate Labor Day with our special resource about Labor Day, labor unions, compensation, salary, bonuses, benefits, and more.
Reward, Recognition, Award, and Thank You Ideas
Looking for convenient, appreciated, reasonably cost-conscious ways to reward, recognize, demonstrate your appreciation, award, and say "thank you" for contributions that people make at work? These ideas will help.
Holiday Pay Practices: Do You Know What Your Legal Requirements Are?
The end of the year is a good time to review your company’s holiday pay practices. This article answers common questions regarding holiday pay related issues.
What Good People Really Cost
Losing a good person to another employer costs more than you might think. The About Guide to Management, John Reh, helps you consider the real cost of losing people.
Salary Negotiation
"Whether you've found that perfect job or are in hot pursuit of it, sooner or later you will be negotiating salary." If you follow this advice, not only will you earn more money, you will win the respect of your new manager. Check out all of the negotiation resources at this excellent site.
Development of a Salary Administration Plan
This article outlines all of the steps in the development of a complete salary administration plan including philosophy, job analysis, salary administration policy, and a communication plan for managers.
Business Tax Guide and Information
This site from the U.S. Internal Revenue Service provides updated information on benefits, compensation, tax withholding, retirement funding, definitions of employees and contractual relationships, and more. Readable!
Lessons from 100 Years of Compensation
Lessons from 100 Years of Compensation, from the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies at Cornell University, discusses the history of compensation systems and what the best organizations emphasize today.
Powerful Compensation Strategies
Click on White Paper #8 to read about 23 compensation strategies that help the HR function have an impact on employee productivity and the business bottom line.
Severance Pay From D.O.L.
This is a handy guide to severance pay from the U.S. Department of Labor. The article offers links to other useful D.O.L. web pages about pensions, salary, and other compensation issues.
Social Security Administration
The Social Security Administration site provides information for employers about benefits, filing responsibilities, and more.
Strategic Pay
Compensation strategy is the core of this article which explores base pay, variable pay, merit increases, non-pay rewards and more. Check out additional information by clicking the articles in the right sidebar. (You'll need to register for free at Workforce to read their articles. Do it. It's worth the time.)
Team Compensation: A Broad Overview
Article summarizes the subject of team compensation and offers guidance on types of compensation, rationale for team compensation, approaches to team compensation, and information about the impact of team compensation on the individual worker.
