100 HR Ideas for better Business : First 5

All it needs a beginning : 

A First Step to Reach  to the

Top 

I was thinking within myself, if I have to give the best reading experience, what is that I can do differently on this Blog. I realized that tons of description may not excite any reader. Keeping it simple and sweet is the only way.  While we want to give the best back to the readers, I decided to write a series of the 100 things that a business owner/CEO/Family Business Owner could do to improve his/her business with specific focus on People Management for better business.  

I would be writing small bits of inputs/advise for business owners ,which could be used with ease. I would try not to cover these inputs in a sequence of the HR Process but based on the experiences of  our teams from time to time. I would plan to summarize at the end to compile the series in an e-book for future readers.   This way I

would cover the important things first and may be of use for the readers. 

In each of the posting we would like to share 5 such Important aspects with Inputs & Ideas if any. Please note these are not necessary in an order of Induction/performance during the course of building business. Use your discretion. If you have any question at any point please do write to me at :  gr(at)husys.net

1. Vision & Mission : One of the most important ingredient of organisation building. You may want to focus on what you want to do in future and how you want to achieve the same.  If you are a start-up  you can build this with a team of first few and work with rest to improve and achieve the same. Making sure that every individual is chosen to fit into this framework and win in long-term.  Please do not hesitate to part with people who may not fit into this framework. Link every of your actions/processes/policies for present and future.  

Idea : You may build this including the core team and someone who can see your vision. Alternatively can use an external expert help in facilitating this process (Please do not ask external facilitator to draft for you) 

You can only  build an organisation when 

everyone  walks with you to the top 

2 - Building the Long-term & Short-term Objectives : While you have a vision and mission for your organisation. Even if you do not have a clear Vision & Mission Statements (In most of the organisation its true that they do not have a formal vision & mission statements). Set your clear goals for short-term (for Financial year or Calender Year).  Make sure that the Objectives are Simple, Clear, Time Bound and measurable.  Make it convenient for people to relate it to performance. 

Idea: Build at-least Revenue targets with timelines(Sales, Collection etc.,), New initiatives in People practices, Processes and Future Expansion. Make sure that the same is communicated through a mail / team meetings / all employee meeting. 

3. Set Expectations & Communicate Clearly: Its always best to set the expectations of performance at the beginning of the relationship with any employee in organisation. The longer the relationship without set expectations, difficult to agree/accept the reality of business.

Idea : Spare few minutes in writing the expectations and end output that measures the success of the individual on a peace of paper and Document(body of text) through an email. This 10-20 minutes of interaction and documentation can save many business days.

Its Tough to be on the Top : 

But its a reality

4. Share the Business Realities : Do not hide or hesitate to talk about your business situation with the employees. I am sure they are equally aware of what is happening in business. Spare few minutes of time to share the business realities during regular meetings and send common notes through email. This can include information about objectives achievement, new happenings, new competition and any other challenges that the organisation is going through. Do not hesitate to share the difficulties and people would come forward to help.  You would have people come forward to extend help who relate themselves with the organisation   

Idea: Set a frequency of communication based on the communication and type of groups to be informed - function, divisions or overall organisation. Eg. Organisational Update to everyone by 5th of every month.

5. Ask for Help : Do not hesitate to ask for that extra-mile help from people who work in your organisation. If you have shared your vision, mission, business realities frequently, it would be easier for seeking such support. You don't do that every bit of business deliver anyway, you need people to run the business and take those right steps in the path of growth.  

Idea: You can ask for any such support from the team immediately reports to you.  In turn encourage the team to take further steps based on the ground realities.  

100 HR Ideas for better

Business : 6-10 : Induction, Probation, Hiring, Grievance, Expectations Here are the next 5 Ideas for better Business performance in building Human Synergies. In this posting you would find basic information about Induction, Probation, Grievance Redressal,

High Requirement Hiring and Setting Expectation of Performance. These are very day-to-day issues and needs to be addressed on the go.  Please do read and add new inputs and perspective to make this blog a repository for simple & practical solutions. 

On-Job & Experiential Induction is the Key for Success

6.Induction for Performance : Induction of a new employee into the system is the first step for building Human Synergies. Induction is a process which would help the new joinees contribute the best by understanding the organisation and its systems. Organisation helps the new joinees to understand the history, policies, procedures, cultural values along with some bit of experiential learning.  This process can be simple to complex based on the person / seniority and/or implication of the decisions by the person (if they are serious more days and more in-depth induction).  Since we bring people into the organisation to perform and deliver the best, Induction would help that process effectively.   

Idea: Induction plan can be few hours to few months as per the intensity of the requirement. Create a standard template for a day or two and make sure you execute as soon as you have a new joinee. You can discuss with your senior team members and set expectations of information sharing and experiential learning. Eg : The template can have columns like Date, Function/Department to visit, person to meet,

Questions to Ask and time(from-to). Do not forget to ask the Inductee to ask for feedback report at the end of those few hours/days.

An Informal Chat helps the New Entrant Establish Quickly

7. Probation: Probation is primarily to help the new joinees to get used to the environment and fit into cultural of the organisation. It is noticed that there are different set of probation methods in organisations. Some have a probation for junior level people. Some organisations follow for all the levels.  It is noticed that however the experienced or accomplished in other organisation does not guarantee the same performance in the new organisation.  The duration of the probation can be defined based on the general time frame that a new joinees get adjusted into the new system.  Based on the organisational need and the general time taken for adjustment can be considered as a yardstick in defining the duration.  There is a perceivable notion that Probation confirmation is linked to the increment/revision in salary.  This is totally not true and should not be linked to monetary gains, so that the sanctity of organisational fitment can be managed.   

Idea: Set some basic parameters to help assess the involvement of the Individual into the organisation.  An open-ended one page report from the Supervisor would help in confirmation of services to keep it simple in consultation with the team member. Its also important to set the next set of expectations and measurable outputs agreed at this time. 

8. One-time High Recruitment Needs: Many times you may have a need to recruit large pool of people at once.  This number would vary from organisational size.  Smaller companies to have 3-10 number of requirement may be high.  For large organisations the number could run in Hundreds. You can segregate the positions in different buckets of experience and expertise and define a different strategy.  Like for all fresh positions you can approach a college for database or for organizing interviews. For experienced you may want to use the position posting and a database access service for a short-term, with a job portal to make sure you reach the target.  Or alternatively your own employees can be of great help with little focus.

Idea: Call any Recruitment Agency and negotiate a different model, where they would work on retainer basis to close all the positions within a specific time period.  This is possible and doable for the Recruitment Company. If you really assure some basic fee for their efforts, they can do a good job than just on success based in such situations.

9. Performance Expectations:  Setting the performance expectations at each level is important. It not only important to set the expectations but also to share what outcome you would like to see as a performance. for example: for a sales person Revenue & Collection %age. Production: Production Output in numbers, Wastage %age to be maintained, For HR person : %age of positions to be filled in days from requisition, employee turnover to be contained at a level. 

Idea : For every job/ position / individual define only two key components as output that you would be expecting and communicate in writing. Set a frequency of review to ensure that your single point of

agenda is to discuss and see the progress.  

Its All about setting the expectations on Performance or on resolving Grievance

10. Employee Grievance : Grievances typically are handled through a process of grievance handling procedure for large teams.

However, In case of smaller organisation, Identify the problem related to Work norms  infrastructure, performance,Salary, increments etc., and appropriately respond.  All the policy related framework done by HR need to be interpreted and clarified.  Also see that if you need to resolve with the appropriate documents/ approvals.   If it is related to interpersonal relationships, work related issues you may want to involve the manager to get the right picture and help them to resolve.  This is a quick overview and specific problems can be handled based on the need/situation/background.  One thing for sure, do not jump to resolve issues... identify the core of the problem and involve the appropriate authorities to make sure that grievance is resolved to the best of organisational capabilities/boundaries. Finally, never think that you are going to satisfy all the parties 100%.... 

Idea: If you really work on a detailed grievance redressal policy would be great. However, if you do not intend/can't define, then Identify last one year issues and resolutions. Set some basic guidelines in such cases if repeated and communicate to the teams in common forums/intranet/meetings etc.,.  For any unresolved issues, set an escalation point and also what level it would be final and binding for resolution. 

About Husys:

Husys - HR Function Management Company ( www.husys.net ) is striving to build HR

Department for Start-up, Small and Medium businesses since 2002. Husys strive to help in

managing to stream line the change that organizations go through during their growth

phase. Husys addresses the key Human related issues to support organizational Growth.

We integrate the Hiring, Inducting, Performance Measurement, Policies, Employee Bonding

and Development. Reach for any support in HR Services / HR Outsourcing / HR Function

Management / Customized HR Outsourcing in India.

We truly live our Vision: "Synergizing Human Potential for Business & Society".