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The Human Resources Specialists

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Because people matter

How To Stop Your Best Talent Leaving

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Over time, businesses and organisations tend to organically build up the best teams to get the necessary work done. It’s rare that you’ll hire all your ideal employees at the same time, and it’s even more rare that all of your best performers will stay for the long run.

Most people can be replaced, but this tends to be a costly process and can really set the rest of your team back. Long term employees have more specific experience and work more seamlessly with your existing processes, so how can you discourage them from eventually looking elsewhere for work?

1) Have a strong induction process

Research shows that going through a specific introductory program when joining a new employer increases the retention rate for new employees by nearly 60%. Making people less anxious and overwhelmed when they start a new job makes them retain new information more easily and pick up skills faster, so you should plan a consistent method of doing this.

2) Keep the process going

A new employee will not be in the same position as a veteran after just a week, or even a few months. If you really need to improve your retention rate, you need to focus on maintaining and building a connection with new staff for a long time after they first join.

3) Give people new career options

It’s natural for your employees, like everyone else’s, to occasionally feel the desire to go into a completely new area. The best way to combat this is to show people that it’s not necessary to leave your organisation in order to find fulfilment in a new area. Consider a system or resource that asks employees what their career goals are and offers alternative paths within your business that they might be interested in.

4) Communicate and connect

As a leader, manager or HR professional, you may not be able to communicate effectively with every employee using the exact same approach. Long-term employees may need to hear different messages to keep them motivated, as they are looking at things from a different perspective than those who are new to the workforce.

5) Add a sense of fun

Don’t forget that your team should be enjoying themselves at work, including when you’re trying to engage them in self-development and stop them taking their talent elsewhere. You may actually be able to turn self-training into a multiplayer game within your organisation, which gives the whole process a fun edge and keeps players interested. This might be a large investment, but it has proved a hugely successful strategy in some cases.

10 Reasons Why Communication Makes Or Breaks Businesses

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We hear a lot about the importance of good communication, but within organisations it rarely comes naturally to everyone. This is evidenced by the fact that more than 60% of office workers still cite communication as an area that their business fails at.

Why isn’t it taken seriously? It’s perhaps more a case of the nuances of great communication being difficult to understand and enforce across a workplace. But that’s not to say you shouldn’t try your absolute hardest to get it right. Here are the top 10 reasons why businesses absolutely have to communicate well, or risk failure.

1) Customer service is better when businesses communicate well internally, because employees are more informed about products, services and processes. It allows them to be honest and develop more trust with clients.

2) Expectations are clearer so your team will know what they need to do in order to be considered productive and successful in their job.

3) People that know how to communicate make much more efficient teams. Collaboration without understanding will usually lead to wasted time.

4) Company values will be upheld and taken seriously if people actually understand what they are and know how to communicate those in everything they do.

5) Businesses using the most advanced and up-to-date communication channels tend to have better-informed employees, since they have instant access to relevant information. This also creates a good impression with external parties, if they can see you keep up with the times.

6) You can avoid confusion and mistakes when people understand what’s happening. Simple errors in communication can lead to bigger problems down the line.

7) When changes are happening in a business (and this happens often for many organisations), employees sometimes need extra support. Making sure people understand why things are changing will increase their trust in you.

8) An open and transparent culture will help you identify and resolves a huge range of issues much earlier on, compared to in a situation where tensions are underlying and communication is hindered.

9) Communicating regularly about important issues will help people in your team feel like they are valued. This in turn helps with employee retention and productivity.

10) Maintaining an engaged and productive workforce is really the main goal of internal communication strategies, so if you get it right you should experience this for yourself.

How Successful Leaders Make People Listen

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As a leader, you probably have many roles within your organisation, but perhaps the most important one is telling people crucial things that they need to know. You’re probably going to need to repeat yourself to be heard, but even then it’s not always easy to ensure people are listening to you.

Here are a few tips based on what the most successful leaders actually do to make sure they’re not ignored.

1) Don’t just say it once. A vital message might not reach the people it needs to reach if you only mention it once, or in one particular way. It might not even work if you say it two or three times. Never assume you’ve been heard without really knowing.

2) Choose a channel based on your listener. Some leaders are pushed for time or don’t want to learn how to use a new communication channel, even though their employees or colleagues use it all the time. If you don’t go with the flow, you might be ignored. Written communication may not be as clear as a message conveyed by phone or in person, or vice versa.

3) Consider learning styles. Most of us have heard about the different ways people tend to learn and retain information. If possible, consider this or present a range of options for people to take in and understand what you’re saying or teaching.

4) Be honest when communicating. People won’t listen to you if you clearly gloss over your own mistakes or go quiet when things haven’t panned out well. In order to be taken seriously, you should be transparent.

5) Incentivise people to take action. If people understand what they stand to gain by listening to you and following your direction, they are much more likely to do so. Sometimes the reason you’re passing on information may be obvious to you, but not to your listeners who may be busy thinking of their other priorities.

6) Let people be honest with you. If you create a situation (even inadvertently) where people feel intimidated or otherwise unable to be honest, it may seem to you that people aren’t listening to you. They might be hearing you loud and clear, but certain questions or demands can come across as if you don’t trust your employees, and this creates the same feeling the other way.

7) Don’t be hypocritical. It’s one thing to hold junior employees to different standards compared to their managers or company directors. However, it’s another to tell someone to act one way and then do something that completely contradicts that instruction. A lot of the time, people won’t do as you say, they’ll do as you do.

Conflict in the Workplace

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Conflict in the Workplace

The idea of dealing with conflicts within an organisation is not usually the most attractive prospect for people considering going into human resources as a career, even for those with the appropriate empathy and communication skills to handle it. While conflict may be unpleasant, however, it is actually essential to solve problems and make meaningful progress.

Even within positive work environments with highly trained professionals and good organisational structures in place, there will be conflict from time to time. Leadership is a difficult task for any business partner or manager, and at times there will be failures of that leadership which cause issues. Equally, staff in lower positions will be able to cause conflict, often due to simple misunderstandings and unfortunate mistakes, or sometimes as a result of excessive self preservation and an unwillingness to cooperate as a team. Whatever the case, HR staff need to develop the skills to turn conflict into something positive.

Communication is absolutely crucial and should always form a starting point for conflict identification and resolution. Most disagreements and difficult situations in the workplace will be connected to some avoidable lapse in communication. Enabling better communication is key to minimising conflict before it even happens, so good HR departments will work on making it easier for employees to make their intentions and actions very clear to others. [Read more…] about Conflict in the Workplace

Maximising Employee Performance with Coaching

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Maximising Employee Performance with Coaching

Problems with management or personal issues that hold back performance in employees are a problem for many businesses. It can be tricky to identify what is causing an issue, and to work on improving it without unfairly placing blame on anyone, so many businesses look for professional guidance and consultations. Performance consultants can work with an employee in a number of areas including confidence building, communication skills, personal development & conflict management.

The methodology used by different professionals in this field will vary, but generally there are some logical steps that should be following by any managers, consultants or HR staff who are involved with the process. The following is intended as a guideline that could steer your problem-solving process in the right direction and get the most out of your workforce’s potential performance.

1) Demonstrate trust

Firstly, you need to explain and show your trust in your employee to make them feel comfortable. Ensure that you are approaching the problem from the same side, and that everyone is confident and comfortable setting out to solve an issue. [Read more…] about Maximising Employee Performance with Coaching

HR and Data Protection

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HR and Data Protection

An important part of human resources management is the responsibility you have for looking after the personal data of employees and others. As someone managing a business with staff, you are in a position of trust and it’s essential you follow the right laws and guidelines to keep data safe and secure. All staff are also responsible for ensuring they act within these rules.

Under the Data Protection Act 1998, records that are no longer required but contain sensitive information should be destroyed, and in many cases you are legally required to protect your employees, customers, business associates and others’ rights by disposing of their personal information responsibly. It is considered best practice to make use of professional, confidential shredding services to dispose of these kinds of records appropriately. This ensures you have taken all the necessary steps should any legal issues occur later. [Read more…] about HR and Data Protection

How HR in Large and Small Businesses Differs

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How HR in Large and Small Businesses Differs

No matter what the size of the organisation they are working within, human resources departments have to be adaptable and open to changing demands at all times. Most industries will have dramatic shifts from time to time and businesses much adapt with them, so HR needs to be flexible in order to accommodate new objectives and focus on the highest priority matters at any given time. However, for small businesses the process that HR staff go through to get the job done may be very different to what you would expect to find in a huge corporation.

Most resources available to small and large business are quite different, and human resources are too. In the same way that budgets, timescales, physical resources and more will vary between companies of different scales, so will the requirements of the HR department and staff development objectives. The key is really to ensure a stable structure is in place, whatever these changing requirements may be.

For example, in small businesses, it is likely that financial and time constraints will be a major factor in determining what a human resources department is able to achieve. There may only be very few staff dedicated to HR in the company, so these individuals need to use their time as efficiently as possible on things like recruitment. Methods of sourcing new staff and establishing how suitable for a role they are may be more inconsistent and flexible than with a large corporation, which might have the funds to undergo complex recruitment procedures and use sophisticated testing processes to find the ideal candidate. The size of the company will also affect how often the recruitment process needs to be repeated, as very small teams may rarely need to hire new members while large companies are likely looking to fill many roles at any given time. [Read more…] about How HR in Large and Small Businesses Differs

How HR Differs for Creative Agencies

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Human resource is, of course, about the management of people. This can be a useful interpretation when comparing the role of HR in any business with other areas of management. In terms of business planning and growth strategies, for example, it would generally considered poor practice to avoid planning and simply try to manage problems as they occur. Why, then, is this a common approach when it comes to HR departments and managing employees? We would suggest that a fundamental lack of understanding when it comes to the ways HR requirements differ between industries can leave businesses confused and unsure how to implement a good long term HR plan.

For example, in creative industries the process of managing employees may need to be much more flexible than in a traditional office-based, administrative business. Recruiting to fill 3D and CAD designer or technician roles, exhibition design jobs and so on can be a difficult process since the skills required from a candidate may be hard to quantify. This means that managing these employees later, in any business, will also present a new challenge for human resource managers. Real talent can be hard to find, and even harder to keep, resulting in a need for a solid supportive structure in any creative work environment. [Read more…] about How HR Differs for Creative Agencies

Clinical Skills Training and Human Resources

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medical-training

Within many sectors, clinical skills may be required as part of other job roles, or you may be required to hire dedicated health staff under certain circumstances. Either way, the development of staff in this area will in many cases be the responsibility of the human resources department, as we often find. Training and education might be required for staff dealing with health and clinical work, whether they are medically registered individuals or not. Even hiring staff who start off with particular qualifications, you will often find that they require more training later to keep up with modern standards and the latest best practices.

Some businesses and organisations find it daunting moving into any area that requires medically trained staff, as often there is nobody suitable within the business to supervise their training. A lot of clinical skills will have to be brought in and taught by external sources. However, this may not be as complicated or prohibitive as it could seem at first. Clinical skills training and courses on health and safety are available from many different UK providers and suitable for any staff to help them learn the necessary skills to do the job required of them. [Read more…] about Clinical Skills Training and Human Resources

Different Job Roles Within Human Resources

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Different Job Roles Within Human Resources

Human resources remains a popular field for people to go into as a career, and a high proportion of people stay within the industry for a very long time. This is normally put down to a great level of job satisfaction, since the work done by HR departments is designed to have visible benefits across an organisation, and ideally other employees and top level managers will value their efforts highly. The field also allows for specialisation in a number of interesting areas depending on what suits your skills the best.

To begin with most people would start as a generalist in human resources departments, although it’s possible to remain in this type of position and climb higher without specialising. In fact, directors or business partners at the top level of a company would most likely be classed as generalists since their responsibilities are so broad. However, when starting out you are more likely to take on the role of an assistant or apprentice which would normally include general HR duties and some training in different areas.

Later it may be possible to move into different roles with more of a particular focus, once you find out what you are best suited to. For example, you may be most interested in recruitment and planning different job roles. Bringing new people into an organisation is of course a vital element of human resourcing, so progressing in this line of work can be very rewarding if you select the best people for the job and they go on to become successful. [Read more…] about Different Job Roles Within Human Resources

Using Time Management Software

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Using Time Management Software

A fairly common obstacle for managers and human resources staff is dealing with time management for other employees. For most businesses the old saying “time is money” tends to be true, and as a general rule, minimising time spent on each particular task will improve productivity. In a modern working environment, it is common for time management software to be employed to this end.

The fact is that digital technology has changed the way so many businesses work, there is a need for new methods of controlling and monitoring staff productivity. Now it is possible for many employees to work from home, even doing jobs that a few years ago would have been restricted to a communal office environment. Online communication channels are now so accessible it is easy for people to work remotely and be just as effective, but it is equally easy to become distracted by the constant buzz of activity from many different channels.

It is also harder for employers to know for sure what their employees are up to while they’re on the clock, without physically being able to see them. This can lead to concerns and trust issues, which any HR expert will know to be a significant long term risk regarding motivation and productivity. This is why time management software can be an effective tool for both managers and workers, allowing people to manage their own time more effectively under the guidance of automated software, while also giving managers the opportunity to check and monitor when necessary. [Read more…] about Using Time Management Software