Breaking through: 5 things HR management must do in 2019
5 THINGS HR MANAGEMENT MUST DO IN 2019
No one should wait a year to know how their performance is perceived; they need up-to-date, instant information
There are many pillars of capital in a business, but the primary four in any successful business are Finance, Intellectual Property, Physical Assets and Human Capital. These can be equated to a table with four legs and similarly, if you remove any of them, the table will fall down. Businesses typically tend to focus on the first three, although Human Capital - the people who operate the business - is arguably the most important. Without it, there can be no company. Mark Dickinson of DONE! Hospitality Training Solutions tells us more
Ownership of the company means being responsible for managing all four capitals simultaneously through its organizational structure, and the human resource management (HRM) team is responsible for precisely one-quarter of the business capital. Here are our top five thoughts for 2019 HR management teams to consider:
1. EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION PROCESS
HRM must drive an effective communication frame of reference within its organization. It needs to ensure that there is a proper system of communication, meetings and a process for ensuring implementation of decisions taken at meetings, at all levels of the business. Mission, vision and values must exist and be living, credible documents within the company. It is HRM’S responsibility to ensure that these documents are an integral part of the operating practices of the business. Once these are in place, an authority matrix must be developed to ensure clarity in all decisionmaking issues, and from there onwards, a structure of communication meetings needs to be implemented. The key communication meeting is an executive meeting, which ideally takes place once per week at a fixed and inflexible time. The executive meeting is the mechanism through which the mission, vision and values are constantly shared with the leadership team.
2. HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
Every business must have a growth plan for every employee. At the Excom level, HRM is responsible for developing a quarterly program for executives to grow and learn. This type of growth should be driven by bringing in external experts who can provide learning experiences for the senior team. External learning opportunities for executives have never been more readily available and the choice of programs for executives is wide. Certifying executives with EMBAS and similar high-level programs is a prerequisite for having a professional, expert team guiding the organization. Department heads are often overlooked in terms of their personal growth. HRM must ensure that department heads are learning new skills at least twice a year. By engaging department heads in learning and growth programs, the organization thrives and the managers’ intellectual capacity is constantly improving, ensuring better maturity of decision-making and a culture of ongoing growth.
3. RELEVANT PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT PROCESS
For the past century, companies have evolved using a template of annual performance reviews. This is now outdated. No one should wait a year to know how their performance is perceived; they need up-to-date, instant information about their contribution to the organization. Most HRMS throw up their hands in horror at this suggestion because they come from the general school of thought that we must measure everyone once a year. The primary purpose of annual reviews was created to drive payroll decisions about increases. Constant ongoing reviews are, in reality, already an existing part of management; if your performance is flagging, someone will say something right away. So what should we do? Make sure that we have an effective system for encouraging employees to do good work as and when they do it.
4. OUTSTANDING REWARDS PROGRAM
There are employees who provide outstanding results. When they do, they should know it and be rewarded for it. This needs effort to be taken in providing a great rewards program for employees. Employee of the month is a dead concept as it is very subjective, and often excellent employees will win it repetitively and poor performers will be discouraged. Create a rewards program that is related to employee tasks. Remember, there are multiple employees who are performing their work in non-visible roles; such personnel are often overlooked for their wonderful daily performance by virtue of the fact they are unseen. Creating great team reward programs that include all team members is a way of encouraging everyone to contribute at the highest level.
5. EFFICIENT POLICYMAKING PROCESS
Missing processes cause the most pain in organizations. The one policy that must be first and foremost in HRM work is ensuring that there is a process for creating policies. This process must be able to accommodate the changes and growth of the company by facilitating the ability for all senior team members to instigate new policies. It sounds simple but rarely exists. Email notifications and Whatsapp messages/groups are not efficient ways of creating sustainable policy. Whenever a new policy is required, HRM must encourage the rapid creation of the policy.