As a business owner, it can be easy to focus on your sales, customers and products. These are undoubtedly important factors that must be taken into consideration, but that should never come at the expense of your employees.
Employees are the beating heart of a business and are essential in the delivery of goods and services to customers. To see true, long-term success, business owners must put the welfare of their employees front and centre and ensure they remain satisfied and motivated.
More often than not a small business won’t have an HR team in place and typically there isn’t a requirement for a full-time HR role, however, this is where an HR support team can help. Let’s take a look at five ways in which HR support can help your business.
Attract the Best Talent
As your business grows, you may look to further develop your product offering, launch new services, move to larger premises, or even expand into new territories. To meet any of these goals, you are more than likely going to have to hire and onboard new employees.
Top talent is in high demand, and if a candidate has more than one job offer, they are likely to opt for the offer with the opportunities to grow, greater salary and more attractive benefits.
This is where an HR support team can really add value to your business. The HR support team can work with the business to create career paths, benchmark your current salaries and benefits as well as implement any changes to ensure you remain competitive in the market, giving your business the best chance of attracting the best and brightest applicants.
Retention
Attracting the best talent is one thing, ensuring your best employees stay at your business is another. Employees can be tempted by other offers, while your most valued employees could even be headhunted by direct competitors.
High employee turnover can be a serious issue. It can disrupt operations and impact your bottom line. What’s more, high turnover can indicate deeper problems within your business, so it’s essential that you take steps to resolve any issues.
However, in order to resolve issues, you need to know what they are,this type of data can be found by reviewing exit interviews or if these haven’t been implemented the HR support team can hold some focus groups with employees to identify what works well in the business and what could be improved. This is a great opportunity to listen to employees and then provide updates on what action has been taken.
It’s well documented that employees who have a voice in the business feel valued and stay with their employer longer than those who do not have a voice. Where there are no exit interviews in place, HR support can implement these and conduct them which reduces bias compared to using someone in-house to conduct exit interviews.
Business Restructuring
Successful businesses are flexible and dynamic, able to adapt to change to meet shifting markets and consumer demands. Growing or downsizing can require the need for organisational restructuring, which can be a time-consuming and laborious process that is fraught with risks.
Restructuring requires a clear vision and defined objectives. One of the most effective ways to achieve this is by enlisting the help of an external HR support team. These experienced professionals will be able to look at your business objectively and identify the key roles that will be required in the future organisation as well as roles that may no longer be required.
Clearly where there is a requirement for redundancies, an external HR support team can guide you through what can be a very emotive and complex process to ensure you remain compliant and any redundancies are handled sensitively and fairly.
Workplace culture is regularly cited by employees as one of the most important factors that influence job satisfaction. When running a small company, it’s all too easy to get caught up in sales and customers and forget about the important role people play in your business.
A good starting point for building workplace culture is to establish core values and principles as well as to create a forum that enables employees to have a voice. As mentioned earlier, employee voice is super important if you want to build a collaborative culture where employees want to go over and above, but this isn’t something that will happen overnight. However, building a plan together with employees is a good way forward in working towards one common goal for the organisation.
Grievance Management
As an employer, you’ll know managing people is not always straightforward. Sometimes, disagreements and arguments can break out, and it’s imperative that these are handled with tact and care to ensure they do not escalate.
Often, having an HR support team available to manage grievances can really help settle things down in a calm and organised way and can avoid matters escalating.
Conclusion
If you want to continue to grow your business and attract and retain the best talent, using an external HR support team is a great option. They are typically highly experienced professionals who have worked at a senior level in business and therefore can lead on people initiatives leaving you to focus on your core business.
