When you start your business there will be the department that will focus on hiring staff. Many businesses have their own way of dealing with or setting up their human resources programs. Others might be a little clueless on where to begin because they don’t know where to start. An HR department is crucial to any business no matter how small or big your company will become. The staff and upper management who does some of the initial hiring will come to depend on it. It’s best to get it right the first time so you don’t find yourself going back changing your HR program during the development of your business. This is not only confuses staff, but really throws everyone off. Here are some ways not to run your HR program.
Closed Door
Never start out your business and have an HR department that is shut off from it’s employees. This is not only selfish but ridiculous. It doesn’t allow anyone to openly express their concerns about what is going on in the work environment or the business. Staff will begin to fear the HR department instead of seeing it as a way to get help for an issue. The business that closes its HR department off from the rest of the staff is also putting themselves in a situation where they can get sued. Who knows what’s going on during the working hours if people can’t come and tell you? It can be a preventative measure when an HR department is open to its staff. Many of the top HR conferences in the country have touched on this issue. Send your employees to them so they can get the proper training for your HR department. This allows them to manage the HR department properly.
Specific issues
Don’t create an HR department that only handles specific issues. In other words, no business should only allow certain concerns to be addressed. This is probably the most dangerous thing an HR department can do. For one, you are telling your employees don’t head to the HR department and unload. It’s like saying we don’t really care about the broken equipment or who go hurt all we want to know is did you do the work. Any HR department that makes themselves available for only specific issues and ignores the others is literally going to turn staff away. Soon that kind of business will find a huge turnover where staff will begin to unexpectedly quit or start disappearing with no phone call as to why.
Exit interviews
Failing to find out why people are bolting for the door is a big sign you could care less about your employees. It says the top management is simply looking for bodies to fill positions. It offers no stability to the staff and lets them know you are not paying attention to them at all, but looking at the bottom line. Exit interviews are powerful in that they tell the owner or HR department why they are failing in the market. You might come across some people that sound disgruntled, but you also might learn something on their way out. These people have a lot to say and an HR department that happily lets them pack a box and leave is truly missing out. Setting up an HR department should have exit interviews as a must. Never skip on finding out what your employees think about your business. They are the ones doing the work day in and day out and have the insight to steer you in a different direction.
HR programs are vital to any company. With a closed door policy you block off staff that want to share what is really going on. You just might be able to stop a lawsuit if your door was more open. Never allow just one issue to be expressed to the HR department. Finally, make sure exit interviews are apart of the HR program policy.