HR Advice

The Value of Organisational Reflection in Business Planning

by Tanya Gray | Feb 23, 2017 | ConsultingHQ Blog, HR Advice, Outsourced HR

The Value of Organisational Reflection in Business Planning

Organisational reflection is the art of looking back at previous actions and outcomes while planning the next steps forward for your strategic business planning.

It’s great to see an increasing number of our clients business using processes and structures for building business plans, and marketing plans to support decision making with clear KPIs and business goals.

Few, however, reflect and analyse past experiences when building business strategy and understanding outcomes previously achieved. Decision-making processes during strategic planning involving reflection create opportunities that are value based, based on information that is real and is, therefore, integral to ensuring successful progression for the business.

Evaluating results from decisions made in the business by a full appraisal conducted with collaboration and involvement of the team will demonstrate in very real terms the quality of our past decisions – definitely a valuable factor in making future decisions. This is the value of business experience.

Organisational Reflection demonstrates an inclusive, learning commitment to excel, grow and continuously improve, with a value based philosophy. As an example: A business undergoing a growth strategy that drives more leads to the front line of contact may be unaware of the additional pressure this may place on front line staff. Compromised quality of service due to additional pressure may result in a less than optimum customer experience – thus undermining the growth objective.

A process of reflection by business leaders in considering feedback from all team members and touch points involved with the new strategy should identify this potential barrier to future success, and plan to put in additional resource or training to allow growth to continue. A lack of reflection disregards or diminishes previous learning or values, and results in a cost at some level. Customers may see this as a compromise of your business integrity, while team members may become frustrated and understandably disengaged.

Having a competitive advantage over your opposition is to fully engage in a process of continuous improvement. Organisational reflection is where continuous improvement starts and is a life-long learning experience. When conducting Organisational Reflection adopt a leadership approach that requests the input of others during the process to gain real value from people and their contribution. Experience and learning should never be neglected.

Clarity and vision can only be achieved when reflection is respected and given full recognition in the organisational planning, delivery, monitoring and review of performance. Creativity is then encouraged to drive continuous improvement.

Organisational Reflection should include the following:
• What were our goals and did we achieve them?
• What were the pain points?
• Where and when were we performing well in productivity, service, communication?
• Where and when were we performing poorly in productivity, service, communication?
• What are our key learnings from actions taken?
• How will we plan around road blocks we experienced to remove them for future?
• How will we build on the positives?

This balanced approach considering both positives, negatives and solutions in moving forward will make future plans stronger and more effective – even more so for having worked as a team rather than as a group of individuals – with all team members engaged and contributing actively to the future success of your business.

The Value of Organisational Reflection in Business Planning.

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

Human Resource strategy is a vital part of business planning

by Tanya Gray | Jan 4, 2017 | ConsultingHQ Blog, HR Advice

Do you have the right HR strategy in place to achieve your business goals?

Contents

The first key considerations to HR planning are:
Your strategic HR plan will communicate:

Most businesses write a business plan to drive business goals and expectations for the coming financial year and well beyond. Time and resources are invested to develop detailed financial plans, sales and marketing strategies, new product or business opportunities, and capital investment strategies. Not so common is, for businesses to invest in and consider, how best to align the organisational structure and individual team members to support business goals and strategy. This is Human Resource Planning.

HR Planning is fundamentally key to the success of your business plan. In fact, the Business Plan is all but useless without the Human Resource behind it. Investment in Strategic HR Planning identifies the organisational framework and how it will change and adapt to support and deliver business results.

The first key considerations to HR planning are:

• assessing the current team structure, capability, capacity, and staff engagement.
• identify strengths, weakness and skill gaps across the team and provide planning strategy to ensure the right person with the right skills, the right attitude will be ready to take up the right seat at the right time.
• predicting and adapting the organisation for future change.
• identify strategies for agility and flexibility across the organisation by formally considering cross skill opportunities and succession planning to minimise risks and gaps.

The strategic HR planning process starts with a review of the business plans and strategy, identifying the organisational structure to best support and achieve those future plans. It will highlight the gap between where your organisation wants to be in the future and where you are now. Identifying the number of staff and the skills and abilities required going forward compared against the current team.

• Do we have the right people doing the right things? Where are the gaps currently and moving forward?
• What are the additional roles needed to support planned growth and what is the timing?
• Identify productivity opportunities first, then consider if new roles are needed.
• What are the barriers and risk to hiring and or finding the right person to fill future planned roles?
• What are the risks to retaining key staff in the coming months and year? Contingency planning for key roles.

Strategic HR planning includes a review of an organisation’s HR management practices and identifies practices that could be improved and where new practices are needed.
• Organisational change management and communication plans.
• New hire processes.
• Accountability and KPI’s.
• Learning and Development opportunities.

Your strategic HR plan will communicate:

• how it ties into the business strategic plans and goals.
• sets out the current and future organisational structure.
• provides a review of each team member and how they contribute to the plan.
• accountability and contribution for each role in the organisation.
• opportunities for learning and development.
• succession planning and risk management.
• productivity opportunities.
• how staff will be supported through change.
• the timing and cost impact and payback of new hires.
• risks to transition the organisation for the future.

You can see how valuable the HR planning process is and how it travels naturally hand in hand with all other aspects of business planning, yet is overlooked by so many – realise the full potential of your team and the opportunity to achieve and exceed your business plans and goals!

Human Resource Strategy is a Vital Part of Business Planning

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

Four good reasons for establishing training and development plans – and how to do this!

by Tanya Gray | Sep 8, 2016 | ConsultingHQ Blog, HR Advice, Training & Development

Four good reasons for establishing Training and Development Plans – Spring has arrived – a great time of year to look at the strategic planning that lies ahead!

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Believing in people and committing to developing them increases job satisfaction, increases engagement and increases individual contribution.
Communicating clearly your expected outcome from training with employees prior to the training taking place WILL improve the future running of your business
Integrating employee Training and Development plans along with key performance indicators (kpi) oriented goals and measurements WILL have a positive impact on HR in terms of employee retention. It instils commitment and loyalty within the team – which in itself becomes increasingly dynamic.
Cross training of key or important skills delivers flexibility and efficiency within your business. Training & Development Plans allow for full cover of key skills in the event of sickness or absence.

Four good reasons for establishing Training and Development Plans – Recently we’ve been discussing performance management and how this relates to remuneration, and to an employee engagement and contribution to business. As your business grows, it becomes increasingly more about the people you employ, the business intelligence you have installed to guide them – and the training and leadership skills you have introduced to increase skill and knowledge.

Training and Development plans are possibly an even more important flow on from performance management than remuneration reviews. People love feedback – and training gives an employee a feeling of worth – and an increased level of engagement in your business.

Believing in people and committing to developing them increases job satisfaction, increases engagement and increases individual contribution.

Training, however, is not a panacea for all the benefits mentioned above. As the owner and manager of the business, it is up to you to establish an understanding of the expected outcome.

With this in mind, I have put together a form for employees to complete before, during and after a course of training. They also must report into their manager with the new initiatives they will undertake and hold accountability for future outcomes.

Communicating clearly your expected outcome from training with employees prior to the training taking place WILL improve the future running of your business

An underlying benefit of introducing Training and Development within your business is that people will start to see the future, and will proactively assist you in shaping it – you empower your team – enabling you to ‘direct more than you effect’, which in turn delivers a more profound growth within your business – it’s all good news!

Integrating employee Training and Development plans along with key performance indicators (kpi) oriented goals and measurements WILL have a positive impact on HR in terms of employee retention. It instils commitment and loyalty within the team – which in itself becomes increasingly dynamic.

Outside of employee education and improved retention, an often overlooked aspect of succession planning is also a significant benefit. No staff member should leave a gaping hole in the business when they are absent. Cross training to have overlapping key skills provides you with sufficient skill cover for holidays, sickness and resignation – without you needing to step back in.

Cross training of key or important skills delivers flexibility and efficiency within your business. Training & Development Plans allow for full cover of key skills in the event of sickness or absence.

So, is Training and Development planning worth the investment?

YES!!! Absolutely, but as the owner of the business, you must ensure that all are accountable for implementing positive progress toward KPIs as a direct result of the training plan.

So, in closing – consider this quote: “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is MOST ADAPTABLE TO CHANGE” Unknown Author.

If you are ready to take this very important step toward your future business, let us help you apply the method to the madness with our experience and guidance in HR Strategy.

For more information on the path forward to a more productive, positive, motivated team, ready to take your business to the level beyond the next, call me today or email tanya@consultinghq.co.nz should that suit you better!

Tanya Gray
Phone 092803977
Email: tanya@consultinghq.co.nz

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

What would you do if you lost your highest performer to a competitor?

by Tanya Gray | Sep 8, 2016 | ConsultingHQ Blog, Employee Retention, HR Advice

It must be every business’s worst nightmare to lose your top-performing staff member to a competitor.

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Why performance reviews are the key to retaining your team
So how do you decide whether to review pay rates?
Summary

Not only can your bottom line take a serious hit when a top-performer leaves, but there’s also the cost (and time) involved in recruiting a replacement. Depending on how senior the role is, this can easily come to 5 figures all up!

Why performance reviews are the key to retaining your team

Let’s face it; the #1 motivation of any employee is to get paid! So the amount they get paid – and how valued you make them feel – has a big impact on whether they’re likely to keep working for you, or look for greener pastures.

So how do you decide whether to review pay rates?

There are a number of factors that can help you decide if your team (or certain members of your team) need a pay review:

1. Financial performance and goals

By now, you should have your accounts from your accountant for the last financial year and be able to identify how each department and each individual contributed to your business.

Additionally, you should have set SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely) objectives in the Job Description for each person, so that every team members knows what your expectations are as an employer.

So you’ll be able to compare the actual performance against the desired performance, and see who excelled (and who didn’t). If you don’t have these metrics in your business, contact us and we can help set them up for you.

How we can help you with performance reviews and pay reviews

The HR team from Consult NZ come in (yes it’s still Tanya and Mike from Recruit NZ, except we are under a new brand).

We tailor annual performance review documentation to suit the key metrics within your business, and issue them to all your staff. They then rate themselves on a scale, and the ratings cover a variety of areas, including their presentation, their ability to follow systems, as well as their actual performance.

The department manager then reviews and completes them, and we help in running the sessions with you and providing individual feedback.

2. Attitude, achievements and overall approach

Many businesses only look at the financial performance of staff when considering pay reviews, but those aren’t the only factors that matter. Attendance, attitude, presentation, any major achievements and promotions also matter.

After all, you don’t just want a high-performing individual – they must also tick all your boxes and fit into the company culture. And the annual performance review is the ideal time to identify this.

3. Market factors

Other factors to consider when reviewing salaries include what’s happening in the marketplace generally:

Market rates
Affordability
Supply and demand, and skill shortages
The current total fixed remuneration for all employees
CPI index
Cost of living.

Summary

What would you do if you lost your highest performer to a competitor? Valuing your staff, and paying them their value, hugely influences people’s motivation. To conduct pay reviews fairly, you need to consider the contribution individuals have made to your business (financially and in terms of their attitude). Market factors will also influence what’s considered a fair level of pay.

Because pay reviews are closely linked to staff performance, annual performance reviews are the time to do this. And the time to do the annual performance reviews is now – halfway through the year, when you have last year’s accounts at hand.

And if you need help or guidance with any of this, we are here to help you!

Next step: a FREE 30-minute consultation

If you’d like to find out more about how we can help you retain and reward your existing team, contact us to request a FREE 30-minute GTM or skype. We’ll discuss your unique situation with the decision makers in your business and recommend a solution that would work for you.

Call 0800 HRHOTLINE (0800 474 685 463) or email info@consultinghq.co.nz – we’re looking forward to hearing from you!

What would you do if you lost your highest performer to a competitor?

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

Which online advertising will work best for my business?

by Tanya Gray | Jul 21, 2016 | ConsultingHQ Blog, HR Advice

Which online advertising will work best for my business?

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Making a selection for your online advertising is actually really simple – and affordable, as long as you make the right choices at the set up step.
Google Adwords – Search Ads:
Social Media Ads

Making a selection for your online advertising is actually really simple – and affordable, as long as you make the right choices at the set up step.

Which online advertising will work best for my business? – Broadly speaking, there are two avenues for online advertising– the first targeting people who are seeking specific products or services that they actually need – such as a dentist or plumber, and the things people seek out because they want them, or want to know more about them (but may not actually need as such) – such as a beautiful ring or european car.
A large percentage of consumer products are things that people ‘want’ – often things that we did not even realise were in existence until we come across them through a friend, colleague or a we saw a random ad.

But how random was that ad in fact….

Online targeting is so sophisticated in its targeting these days, that ads can be delivered – as an example – to people who are engaged to be married, or people who have recently had babies, people who own small businesses – or – if you really want to drill down, to people who have small businesses who have recently become engaged or had a baby. This could be a very valuable target audience for someone running a virtual assistant business for example.

So, here are the two avenues as I see them, and how you can utilise them with very small budgets by being very specific with your offer and target.

Google Adwords – Search Ads:

These are the ads that come up when you search for something online – usually the first four listings that you see under your search. These listed Google Search Ads are essentially a very dynamic online auctioning system. The advertiser prepares ads and selects words and terms that their target audience might search for and places bids against each of the words or phrases. Google matches searches made using these words (keywords) and phrases (long tail keywords) and serves up ads that match them.

Word-smithing of your ad and landing page is key – the highest bidder with the most relevantly worded ad linking to the most relevantly worded web site gets top listing. Selecting your key words is also obviously key – you need words and terms that are frequently searched, but for whom not many advertisers are bidding. This keeps your cost per click low.

If the searching consumer clicks on your ad, you pay. If not, you don’t. Thus you only pay for the clicks to your website. From there it’s up to your web page to entice the customer further into your world.

There are other Google products where you can target on lifestyle via image ads or video ads, but most people use Google Search ads.

Social Media Ads

Advertising via social media is also an online bidding system, but is a very different game to Google.

On social channels, instead of selecting words and phrases that people might search for your product with, you are seeking and profiling the customer with your targeting options. It’s vital that you have distilled who your target is.

Social mediums allow you to target people who are interested in specific retail channels – for example if you are a local bookstore, you can target people who are interested in Whitcoulls, or people who are interested in books – and you can do so within any age, gender or geographic zone. Thus it is possible to target females 29 – 39 who are interested in Nadia Lim, Chelsea Winter, cooking, books or Whitcoulls AND who have children at school and who live within 10km of your business, and then put a book about ‘dinners kids will love’ special deal in front of them as an ad.

My personal favourite approach for consumer products is to stimulate interest via social channels – as a combination of posts, promoted posts, blog links and click to web ads following a campaign theme in a multi-faceted campaign via Social Media – backed up up by a low budget Google campaign using the specific search terms that you have headlined on your social platforms – thus delivering to the consumer via two mediums.

Social and Search ads are really not expensive, but if you are not confident with them can be time consuming. Call us if you are considering online advertising for your business – we can save you money and time!

Contact us to find out how we can help your business.

What is a proper reference check?

by Tanya Gray | Jun 23, 2016 | ConsultingHQ Blog, HR Advice, Legal Compliance

What is a proper reference check?

Contents

Here are some tips on reference checking:

It’s amazing the number of times we are contacted by a prospective client to exit a new employee (not found by us) only to find that the references were not checked or were checked but it was “just a quick check”. After working in recruitment and HR for years that just makes me cringe!

We like to put all prospective candidates “through the ringer” because you can be sure that once they have been through this process they will either come out squeaky clean or any skeletons in their closet will be exposed!

What is a Proper Reference Check? Reference checks are the most important check to do in the final stages of the recruitment process.

I have been contacted as a referee numerous times in the past and I am always surprised when I get “do you have a couple of minutes to do a quick reference check?”. There it is again … “quick reference check”. If I have managed someone for close to 5 years surely they would want to spend more than a couple of minutes finding out a bit more about this person? Especially considering they are about to hire them!

Will they come out squeaky clean or will the skeletons in their closet be exposed?

The other amusing way I have been contacted to undertake a check is by email “Could you please fire me though a couple of sentences outlining what they were like” … Really? Don’t you want to know more about them – like if I would re-employ them, how they coped under pressure, what they were like as a team player, how they dealt with conflict and the list goes on!

I would NEVER employ someone after a 2 minute “chat”, in fact, I really don’t enjoy employing staff in my own business! If there is one tiny thing I cannot put my finger on or have a funny ‘gut feel’ about the prospective employee I will pull the plug! Truly! I have seen good people go to someone else but I know that there was something that made me walk away.

If you want to remind yourself of the cost of a bad hire check out our calculator on our website INSERT LINK HERE.

Here are some tips on reference checking:

Speak to at LEAST two previous managers not co-workers. How would co-workers know what their actual and budget were? They wouldn’t have dealt with any of those courageous conversations you may need to have with staff at times.
We spend at least 20-30 minutes on every reference check. We have a two-page form which we go through and ask any additional questions that are relevant to a particular role.
ALWAYS ask if they would re-employ them.
Ask if they had a lot of time off work.
Double check dates on the CV and application form to what the referee says and also what the key achievements were when they were employed.
Final tip… Don’t ever put words in their mouths.

Hopefully the next time you undertake your reference check you would have spent a couple of hours putting a template together which you can use for every employee!

Don’t forget, this is really your last chance to get to the bottom of anything that has been missed to this point. Candidates can be very good at pulling the wool over your eyes and if this is not what you do all day everyday then perhaps delegate it out to the experts!

What is a Proper Reference Check?