Five reasons employers should have an HR consultant

Five reasons employers should have an HR consultant

outsource-image

Five reasons to outsource to an HR consultant

Every business owner thinks their business is unique – and to a point, it is – the people in the business make it unique more than the nature of the business itself.

How you manage and guide those people in building your future business is where HR processes come into play

Often HR is misunderstood as being a process for moving out employees who are not performing at the level you would like them to. It is true that performance management is one key aspect of HR Management. However, with superior HR practices in place, you will find that not as much ‘exiting’ is required – and more ‘moving up’ happens in your team. You retain not just the people, but a higher level of valuable experience builds within the team – becoming less reliant on the owner for day to day management.

In reality, in its purest sense, HR Management and HR Strategy are focused on driving business growth through the growth and development of your employees, so you can run your business strategically – without also having to manage every aspect of it.

HR reduces the requirement of performance management

Employee performance management is an ongoing process – establishing performance measurement goals and reviewing the performance on a regular basis. Employees excel in an environment where they are clear on what is expected of them, they have the tools and the training to be successful and that their success will be appreciated & rewarded.

While the process of goal setting and performance review can be done between employee and business owner or manager, this process is often best outsourced, as obstacles to success can be flagged and escalated directly to the required level. Employees are often more open to an external partner than they may be to a business owner.

HR retains employees longer

Employees who feel valued will stay longer and try harder. It is human nature to try to please – and this becomes much easier to achieve with positive HR in place – often the opportunity to grow as the business grows in its own right will retain an employee for longer. HR processes enable a vision to the possible shape of that future for employees.

HR gets people hitting higher performance levels

Training & development planning is very much part of your HR strategy – and integral to business growth not just for your existing business, but for your future business. External HR partners are concerned with the future of your business resource requirements as much as the present.

HR builds stronger, inter-reliant bonded teams

The process of creating skilled teams with clear processes and communication channels develops an inter-relationship and spirit of co-operation. A key part of team development is to enable a common understanding of each other’s roles, personalities and communication styles. Facilitation of this environment is an expert HR function that brings people together, united in a common cause – the development of your business.

HR ensures processes and procedures are compliant

Business owners also need to ensure that all procedures are compliant – changes to the ERA in 2019 mean that union representatives may enter premises to inspect aspects of HR process without the approval of the business owner. Having orderly and correct HR documentation is a minimum requirement for businesses with employees from a legal standpoint, but is also the very foundation to build positive processes for higher HR functions.

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

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

How to use a SOAP plan to deliver on goals without overwhelm

How to use a SOAP plan to deliver on goals without overwhelm

How-to-use-a-soap-plan-image

Writing a business plan can be overwhelming – not to mention time-consuming

The SOAP plan (Strategy on a Page) is not a shortcut, but more a method of focusing on the big picture and the key and core elements for success – rather than on the details. The purpose of this blog is to talk about how you can get your team committing to the heart of your business plan – without forcing hours and hours of extra work on them.

Business planning does not have to be complex. The more focused your planning is, the more likely you will be to realise your goals.
More than anything, your job as the business owner is to make sure the figurative goal posts are fully illuminated, that measurements or checkpoints for milestone achievements are in place, and that a clear and specific set of behavioral rules is understood. This will ensure company values are adhered to on the journey to success.
If the team achieve your goals in the timeframe you wanted them to – and their behaviour in doing so is in keeping with your business values and ethics, you don’t need to micro manage every detail on the how, and you are free to focus on the big picture.

So what do you need to include in your SOAP plan?

Most importantly – you need everyone on the team to be pulling in the same direction – the WHAT is really important – what are we trying to achieve, why do we exist – what is our over-riding PURPOSE or BIG PICTURE GOAL.

Next is the WHY – WHY are we doing this – what drives us to have this purpose.

Thirdly – your ‘FOR WHOM ARE WE DOING THIS‘ statement – identifying and profiling to a very high level of detail your target audience, what motivates them, what pain are they experiencing and how you may be of service to them – these are the key insights you need to build your strategy & communications plan.

In identifying all of these core factors, you will understand your own goals from a non-clinical perspective and will focus on underlying emotional drivers. Those are what will deliver actions.

You will find your value proposition and statement of purpose fall quite naturally from these top-level strategy points, that your target audience is firmly crystalised not only in terms of who they are but in how they behave and why they need you.

In doing strategic planning in this manner, you give your team extremely clear and meaningful insight and direction on the way in which you want them to move forward.

Interestingly, in providing this very top-most line of the strategic direction, your team will be drawn into a much deeper level of discussion and can collaborate much more fully without your overseeing, micromanaging or doing all the planning work for them.

Once again, here are the fundamental inclusions in your SOAP – Strategy on a Page

1. What is our PURPOSE – why do we exist. This is an internal facing statement
2. What VALUE do we uniquely provide
3. WHOM specifically do you serve/provide value to
4. How will we know when we are winning – Identify time-bound progress GOALS

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

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

The Value of Organisational Reflection in Business Planning

The Value of Organisational Reflection in Business Planning

the-value-of-organisational-reflection-in-business-planning-image

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.

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