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| HR, Administration & Staff Management |
| Tuesday, 14 February 2012 11:34 |
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Good human resource management is a difficult skill to master and as with most aspects of business there are some people naturally suited for HR and some who have to work hard at it. For example, ask yourself how easy you would find it to fire an employee? Every manager must be able to do this, even if you want to be the friendly approachable type that anyone can talk to, if they aren't performing you may find have to put that attitude aside. In considering the way you run HR you have to consider all of your current and potential employees as individuals. It is important to put yourself in their shoes and compare your expectations of them with their expectations of you as an employer. What kind of boss do you want to be and how will that affect the way your employees work for you.
 Hiring The process begins at hiring, it doesn't matter if you have been a sole trader used to working on your own or a small partnership or limited company looking for your first employees. The considerations are going to be the same, what exactly are you looking for? In this you need to think about everything from the job role they need to fill, and therefore the skills they need to possess, to the individual personality. It's no use hiring someone who on paper has all the skills you require, only to find out the clash of personalities is so violent you simply can't work together. This is where the interview process helps; you can get a decent idea of what a person is going to be like from the way they carry themselves and the answers they give. Make sure you structure questions to get the answers you are looking for and remember there are certain questions you simply cannot ask! You should already know if someone is qualified from their CV, the interview is both about finding out where they have embellished and more about what makes them tick. Always remember the interview process isn't perfect but is an essential tool at this stage of staff management.  Once you've advertised, interviewed and hired you then have several major factors to worry about: Time management and allocation of tasks – Do your employees have a single task they perform throughout the working day, do they have a schedule or are they mostly autonomous with set tasks completed in the order they prioritise by a set time. How do you then ensure that they are performing? Clear and defined job roles are important and monitoring those job roles is also important. You need to clearly define your employee's job role and have a system in place for evaluation of their output. Facilities – There are certain facilities you are required to provide by law, for example toilet facilities. There are also facilities that may not be specifically legal requirements but required by workers unions. A break room though not always mandatory (check this for your industry) can be a good investment for staff morale. Wages – You need to set up wages/salary for your workers and a system of monitoring that they are receiving pay. You also need to keep records of this you will use for taxation purposes. NICs/PAYE – Once you employ an individual you become responsible for calculating and paying both their National Insurance Contributions (NICs) and Pay As You Earn (PAYE). Orientation/Training – Upon employment you will be required to train your employees in whatever skills they are lacking that are necessary for their role. You will need to orient them with their working environment and health and safety requirements of the workspace. You will also be responsible for providing them materials on and training them in outside requirement such as data protection policy. It is then your duty to ensure their skills are kept up to date and they have access to training to further develop themselves within your company. Pensions – There is currently reform on employment pension laws set to take effect in 2012; this will require all businesses to make minimum contributions for all employees over 22 to state pension age (65 for men and 60 for women) if they are earning over £7,475. Ages 16-22 and state pension age to 75 will also be eligible to opt in, as well as those earning less that the threshold. Keep an eye on these reform as it could have major repercussions for your business. With all these considerations its no wonder so many people choose to outsource a lot of their HR and staff management requirements!  Assessments Alongside all of this it is your duty to provide ongoing assessment and feedback for your staff for the sake of their personal development. This enables you to understand them better, how they've settled into the role and where they feel they'd like to move within (or not as the case maybe) the company. This is of key importance because it enables you to understand areas where you could do better for your staff, this will help you retain those self-motivated, skilled workers that are the backbone of a strong business.  Firing? Then at the other end of the scale you need to think about firing: not always the most pleasant of experiences but a necessary evil in keeping your business running effectively. If a member of staff is consistently not performing, causing trouble with clash of personalities or involved in an incident that requires disciplinary action you may have to terminate their contract. It is important to remember you must have both a legitimate reason for termination and keep up to date with the legislation regarding the process. This will include details of what is a terminable offence, what notice period you need to give (though you will most likely have written this in their contract), as well as what you're legally required to pay out.  Redundancy If you need less employees but have no-one with a legitimate reason for dismissal you will need to think about redundancy. This could be because you can't afford to keep all your employees due to lack of business coming in or, like has happened to many recently, the need to tighten belts because of the economy. Redundancy can be particularly horrible because of the need to let people you might want to retain go and the financial implications of paying their redundancy.  Equality You might think this is the entire scope of HR and staff management but there's also the huge topic of fairness and equality. This covers various acts:
Now all under the umbrella of the Equality Act 2010, it is important for you as an employer to understand how each of these acts affect you and your employees. It is also something that you should cover in the scope of the training you give your employees. Being such a huge area you will either need to employ a team specifically to run your HR as your company grows or outsource as much of it as possible (which tends to be cheaper). Â
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From hiring to firing Human Resources covers a broad spectrum of details and processes that are intrinsic to the daily running of a successful business.
Equal Pay Act 1970
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