So hopefully we’ve convinced you that proactive HR is good for any business, however small here’s why. But what areas of the business can it help with particularly? Those might depend on the nature of your business and how you like to work, but here are five ideas to get you started.
Policies
Yes, it’s boring, but good quality policies that fit your business needs can be hugely helpful. The time to discover your grievance policy is out of date, not fit for purpose, incomprehensible, overly-bureaucratic or non-existent isn’t when someone wants to raise a grievance. Get the policies you need (and no more) in place in advance and they can help you manage staff and deal with problems quickly and effectively. A good proactive HR provider will draft policies that suit how your business operates.
Performance
Staff performance is relevant to every business, and proactive HR can identify performance problems sooner, give you the tools to address them quickly, make sure high performance is rewarded and acknowledged and identify training or other initiatives to enhance individual or team performance.
Attendance
Good attendance is of course relevant to every business, but actually is often more crucial in small businesses, where there may not be a big team to cover the work of absentees, and might be less “give” in workloads. Proactive HR can help you identify patterns of sickness absence early and address them quickly, reducing absence rates. Proactive HR can also help you identify creative or flexible working patterns that work for your business and your staff, which can reduce absence rates also.
Conduct and conflict
Proactive HR support can help you avoid grievances and address conduct problems before they culminate in disciplinary action. Education about acceptable workplace behaviour, equality issues or similar can enhance workplace relations and reduce grievances, and mediation or team building can improve relationships within teams, leading to reduced conflict and improved performance.
Recruitment
Effective recruitment practices can dramatically increase your chances of getting it right first time. Anyone who has worked in a small business where a poor initial recruitment decision resulted in lengthy and significant employee problems will know how important this is, and will understand the impact good recruitment can have. Proactive HR providers will help draft job descriptions, advertisements, interview questions, induction programmes and can provide high quality training to managers all of which will maximise your chances of successful recruitment resulting in high performers in your business.
If you want more ideas about how proactive HR can help your business, do get in touch.