Successful ownership and management of a business relies heavily on efficient human resources (HR) management. Prioritizing fairness, clear communication, compliance, and effective employee relations is crucial for ensuring business success. By following these fundamental principles, organizations can foster a positive and productive workplace culture where employees feel appreciated, respected, and motivated to excel.
In this article, we aim to delve into the fundamental principles of human resources management and furnish useful suggestions on how to apply them in your organization. Whether you have extensive management experience or are a fledgling business proprietor, the information presented here can offer valuable perspectives to elevate your business performance.
Fair and Consistent Treatment of Employees
Treating employees fairly and consistently has many benefits for the workplace. It builds trust, boosts morale, increases loyalty, and enhances productivity. On the other hand, showing favoritism creates animosity and resentment toward both the favored individuals and the employer.
When a company is committed to fair treatment at work, it helps to establish a positive reputation and attract top talent. To achieve fairness in the workplace, it’s important to set clear expectations for fairness, have well-written policies, demonstrate a commitment to equitable practices, and enforce rules consistently and without bias.
Communicate Expectations of Fairness
To positively impact office culture, it is important to emphasize the significance of fairness in the workplace. When employees feel respected, valued, important, and heard, they are more motivated to perform their best, regardless of their position in the organization. According to the Kenan-Flagler Business School at UNC, fair treatment begins with senior leadership incentivizing managers to treat employees they hire, train, and supervise with fairness and justice.
By communicating expectations of fairness in job descriptions and basing promotions on fair managerial practices, structural changes can be achieved. This encourages managers to make personnel decisions based on objective criteria that give every employee an equal opportunity if they work hard. Additionally, managers should receive training to help them understand how to conduct performance-based evaluations fairly and provide constructive feedback.
Implement Fair Policies
Policies that prioritize equity ensure that employees are treated fairly and consistently. These policies establish objective criteria for managers to use during hiring and promotion processes to counteract implicit bias and favoritism. Additional examples of equity in the workplace include just policies and procedures related to employee compensation and benefits, such as providing flexible scheduling for parents of young children or others who require it.
Employers who are dedicated to equal opportunity adopt human resources policies that provide a variety of accommodations for workers with medical or mental health conditions, physical disabilities, or language barriers. These policies are distributed broadly in prominent locations within the workplace, available in different formats, and easily accessible on the company’s website. Supervisors are kept up-to-date on any policy changes and are held responsible for consistently enforcing these policies.
Enforce Rules Consistently
Inconsistent implementation of company policies and regulations often leads to favoritism, which can have a negative impact on employee morale. When staff members observe that certain individuals receive preferential treatment regarding time off requests or undeserved promotions, their enthusiasm decreases. Furthermore, employees become increasingly resentful when colleagues who socialize with management outside of work are permitted to disregard rules, such as arriving late or leaving early.
To ensure fair and equitable treatment of workers, it is necessary to administer codes of conduct impartially. According to the Society for Human Resource Management, when disciplinary action is perceived to be administered fairly, employees are more likely to accept the consequences and endeavor to improve their behavior.
Effective Communication of Performance Metrics and Expectations
To foster an environment where employees can develop their skills, managers and business owners must clearly communicate the objectives, expectations, and performance metrics for each role within the organization. Additionally, offering constructive positive and negative feedback is crucial. This can take various forms, including formal evaluations, informal discussions, and acknowledging exceptional performance. Providing consistent feedback allows employees to understand their strengths and areas for improvement, and also demonstrates to employees that their employer is equitable and reasonable.
Furthermore, employees can expect to receive recognition and rewards as a result of their performance. This approach can boost motivation and engagement while also aiding in retaining top talent.
Building and Sustaining Good Relationships with Employees
Establishing and maintaining effective employee relations is a delicate balancing act for managers and business owners in the Philippines. Simply greeting employees with a friendly “kamusta” and taking the time to listen can go a long way. However, it’s important to avoid crossing professional boundaries while still fostering open and constructive relationships.
It’s important for managers to keep work things private so personal feelings don’t cause problems at work. Managers should also be friendly, accept criticism, and be relatable while still being professional. This helps employees trust their managers and understand how important it is to be professional at work.
Learning from HR professionals can also be valuable for business owners and managers. Adhering to HR key principles can help ensure effective employee management and create a positive and productive work environment for everyone.
Best Practices for HR Management
Every organization relies heavily on its HR department, making it one of the most crucial teams. As an HR professional, you hold the responsibility of creating a highly skilled workforce and ensuring employee satisfaction. The efforts you put in play a significant role in the growth of your business.
To maximize the impact of your HR team, consider adopting these five best practices in human resource management:
1. Ensure that your psychometric evaluations are measuring the essential factors.
The HR department plays a crucial role in ensuring that the right person is hired for the right position, and psychometric assessments are a useful tool in achieving this goal.
While many companies already use these assessments, some do not. For those that do, it is essential to evaluate whether the assessments measure the necessary qualities in a candidate. It is crucial to remember that intelligence alone is not sufficient when it comes to hiring the best candidate.
A recruitment specialist from a top food production company shared a story about their experience with assessing only the cognitive abilities of candidates and limiting the recruitment pool to graduates from the top 4 universities in the Philippines. While they believed that this approach would ensure they hired the most talented individuals, they later realized that it was not effective. Their approach resulted in entitled and unteachable employees who were difficult to correct, causing dissatisfaction among management.
It is, therefore, important to evaluate your psychometric assessment and ensure that it measures the following characteristics:
- Emotional intelligence
- Behavior and personality
- Leadership potential
- Industry-specific skills (e.g., web development, engineering, accounting and finance, etc.)
Evaluate everything necessary to validate whether the candidate is capable of performing the job they are applying for.
If you are not currently using assessments in your recruitment process, it is time to reconsider your strategy. Starting to use assessments now can save your organization a significant amount of money in the long run.
2. Always give opportunities for employees to learn and grow.
Hiring great employees is only the first step; keeping them is equally important. The best workers are those who are dedicated to improving their skills constantly. To support this growth, employers should offer various opportunities for learning and professional development. Unfortunately, this essential function is often overlooked.
Human resources teams need to be intentional about ensuring that their employees are continually learning and growing to excel in their roles. Employers can provide a training budget, offer internal training, or allow employees to take online courses while at work. There are many ways to achieve this.
Managers can also be encouraged to coach and mentor their team members, which benefits both employees and the organization. Personal mentoring available to employees is valuable and can make it challenging for them to leave an employer.
3. Encourage a work environment that prioritizes results and promotes a healthy work-life balance.
The daily commute in Metro Manila is more hectic than ever, and when combined with long work hours (over 8 hours per day) and working on Saturdays, it can significantly impact employees’ performance and output. Long work hours often result in unhappy and demotivated workers.
Rather than requiring employees to work excessively long hours, focus on their productivity and output. Organizations should allow employees to have a life outside of work because nobody wants to work for an employer that drains the life out of them for more than two years. Promoting work-life balance is crucial.
Here are some ideas to support work-life balance:
- Offer flexible working hours.
- Allow remote work at least once a week.
- Implement health and wellness programs.
- Organize company outings.
- Plan team-building activities for each department.
4. Automate administrative tasks.
To free up time for your HR team to focus on strategic HR activities, it’s essential to automate tedious and time-consuming tasks such as manual payroll processing. If a task can be automated, it should be.
By automating these routine administrative tasks, your HR team can devote more time and energy to contributing to the business’s success. Manually processing payroll or tracking leave, time in and out, payslips, and salary disbursement takes up valuable time that could be better spent elsewhere.
To keep things organized, we recommend implementing an HRIS (Human Resource Information System) rather than relying on messy spreadsheets, which can be counterproductive.
5. Develop and promote your employer brand.
To attract top talent to your organization, it’s essential to build and communicate your brand as an employer. These talents won’t consider joining your organization if they don’t know about your reputation. But how can your organization stand out among the top companies in the Philippines?
In today’s world, talent acquisition is a mix of marketing and recruitment. With a technological, behavioral, and demographic shift, employer branding has become necessary. Candidates are in control of where they want to apply, and which company they want to work for. To attract the most talented candidates, you must market your organization effectively.
We recommend implementing an employer branding strategy, starting with identifying your unique value propositions as an employer and communicating them to your target talents. You can do this by sharing stories about life inside your company, allowing them to get to know your organization.
Conclusion
Absolutely, efficient human resources management is a critical component of successful business ownership and management. By prioritizing fairness, clear communication, compliance, and effective employee relations, organizations can create a workplace culture that fosters positive and productive outcomes. Fair treatment of employees builds trust, loyalty, and morale, which in turn enhances productivity. Effective communication of expectations, policies, and performance metrics, coupled with consistent enforcement of rules, helps ensure a fair workplace. Building and sustaining good relationships with employees through effective employee relations strategies is also crucial. By adhering to HR key principles, business owners and managers can ensure effective employee management and create a work environment that is conducive to success.