13 Tips From an HR Expert

Spring is a magical time for human resource professionals. It is a respite from holiday scheduling that is now in the rearview mirror. The end of year crush of open enrollment, performance evaluations, bonuses, and compensation adjustments are finished up. We are also just ahead of the manpower issues that scheduling around summer vacations can create. Soon, the end-of-school recruitment season will be upon us, providing a larger pool of candidates to apply for job postings.

And because it is the only semblance of “down time” in a busy HR calendar, it is a good time to consider ways to work on HR processes and procedures. Here are some tips to consider, with a link at the end of the article to access all resources mentioned.

1| Build in some fun, and celebrate your employees and your company. Many people are feeling unsettled by national and international events. Elevate your company culture by providing some stress relief. Throw a party with entertainment, such as hiring an illusionist. Bring in food trucks occasionally and treat the team to lunch, or if that is too pricey, an ice cream truck for a mid-shift treat. Also, consider tricking out the break room with a pinball machine, arcade game, table tennis, or foosball. Fresh off the excitement of the most recent March Madness, consider running a bracket contest, which boosts employee engagement and provides a fun way for team members to interact. Have the company provide the prizes to the winners. Although nobody is going to match Warren Buffet’s $1 million prize for the NCAA bracket winner within the Berkshire Hathaway family of businesses, a $100 gift card or cash would build excitement and bring people together for the tournament. Other similar activities might be to have a fantasy league for football or baseball, with a similar prize-winning opportunity.

2 | Take a hard look at your culture and ask whether it is a place that Gen Z — the bulk of your workforce candidates for the next decade or more — would like to be. If it is not, start shifting your culture now so you aren’t fighting hard for employees later. For some insight on attracting Gen Z candidates, check out Toni McQuilken’s recent article linked in the QR code on page 22 and the on-demand webinar where Lynn Harker, director of Talent Acquisition for Imagine, and I talk about what Gen Z wants in a workplace.

3 | Review your company’s digital presence — both website and social media — and spend time comparing it to others that you see (and like). While HR people are not marketing people, we can recognize images and words that will attract prospective employees. Look at your website carefully. Do you have a “careers” page? Does it reflect the company’s culture? Is it easy to find and apply for open positions? Can someone looking at your homepage understand what the company does — the products and services it provides?

4 | Look at the company’s social media. These platforms are story-telling tools that can communicate a lot of information about your company and its culture in images and short videos. Evaluate what platforms the company is on and whether those tools are reaching the intended audience. If the company isn’t using social media, consider getting active on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Videos, more than any other media, will grab the attention of your future workforce. And Gen Z is on TikTok, which is purely video content.

5 | In light of the focus on immigration issues in the new administration, get ready for a government audit, just in case. To prepare, review all of the I-9 forms to make sure the correct information is on them — in the correct places on the form. Make sure the proper boxes have been checked, literally. The downloadable forms and instructions can be found by scanning the QR code on the next page. If your company is an E-Verify user, make sure you have all employees in the system. Webinars about how to properly fulfill I-9 and E-Verify requirements can also be found via the QR code.

6 | Before the pressure is on in the months preceding open enrollment, look at the benefits the company offers and consider changing them a bit. You may want to informally survey a few employees discreetly to see if they have suggestions about changing the benefits. Avoid taking an actual survey, because the “asks” may be beyond what the company can provide and morale may be affected if the suggestions provided are not offered as benefits in the next round of benefits.

7 | Train your supervisors and managers in the soft skills required of leadership positions. Communication is the key to creating a positive relationship between employees and the management. The old adage that “people don’t quit a job, they quit a manager” still holds true. Teach your managers to recognize when someone on their team is struggling. Help them learn to connect with the employees so when there are challenges, a foundation for healthy communication has already been established. Money spent helping managers communicate effectively and be empathetic is an investment that will provide returns in lower turnover and consequently higher productivity and reduced recruitment costs.

8 | Review your company’s communication strategy with employees. Assess how employees are getting information they can trust from leadership. Do you have a newsletter? An occasional town hall meeting? Or is information passed down through managers, which risks a distortion from “playing telephone.” Gen Z are skeptics. For this generation of workers, trust is earned rather than given. Gen Z has handled an enormous number of challenges in their relatively young lives. The need for management to build trust is a result, in part, of Gen Z having experienced stressors that have become a way of life. Things like performing active shooter drills throughout childhood and being the first generation of digital natives who have navigated online lives of scrutiny, judgement, and rampant deception. Clear and direct communication between the leadership team and the employees will be important to creating trust, positive morale, and retaining employees.

9 | Ramp up the rewards. Employees like recognition, so acknowledging great work, milestones, or “over-and-above” effort by employees demonstrates how important a good employee is to the company. Doing so publicly shows the whole team that management cares and may also motivate them to strive to achieve similar recognition. The rewards can be small or large, depending on the company’s budget and the type of recognition. For instance, volunteering to pitch in to help a teammate might be worthy of a gift card. Eclipsing a decade or more at the company might be worthy of a bonus and additional paid time off.

10 | Evaluate the company’s organizational chart. Ask a lot of questions when analyzing the org chart. Is it accurate? Does it make sense? Have titles been given equitably? Are salaries and wages compressed? If not, start adjusting the chart to the actualities of the business. Change titles when it makes sense, being conscious of the affect that a title change may mean to others in the company. Ensure managers are not overloaded with too many direct reports. And when you are all done with the revisions, make sure any changes to the organizational chart should be reflected in the job descriptions for the positions affected.

11 | Create career development plans for your employees. Poor career development is the No. 1 reason Gen Z will leave a job. Scan the QR code below for a guide on how to start a career development program.

12 | Using that newly revised organizational chart, begin succession planning. Creating a succession plan serves multiple purposes. First, it puts the company in a good position to respond to the sudden departure or loss of key personnel without total disruption of the business. Second, it is a vehicle for growth, because going through the process of succession planning often requires creating some type of strategic plan for the company’s future. Third, succession planning results in career development for at least some of the employees.

13 | Audit your company’s safety policies and procedures. If there are jobs people are avoiding, investigate why that is happening. Do people feel uncomfortable or unsafe performing those duties? Are employees fully trained in safety procedures that would provide the confidence to do these tasks? If not, arrange for training and then reinforce the training with additional attention from supervisors and managers.

This long list will more than fill the “spare” time for an HR professional, so pick a few items on this list and see if they can be achieved this year. Then make a plan for next year, and maybe the year past that. What results is a strategic plan for human resources development that will benefit your company for many years in the future.