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5 Ways HR Professionals Can Prepare a Company for Future Challenges

Change and challenges lie ahead for each company and the best way to meet them is to prepare properly.

HR professionals play a vital role in this process as they are the ones who can identify possible issues related to one of the biggest assets of the business – its employees, and find a way to remedy them.

Knowing the needs of the company and its employees, offering adequate training and correctly identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the business are some of the possible paths for a successful future.

If you are part of the HR team, here are five ways how you can help your company cope with future challenges.

Identify company and employees needs

The first and most important step is to identify what the company needs are.

This can include anything from hiring to firing people, new equipment, better marketing strategy as statistics show it matters, management training or a more representative office.

While HR deals with the human factor, it is natural that its specialist will focus on the employees.

To be able to assess employee needs and identify the areas for improvement many HR professionals choose to work with data-driven tools that have features for rapid reporting and performance tracking.

Workday HCM, ADP Workforce Now, and Sense HR are examples of such tools that have customizable dashboards for monitoring and tracking key performance indicators and quickly identifying areas that need attention.

Sense HR is a UK HR system that provides a range of performance metrics to track employee performance over time. These metrics can include employee engagement, productivity, turnover rate, and absenteeism.

On the other hand, ADP Workforce Now provides a single system for tracking employee performance, benefits, payroll, time and attendance, and other HR-related tasks.

As an HR professional, you should give proper advice on how the employees should be trained or which projects are the best for certain teams, etc.

At the same time, it is also important to identify the needs of the employees and back them whenever possible. This may be related to acquiring new skills and knowledge or getting better remuneration as a result of improved qualification.

Perform a gap analysis

A gap analysis is a very useful tool that helps the organization identify which resources it has at present and what it will need for the future.

It is essential to take a look at the following items:

  • Job description
  • Training programs
  • Health benefits
  • Sick days
  • Business performance

The gap analysis will help you identify which of your practices are outdated and need to be improved in order to meet the current needs of the company and the employees.

It is also a great tool to be used in order to predict what changes might be necessary to cover the demands for the following period of five years for example.

Train the employees

Training the employees is crucial for the overall success of the company.

It is important to identify, which skills that the employees use in their everyday tasks need to be developed.

If business writing is one of the topics that you need to focus on, for example, you can use some online resources such as Handmadewritings to help the employees master this skill.

If you need to present new health and safety instructions, you can use microlearning and let the employees learn the concepts divided into smaller chunks that are easier to grasp and remember.

As an HR professional, your job is to identify the need for training and provide it in the most appropriate way that will benefit both the employee and the company.

Keep comprehensive records

One of the best ways to be prepared for future challenges is to keep a comprehensive record of all your employees, their training, qualifications and even most importantly all work-related accidents if any.

This can prevent the employer form fines and even save you a lot of trouble in the event of any labor law related lawsuits.

Read also: Record Keeping for Small Business 101: Benefits and How to Do It Right

Find the right balance

One of the hardest tasks for HR professionals is to find the right balance between protecting the rights of the employees and the company policy and brand.

Some issues, for example, can arise from the use of social media.

If an employee expresses an opinion on a certain topic, this might be viewed as representing the corporate point of view, which can be detrimental in some cases. Therefore, it is significant to clarify in details the company policy about social media while onboarding.

Another important balance should be made between the employee goals and the company standards and objectives. In order to align them, it is a good idea to have the employees participate in setting the company goals and targets whenever this is possible.

Implementing the five steps above is just part of the work of the HR department.

As a whole, the role of the HR professionals in shaping the future of the company is quite significant. They have possibilities to prepare both the management and the employees to face forthcoming challenges equipped with the right tools.

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