Your HR Is Broken: Three Strategies to End the Piece Meal Approach

The ability to hire, manage, and retain great employees is a requirement of any successful organization. Although every organization faces the challenge of finding and keeping great employees, small businesses and nonprofit organizations face a unique set of issues.

Although the scale is smaller, the same personnel concerns that arise in large companies exist and the pressure to be compliant with applicable federal and state laws is the same. However, smaller organizations often operate without the infrastructure and financial resources required to establish formal Human Resources departments.

The result is often a “sink or swim” approach that requires staff to learn and perform human resources duties “on the fly” in addition to other responsibilities they may have. This dynamic can result in costly mistakes that could have been avoided with better information and timelier resources.

Ultimately it puts smaller organizations at greater risk for noncompliance, and it accelerates the negative bottom-line impact that comes from the failure to take care of the people-side of the organization.

If your HR is broken or just limping along, here are three strategies to get past the piece meal approach:

1. Conduct a comprehensive HR system review. Using a quality assessment tool, engage your staff and managers who fulfill HR responsibilities in an objective evaluation of what is working well and what needs improvement. By clarifying exposure areas of potential risk and refining recommendations for improvement, the system review is a first step toward a balanced and efficient HR management function within your organization.
2. Develop quality resources and use them consistently. One of the most common mistakes that small businesses and nonprofit organizations make is that they use inferior resources, templates, and forms and they use them inconsistently (to make matters worse). Whether it is a job description and interview questionnaire, or whether it is the employee handbook, or the annual performance appraisal, it is critical to have professionally designed resources that are used consistently and fairly throughout the organization.
3. Seek insight and consultation before it is too late. Because of the high cost of legal advice, many small businesses and nonprofits wait until small issues get big and boil over until they seek advice and support from an expert. So many of the costly, yet avoidable, personnel issues that organizations face could have been avoided with better information and resources early on. To get away from the piece meal, reactive approach to HR, get proactive and learn to utilize outside expertise when it can add the greatest value and the most affordable level.

If your organization has been taking the piece meal approach, your HR may be broken. At best, you are failing to get the most out the performance of your employees and supervisors. At worse, you may be at risk for breeches in compliance. Sostrin Consulting provides affordable HR Consulting packages for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.

By providing this retained, expert consultation on an on-demand basis, we can solve a wide range of your organization’s HR issues while building the capacity for your administrative staff to effectively address their day-to-day HR responsibilities. Rather than reacting to problems after they have already surfaced and done damage, you can rely on Sostrin Consulting’s expert HR Consultation and support to proactively manage your workforce challenges.

Download the free HR Consulting Information Guide to find out how we can power your people to perform.