The human resources department covers a multitude of functions in an organization. Focusing on hiring and recruitment alone, they need to come up and develop recruitment and hiring strategies to fill headcount and manpower gap in a growing company. This, without losing sight of the quality, time to hire, and cost per hire among many others.
Considering that the department plays a big role in the front to back-end processes of every single employee life cycle, it only makes sense that the department should seek ways to innovate in order to keep up with the ever-evolving business landscape or risk losing business to its competitors.
Any organization must acknowledge that growth is directly related to understanding and keeping abreast with the evolution of the industry. Otherwise, the company will be run over by its competitors until it dies a slow and painful death.
So how can a company’s human resource department step up its game and join the rest of the world in this century?
Ways on How to Modernize your Human Resource Department
If you think that your human resource department needs a significant modernization overhaul, here are some of the things that can consider:
Automation
If people are still manually updating, sorting, and typing employee data and the likes, it is not just your team that is losing valuable time, the entire organization sits on the brink of obsoletion. Automate administrative tasks like leave applications, payroll systems, or updates on employee information so that that your team can invest more time on other important matters.
On-Boarding Process
The process of on-boarding new hires can be tedious and repetitive. Free some hands and time by enhancing the process with self-paced online orientation, requirement reminders, and the use of online modules for basic new-hire trainings.
An advantage of using such systems is that data mining, reporting, and analytics are made easier too. And as a by-product, employee retention, sourcing, and marketing benefit from the smoother process flow. Remember that happy new hires can mean higher retention rate and more candidate referrals.
Revamp the Organizational Chart
An outdated organizational structure does not stand a chance in this modern time. The market continuously evolves and so should the organization to meet the demands or keep up with the new realities. Hire new specialists to take care of data and analyze employee trends. This can help the HR team leverage and more importantly, identify how HR can align employee needs with company policies and engagement efforts.
Flexible Work Arrangements
One of the best ways that HR can keep up with the current business landscape is to make flexible working arrangements available. With the rising demand and need for flexible jobs, HR teams should be quick in adapting and addressing these changes. We cannot insist on exclusively offering traditional work settings when the reality is not the same as it was 20 years ago.
Find Ways to Speed Up Hiring Process
Gone are the days where candidates are willing to wait for interview and application results for weeks and even months. These days, you risk losing great leads if your team takes ages to respond and process applications. Most executive resume samples are uploaded on websites and even on social media platform. Make use of online resources. If your company is still relying on mailed-in applications alone, your organization is a decade late in the recruitment game.
Take advantage of professional networking sites like LinkedIn to search for candidates and to network. LinkedIn Best Practices stated that you need “powerful collaborative network where people are trading value” and that’s LinkedIn. Some of the best candidates can be found on LinkedIn so makes sure you have eyes on there. As they say, early bird catches the worm.
Invest in Employee Engagement
More than company dinners and compensation, study shows employees feel more empowered and are able to perform their best work when they feel that their voices are being heard by the management. They are also more likely to say that they are proud to be employed by the said company.
What does this mean for HR? It means that company processes must evidently show healthy diversity, more opportunities for meaningful employee-management touch base, and by fostering a culture that favors equality and inclusivity.
Modernization in recruitment, employee engagement, and talent management is a necessary move to see positive business impact. When you start improving your HR processes, you will then see that the department has a big role in the company’s performance.
