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What to include in a Holistic Employee Wellness Program?

A Mckinsey & Company report showed that 62% of employees globally consider mental health issues to be a top challenge during the Covid-19 crisis, with higher reporting among diverse groups. It also shows that while 96% of companies globally provided additional mental health resources to employees, only one in six employees reported feeling supported.

2020 has been a hard year for everyone around the world. While ensuring business continuity remains the top focus for most organizations battling the different waves across regions internationally, it is imperative that leaders, specifically HR professionals view the landscape from a broader horizon. According to the recent 2021 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report, employers need to reimagine their strategy and shift focus from surviving to thriving. With the varying disruptions in work practices resulting from the pandemic, it is imperative for organizations to re-architect work priorities and make employee well-being central instead of secondary.

The key elements for creating a holistic employee well-being strategy includes the below factors:

* Mental Wellbeing

* Financial Wellbeing

* Physical and Digital Wellbeing

* Social Wellbeing

Mental Wellbeing

According to a recent survey by Monster, 69% of employees working from home, experienced severe burnout and 42% of global employees have experienced a decline in mental health since the pandemic began. Some of the major factors impacting employee mental wellbeing during these times may include Performance Pressure, Poor Job prospects, Work Family Contact, Relationship Problems with Colleagues, etc. Many organizations are making local mental health resources like therapists, psychiatrists, suicide hotlines, or meditation and yoga classes, readily available for their employees in an anonymous manner.

While the awareness to help employees manage stress and anxiety is gradually growing across organizations, the stigma associated with discussing mental health still prevails. A recent McKinsey survey shows that only 30% of employees feel comfortable talking to their manager about their mental health!

Organizations need to move beyond mere provision of mindfulness programs and access to medical professionals, to developing a workplace culture that encourages and fosters dialogue between employees and managers.

HR should focus on ensuring that people processes support such a culture of openness, transparency and dialogue. For example, moving away from a traditional assessment-based performance management to a development focused approach, where employee growth is kept at the centre. Frequent check-ins between people managers and employees – focused on forging trust on a day-to-day basis is a powerful tool towards this end. HR should focus on empowering line managers to become change agents for this culture transition. Role-modelling "the ability to say, 'I'm feeling some anxiety right now, or other words that normalize talking about mental health" is one of the means to this end. People may feel less stressed when they would not have to keep their problems a secret.

Financial Wellbeing

There are motivation factors and there are hygiene factors. If employees aren’t able to bring food to the table, no amount of other interventions would help. But the hard reality is that you cannot manage to pay hefty bonuses and increments to your employees, when your business itself has taken a downturn. While most employees stress over the fear of a low raise or no raise, the ambiguity and lack of clear communication around the same seems to add to the worry much more than the result itself!

Creating avenues for cascading information from the leadership to the teams, ensuring transparency and communicating openly and honestly with your employees is essential.

Frequent town-halls, conference calls and skip level connects provide means to conduct realistic pulse checks and address key concerns and queries that people may have.

Providing them clarity on the business progress to showcase the financial growth and support that the organization can provide, especially during uncertain times, is essential to ensure employee retention. Focusing on the larger rewards portfolio and identifying the relevant and emerging needs of your employees, will help towards creating a relevant employee value proposition. Increased health insurance coverage, work from home infrastructure reimbursements, empanelment of online medical consultation vendors, at home food and medicine delivery support, nutritionist assistance for employees recovering from COVID-19 are among the few ways that would help focus on the most pressing needs of employees.

 Physical and Digital Wellbeing

For organizations where employees continue to work on-site, regular communication on safety precautions being undertaken is a must. Employers can provide immunity-boosting and healthy food options at the workplace and access to nutrition coaches as well. The focus should be on prevention and health maintenance.   

For organizations where employees are working remotely, the latest trend of ‘always on’ employee, where the employees are expected to be always accessible and contactable is highly detrimental. Long remote work hours may directly lead to burnout and subsequently push employees to look for better work conditions.

There is a need for devising ways to ensure employees are able to unplug from work or go meeting-free. HR professionals  may encourage line managers to ensure employees set aside time for prayer, self-care and exercise during the workday.

 Social Wellbeing

The social component of the well-being strategy is probably the least spoken. With the pandemic limiting everyone's social interactions and mandatory social distancing rules, employees need an option to socialize safely and have healthy interactions with each other. Whether it is working remotely or from the office, employers can leverage collaborative tools to increase communication between employees and boost the workforce's morale. Innovative platforms for connecting different cohorts of employees with different levels of leadership, while encouraging frequent employee-manager connects and check-ins will help bring clarity in the work. It is always helpful to have frequent informal videos from senior leadership that are empathetic and talk personally about challenges that they understand people are going through. This could help lessen the power distance at workplace and eventually create an environment of trust and provide assurance to employees.

But more than increasing touchpoints with leadership, it is essential that employees on-boarded virtually, feel that they are a part of the work culture and system.Setting aside time for informal virtual connects and virtual coffee-breaks, will help in communicating the unspoken rules that every organization or team functions with. A weekly connect with all team members, mandatorily attended by the team leader, should be a must to provide a platform for employees to connect and also ensure that they feel they are a part of a larger community and culture.

 As the pandemic keeps taking a new turn with every passing month, as much as most of us wish to return to the way things were in the pre-pandemic era, nobody will, unless organizations and HR professionals work for it. On the positive side, HR should use this upcoming year as an opportunity to create healthy workplace practices that should have existed all along. New employee wellbeing strategies could eventually be used as an effective tool to allow businesses to rebuild, reinvent, and be resilient at the workplace!

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Does Succession Planning Help? Let us Find Out….

Have we seen a business successfully sustain and run without talented people? similarly when key people currently occupying certain positions in the organisation leave, the business needs to place another set of talented people to take over these roles and move in to keep the show running. That is Succession Planning.

Succession Planning is a strategy that helps in identifying and developing future leaders for the organisation. This is done across top and major roles at all levels to help the business be prepared for all odds and ends.

Planning for success

 The Human Resource Department performs an evaluation exercise of the existing talent and the future skill requirement entailing the whole organisation to ensure it runs across every department and not be limited to only the C Suite

 1.     Critical Roles are Classified for Succession Planning

2.     Evaluation for the competencies and experience required is determined

3.     The Existing employees are evaluated against these requirements and key talent is identified in terms of performance and potential for meeting future skills needs.

4.     The required development and skills gaps are identified to take them to the next level

5.     Employees are enabled to prepare for future promotions

6.     A development plan is then prepared which is mapped out to identify the progress along the way

 Succession Planning and Career Path are two different exercises which must be performed as a standalone exercise to enable the HR to identify the similarities and focus on the disparities with the same employee and align the skills with the business goals and strategies. Research from Gallup suggests that listening to what your top performances value most helps to improve retention and improve your company culture. In the UAE, there are a lot of HR consultancies that may help an organization in defining distinct yet aligned strategies around career pathing and succession planning are crucial to achieving that.

 Benefits of Succession Planning:

  Identifies Critical Positions in an Organization 

C-suites are not the only major positions in an organisation. The Mid-Level and the Intermediate are equally critical and crucial for the organisation’s success. The ideal objective of succession planning in HRM is to identify the mission-critical frontline positions essentials for the organisation’s growth.

This exercise enables organisations to outline and define a structure with role-specific job descriptions and strategic contributions along with identifying the obsolete and declining positions which brings clarity to the executives and board members.

  Underlines the Organization’s Competency Levels 

 The strategic objective of succession planning is carrying out a mapping criterion in the organisation.

While trying to sustain and grow in a competitive market, critical competencies help in understanding the present distinction in your organisation. To identify details of talent competencies that must be recruited, promoted or developed for a long-term stability. Competency mapping is a comprehensive matrix that is practical and worthwhile when planning for succession.

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Top HR Tips for Small Businesses

In micro businesses most of them wear multiple hats, carrying out different responsibilities of multiple roles. To rephrase it “The Jack of All Trades” in such situations it can be tempting to cut back on HR Responsibilities to focus more on other things that bring in revenue. But for any business and especially for small businesses, people are the most essential resource and there should not be any skimp on human resource efforts.

We are here today to cover through our blog the importance of HR and the role it plays.

Why Is HR Important?

Managing employees and their requirements needs specific skills that the owners of the business may not have despite owning the business or they may fail to dedicate time to Human Resources and focus on the Revenue Generating part of the business. As the business grows there is simply no time to deal with day-to-day requirements of the people.

Ignoring the HR Strategy? Most organisation discover this as a regret or a costly mistake as it plays an important role in every organisation (whether you know it or not). Risking HR Strategy comes with its cons which include poor hiring practice, poor benefits from the management, higher turnover, poor company loyalty and image and a toxic work environment. Taking on a holistic approach of human resource management strategy can be a valuable competitive advantage for micro businesses.

Mistakes to Avoid There are five common HR mistakes businesses make, according to author Margaret Jacoby. These mistakes can cost your small business in the long run, both in money and wasted time.

·       Wrong Hire: Micro Business fall victim to filling open positions at the earliest with the lowest cost which in turn does not bring a quality person on board and may lack the exact requirements. Not having a procedure in place for background checks is another red flag to it. Eventually a replacement would have to be found which not just takes up time but reduces productivity.

 ·       No Job Definitions: Business culture now seems to like the idea of “open ended” job descriptions, but you are better off telling your employees specifically what you expect of them. You cannot possibly hire the right person if you do not know the specific job you want them to do.

 ·       No Performance Documentation: All performance reviews, meetings, and issues need to be documented, whether good or bad. If there are performance problems, discuss it with the employee, outline an improvement plan, and document it. You will need this if you end up firing an employee, or you put yourself at risk for legal action.

 ·       Ignoring Employment Laws: You are responsible to follow the employment laws where your business is located. Ignorance or purposeful disregard will not protect you from legal action or problems that may arise.

 ·       Improper Classification: Does your small business use contract employees? Are you sure you are complying with the laws in regard to how you have classified them? Many businesses use contract employees to save money and headache but treat them as if they were full or part time employees. The law eventually comes back to haunt if procedures are not followed.

  Prioritizing your HR Strategy is a key step towards Revenue Generation!

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Work Life for Women

It was never easy for a working woman to captivate between her career and family. According to a survey woman account only for 38.7% of total workforce all around the world. In certain countries it’s as difficult as hoping it snows in summer.  A working woman lives a life where she must juggle between work and home chores, balancing out both with equal perfection will eventually lead them to stress and breakdown resulting in work imbalance eventually. Lets all hope things change for better, but while it happens here are few problems women face.

 Critical Problems faced and Reasons why Women have Less Contribution in Labor Workforce

 1.     Juggling between Work and Home- It is hard for a woman to maintain a perfect balance between working life and keeping a happy home(childcare, cooking, cleaning), in balancing both equally effectively it takes a toll on her mental health and gradually on physical health as well. According to a survey woman are more than twice as likely than man to be contributing in family works.

 2.     Family Culture- Regions, religions, and households. We are in 21st century and people still have fixed mindset regarding man earning bread and butter and woman catering home needs. Families don’t promote woman to go and work because they consider it’s something, they are not suited to do.

  3.     Tough to Find a Right Job- It’s much harder to find a right job for women than it is for men because they aren’t provided the job hierarchy in accordance with their qualifications. This doesn’t encourage them to take that job up which eventually is filled by some other male.

 4.     Gender Pay Gap- With equal qualification and same position to work for there is a significant gender pay gap, men are paid more for the same thing while women are paid less. According to a survey for a man earning every $ a woman earns only 0.81 cents which means women are paid nearly 20% less than man.

  5.     Lack of Transport Facilities- As seen above women account for less than 40% of workforce and on above that there is lack of safe transporting facilities available for them to their access.

 6.     Child Birth- Due to no maternity leaves or not so sufficient leaves woman are forced to make choice between being with her child or taking up the job and in most of the cases a women chooses to give-up their job in order to stay with her child and take care of.

  7.     Gender differences in Laws affects women in both developing and developed economies- Around the world, over 2.7 billion women are legally restricted from having the same choice of jobs as men. Of 189 economics assessed in 2018, 104 economics still have laws preventing women from working in specific jobs, 59 economics have no laws on sexual harassment in the workplace, and in 18 economies, husband can legally prevent their wives from working.

 Countries Providing Initiatives and things that could be done to Encourage Women Workforce

 1.     Flexible Working Hours- Women who do both work as well as do household chores they need flexibility in their working hours because they need to give time to their children as well as household chores sometimes there are emergencies so if flexibility in their working hours is provided that would help them a lot.

 2.     G20 25x25 Goal- G20 economies are working on achieving a reduction in gender gap by 25% by the end of 2025. They aim to be- increasing women’s workforce participation rate, improving the quality of women’s earnings, increasing labor market security, and achieving better working conditions.

  3.     Promote Work-Family Balance- Countries as well as individual firms can promote work-family balance and make policies such as providing flexible timings to women who returned to work after her maternity leave or providing unpaid additional leaves for those who want to extend their maternity leaves doing this would encourage them to join back soon.

 4.     Create Quality Care Jobs- Women’s are found in large number in quality care jobs and it also a fact that a lot of improvements are needed in that sector there is low protection and poor regulations which can be changed with promoting decent work for care professionals also the unpaid care should be reduced through development of infrastructure.

  5.     Transportation- In India, Delhi government announced free transportation for women using pink tickets in Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC). Giving such facilities not only encourages them to work but also saves their cost and creates a sense of security.

 6.     Pay Gap- The Gulf Corporation Council (GCC) have made a policy and made it mandatory for corporations to pay equal amount if appointed for same work irrespective of gender. There are HR consultancies in the GCC region that provide advisory and consultancy services to companies on employment law and implementation of HR best practices too.  

  7.     Promote Higher Education- Countries promoting higher education for women has seen to be having a significant impact on those countries with women having more contribution in workforce. E-9 countries are some of the many countries doing it.

 8.     Zero Tolerance Policy for Harassment- Countries such as Netherlands and Luxembourg have tough bans against workplace harassment which significantly removes the evil and encourages women to work.

 It is evident that there is low contribution of women in workforce as they face many difficulties (social, cultural, regional) and they still prevail but it is also fact that firms as well as economies are trying to make some amendments so that they can promote more women to work. Having said that, here are some facts you we must know and be self-motivated (Top 10 Most Powerful Female Leaders In the World). Also encouraging more women to join workforce will boost countries economy and Per Capita income.

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HR Outsourcing - Channeling Your Strength Towards Increasing Revenue

There is pile of work that needs to be done to manage employees and employee related tasks. Various activities and tasks are performed to achieve strategically determined HR Practices which allows the HR Department to function smoothly to reach their goal.

To ensure our laptops run smoothly we often choose from different anti-virus software’s, so we don’t have to worry about the flow of work process slowing down. Similarly, the activities carried out by the HR Department are a continuous flow of work ensuring smooth function of the system, these include:

·       Job analysis and job designing,

·       Recruitment and selection of employees,

·       Providing training and development,

·       Evaluating and managing performance,

·       Providing compensation and benefits,

·       Maintaining labor as well as managerial relationships,

·       Managing their Payroll,

·       Employee retention,

·       Ensuring safety and health,

·       Employee attendance and overtime,

·       HR polices

HR is set to become more crucial for companies in 2021 and beyond. The day-to day activities carried out by the HR are essential to keep the show running without interruption and and achieve organizational objectives. People are at the heart of any organization. Here’s how HR outsourcing would help the organizations accomplish its goals effectively and efficiently.

1.     Reduces Cost for Hiring and Training- Outsourcing HR activities can help the organization to reduce their recruitment, selection and training cost as HR firms already have skills and tools which can be used by them to give you lower cost benefits.

2.     Spending Less Time for HR Activities- It is being found out that out of total working hours the management spends 30-40% of their time on managing and controlling HR activities, hence it best suits for the organization to outsource its HR activities so that they can focus on their core business function and growth.

3.     Improves Hiring- “Finding the Right Person for Right Job” is made much more possible with even better accuracy possible by Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) as it is their core work and is best suited to them.

4.     Increase in Productivity- With right person and proper training provided by HR firms it not only reduces the cost but also helps the organization in increasing the productivity as there would be lesser chances of mishappening.

5.     Offer Better Benefits- It usually gets difficult for small and medium size organization to find better deals at low cost to offer benefits to the employees, now if you outsource it to the HR firms they already have tie-ups and waste range of offering packages available at better price which can be used to provide better benefits to the employees as well as not increasing the cost significantly.

6.     Avoiding the Cost for Investing in HR Technologies- Outsourcing of HR activities for small scale organization also helps them in reducing time and cost for investing in HR technologies as the HR firms provides them with HR software and backhand support.

7.     Quality of Work Improves- Outsourcing HR activities save a lot of time for top level, bottom level and also for cross functional works with the help of systems, technology and standards implemented by outsourced HR which in return gives motivation boost to the employees as it easies their task.

8.     Payroll Processing- HR & Payroll Outsourcing firms  also provide salary and benefits processing services which are useful:

ü  in saving time and cost

ü  in saving administrative work that requires a lot of attention to details

ü  in helping companies avoid penalties and be compliant

ü  to pay timely salary.

These are not only cost-effective benefits but also extremely efficient for a small, mid-sized or large business organization who wish to channel their strength towards increasing the revenue and leave the HR to do its best in support services.

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How Fitness Programs Affect Employee Engagement in an Organization?

When employees think of joining in a workplace or when they think of our workplaces and offices, fitness is not really necessarily or even part of the first things that we think about it. Most of them really just think of the workloads and even stay on their desk during lunch and snacks.  

However, every employer in an organization knows that their employees are the most important asset. The ultimate goal of an organization is to reach the maximum productivity level. To reach this level, employees need to be on their best conditions. A fit body leads to better engagement employees. So if companies are looking to boost employee engagement they must make efforts to improve employees mind and body fitness.

In line with reaching the maximum productivity level of employees, different organizations offer corporate employee wellness programs to help their employees in:

·       reducing health risks

·       to enhance their personal effectiveness

·       Create a happier and healthier workplace

·       To improve quality of life and to benefit the organization.

Moreover fitness also helps in saving overall healthcare costs. It is a fact that healthy employee costs less than unhealthy employee.  Spending due to healthcare is caused by unhealthy lifestyle choices that lead to chronic diseases. With this, employees tend to absents more that causes lost in productivity. This also may result on loss on the organization’s profit.

To be fit is to mean to have some exercise. Exercise gives more energy; it also promotes better circulation which allows ample amount of blood to reach the brain consistently. This makes employees more focused and alert. Exercise encourages goal achievement, fitness programs demands commitment and goal setting. Since employees will be familiar to these tasks, there is the big possibility that they will also carry them at work.  With this, they may be able to achieve goals consistently and employees like this asset to every organization.

In addition to this, an organization that also offers or that has employee fitness and corporate wellness programme has a competitive edge than other organizations. This programme as part of the benefit package can make an overall more competitive package than just offering a basic pay and allowance.

Employers can have a big impact on their employee lives by being able to create an atmosphere that shows them they are valued and appreciated. A fitness program at work goes a long way in doing that. If your organization does not have this kind of program yet but want to establish yet do not know how to start? Worry not since there are a lot of consultancies that offer the service in helping organizations in designing corporate wellness programs based on your specific needs.

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Job Analysis & Job Evaluation: Explained

Job Analysis is the process of studying a job to determine which activities, responsibilities and qualifications are necessary for the performance of the job and the conditions under which the work is being performed.  Therefore, it is safe to say that job analysis is the fundamental basis as to why job description is being formulated.  

A job description is the outcome of a job analysis which entails the detailed functions of the position required for a certain job.  Key responsibilities that need to be performed by the hired employee are documented here. It also plays a vital role when it comes to the performance management process in the evaluation of the employee’s performance against the job requirements. It is therefore a basis of an employer-employee interaction leading to appraisal, development, pay and succession discussions.

However, different jobs are having different contribution and some jobs are worth more than the other. This is where job evaluation comes in the picture. A job evaluation is a systematic way of determining the value/worth of a job in relation to other jobs in an organization. It tries to make a systematic comparison between jobs to assess their relative worth for the purpose of establishing a rational pay structure. Job evaluation needs to be differentiated from job analysis. Job analysis is a systematic way of gathering information about a job as mentioned above. It is the evaluation of work for the purpose of determining the value of the job inside the organization. It helps in the setting of a uniform and rational compensation structure. For more information on this refer https://medium.com/@kashmir.m.12/compensation-and-benefits-8aefeddf015. Job evaluation is therefore the basis of pay grade level. It should be noted that the concept of job evaluation is based on the job itself and not the person doing the job. Thus, we must focus on the job and not the person while conducting the job evaluation exercise.

The pay grade level helps in differentiating positions and standardizes pay across equivalent set of skills and responsibilities. It is a part of a broad system of pay commonly known as a salary schedule or pay schedule. Organizations that use job grade levels to associate pay with particular levels of education, experience and skills typically do so to maintain equity in compensation and to avoid potential discrimination.

Job analysis, job descriptions, job evaluation and grading are a technical field of HR that requires unique skills and competencies from a subject matter expert. Consider hiring a professional hr consultancy firm to do this exercise for your organization if you do not have inhouse expertise. These firms are known differently in different regions. HR consultants in dubai  that usually deal in compensation and benefits management or total rewards have subject experts in job analysis and job evaluation. Whereas in the US they are more commonly known as employee benefits HR firms.

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Performance Evaluations: Are they ineffective?

Periodically evaluations/appraisals/reviews are frowned at by employees and managers. We have another round of that frowning going on currently. In a new book “Get Rid of the Performance Review! How Companies Can Stop Intimidating, Start Managing — and Focus on What Really Matters.” by Samuel A. Culbert, he also states that “Proponents of performance reviews say that the problem isn’t the appraisals itself, but poorly trained line managers. Sorry, but that doesn’t fly: The performance review done exactly as intentioned is just as horribly flawed as the review done “poorly.” You can’t bake a great cake with rotten milk, no matter how skilled the chef. They also say you need performance reviews to protect against lawsuits by terminated employees. This is not true because most of performance reviews data hurts a company’s case because they aren’t honest assessments of an employee’s performance.” The solution? Review performance everyday throughout the year by frequent conversations.

Culbert makes good point on a couple of areas. Performance appraisal should be done all the time. The world changes too fast not to be doing “course corrections” to avoid surprises. And I think “conversations” are important. And the tools could be improved substantially in many cases.

Laying the foundation for workforce planning with talent management best practices.

However, the Berlin team also say it’s one of the least defined HR functions. It is a continual process used to align the needs and priorities of the organization with those of its workforce to ensure it can meet its legislative, regulatory, service and production requirements and organizational objectives. Workforce planning enables evidence based workforce development strategies as quoted by Wikipedia.

So where do you start? With a solid talent management foundation.

The first step to workforce planning is to get a clear picture of your current workforce. And that’s where your talent management processes come in seek a good human resources outsourcing team for advice and support . To truly understand the skills, experience, credentials, performance and potential of your workforce you need things like:

● Up to date employee profiles that include details like education, experience, credentials/certification, skills, interests, etc.

● Up to date job descriptions that include the job accountabilities, competencies, education and experience required to perform a role

● The performance history of every employee (e.g. performance ratings from regular performance appraisals over several years)

● An understanding of the career interests of your employees

● An assessment of the career potential of each of your employees

● An understanding of who and how many employees are at risk of leaving, why and when (e.g., retirement, no career path, etc.)

● A clear understanding of your workforce’s strengths and gaps relative to core, leadership, job­ specific and key competencies

● A view of which hiring sources are the best for skills/areas

All of this information, gathered in performance appraisals, talent assessments, employee profiles, and talent acquisition reports gives you a good basic understanding of your workforce today. It can help you identify areas of strength that can be capitalized on, as well as areas where strength is lacking that you need to address.

So gather it up. Start to analyze it. Look for trends. That’s the first step to creating an effective strategic workforce planning program. If you need to, contact a professional HR consultancy in UAE. Then put plans in place to ensure your organization has the talent it needs to achieve its goals.

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The Strategic Role of HR

In every organization, changes are inevitable and/or necessary depending on the changes of the global market, new trends, technology and customer test. With all that was mentioned, HR is set to educate and train its workforce to enhance and equip all the necessary knowledge to meet standards for these challenges in the future. This is as to why organizations are considering Human Resources as a distinctive asset that will provide the company a competitive advantage.  Therefore, HR Strategy is the perfect tool to prepare for these challenges especially the capabilities of the employees. Today there are a handful of niche HR consultancy firms  also who specialize in providing strategic HR services.

However, there is an ever-present risk that the concept of strategic HR can become somewhat nebulous – nice to have but hard to realize. It is also much more difficult in the sense of making these strategies into reality that is implemented effectively due to the significant role it plays on how productive the organization is and will be. HR Strategy is not only crucial on the success of the organization but it should also be part on the overall organization strategic plan mostly businesses today rely on their workforce to run a successful business.

AIHR Digital defined it as an overall business plan that aligns its workforce to the organization’s activities. The Human Resource Strategy sets the direction for all the key areas of HR, such as but not limited to hiring, performance appraisal, development, and compensation. In addition, according to a HR management expert John Bratton, “Strategic human resource management is the process of linking the human resource function with the strategic objectives of the organization in order to improve performance”, (Bradley, 2019). Therefore, it is a long-term plan that dictates HR practices throughout the organization. Moreover, this kind of strategy will determine the processes that will run and making sure that it assists the needs of the organization to achieve its goal. This will be the basic foundation of the Human Resources department on planning and doing their job in all level.

To ensure that the HR strategy is fully implemented and effective, be sure to check that the results are being measured. The strategy only makes sense if it is making a quantifiable difference in the way the business runs. With this, it should be assured that the current strategy is consistently evaluated to guarantee if they benefiting the organization.

Furthermore, the organization might have a great success on implementing a strategy if:

·       There is a thorough understanding on the strategic objectives.

·       The willingness to make some sacrifices in order to achieve the strategy.

·       Similar view in regards on what part of the organization must be changed.

·       Commitment on the systematic plan on the employee management, support and inter-departmental relations that will that will cultivate efficient execution of the strategy

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Best Practices in Training & Development

Best practices for delivering effective learning to employees are constantly changing and getting your training program right is now more important. Training or development program is a common service that HR consultancy  firms can offer. They’re doing this through seminar, orientation, and in-house training.

Training and development are vital part of the human resource development. In the wake of advancement of technology that resulted in increasing competition, rise in customer’s expectation of quality and service and subsequent need to lower costs, training and development assumed to be the most important thing. It is also a program designed in different specific skills like for example in order to prepare workers for new jobs. Peter Drucker also said that the fastest growing industry would be training and development as a result of replacement of industrial workers with knowledge workers. It is important to understand that there are other factors that contribute for increased need of training inputs to employees not only the technology.

Change is one of the two biggest factors; change covers almost everything. It leads to the need for training and development  and training and development leads to individual and organizational change which is a direct relationship between the two. More specifically, it is the technology that is driving the need; changing the way how business function, compete and deliver. The other factor is which a strong reason for training and development is the development itself. Some people who work with organizations seek more than just employment out of their work; they look at holistic development of self.  They also seek happiness at jobs which may not be possible unless an individual is aware of the self. For more information also see https://www.managementstudyguide.com/training-and-development.htm

For training to be effective it must be a planned activity conducted after a thorough need analysis and target at certain competencies. While designing the training program it must be kept in mind that both the individual goals and organizational goals are kept in mind. Most of the organizations prepare their training calendars at the beginning of the financial year where training needs are identified for the employees.