5 Simple Ways to Improve Your Human Resources Management Skills

If you’re a small business owner, you may feel that Human Resources Management (HRM) only applies to large companies and corporations. But effective HRM provides strategies for managing employees in any size business. If your business hires employees on any level, HRM policies can help you improve every aspect of recruiting, safety, employee training, hiring and even firing. Gaining new skills in HRM can help you better deal with every aspect of your business’s human resources.

  • Let your employees work together, share ideas and develop a sense of ownership over their jobs and the workplace. When workers feel free to share ideas, it helps them to be more productive and more effective in their jobs. Give them the freedom to express their thoughts and utilize their creativity whenever you can.
  • Build relationships with your staff, colleagues and managers. This is done by expressing concern for others, treating people with respect, trusting them to want to do their jobs well, and giving them your full attention when required.
  • Create an environment that encourages your employees to perform better and recognizes their efforts when they do. It’s easy to overlook a job well done, simply because it’s expected that employees perform adequately. But if you have an employee who has been struggling to improve and she finally makes noticeable progress, let he/her know you noticed. It can help him/her to improve even more just to know you’re aware of him/her efforts.
  • Learn to communicate clearly, whether in writing or verbally. Communication skills can be learned. In fact, if you struggle in this area, take a few eCourses to help you improve your skills. This is one of the most important things you can do to improve your HRM abilities.
  • Lead your team by example rather than simply direction. This will help your employees respect you much more because they can see you’re not asking them to perform tasks you’re unwilling to perform.

Recognize what works and what doesn’t work in your HRM and eliminate ineffective procedures. Develop systems for monitoring success and learn to adapt your policies as needed to ensure your business is running as smoothly and efficiently as possible.

How to Attract the Talent You Want

  • Treat every candidate with respect for their interest. Whether you are recruiting inexperienced new graduates or C-level executives, give every candidate the respect they deserve as people. Being honest, open and professional is critical to candidates’ perceptions of your company. Never violate this rule in your talent-finding formula.
  • Create a professional hiring process; then follow it. Explain the hiring process to all candidates; follow it religiously. Depending on the authority level of different jobs, you’ll need to vary your process at times. However, to maintain your professional credibility, you must follow the process you have explained to the candidate.
  • Design a positive process for candidates that don’t “make the cut.”  Have you experienced the horrors or heard about other candidates who were told that they would hear from a company after an interview, only to hear nothing? Employers who practice this “policy” must not realize the damage they do to their reputation and brand. Candidates have friends and family who are also consumers and can refer other talented people. Outstanding leaders develop a formula that offers dignified ways to deliver a professional “no” message.
  • Create a hiring formula that gives you flexibility.  Your recruiting and hiring formula should recognize that you may sometimes need candidates with unusual educational or behavioral qualifications specific for the job, department or team. A winning talent-finding formula allows you to be consistent, but flexible when necessary. If you want to consistently attract the best talent, make flexibility your trusted partner.
  • Create a pleasant “candidate experience” for all job seekers and recruits.  You might compare this component to the popular branding goal of creating a positive “customer experience” for all consumers who contact your company. Treating all candidates with respect, keeping your hiring process consistent, and having a professional communication strategy for non-hires increases your probabilities of attracting and hiring the best talent available.

Consider using some or all of these suggestions to create your effective plan and winning recruiting programs. If  these features sound like basic human courtesy and respect more than textbook HR principles, you’re right.

Whether you are recruiting for a part-time mail clerk or a Vice President of IT, the candidate will judge your leadership ability—and your company—by the way you manage the hiring process. Your company faces no more risk when hiring a lower-level employee than when interviewing executive suite candidates. Your professional hiring process should be consistent for all candidates.

For example, the inexperienced part-time candidate may have an older sibling or family member who is eminently qualified for an open executive position. Further, lower level candidates may not be shy about telling everyone in sight about the treatment they received when interviewed by you or your company. If it was a positive experience, he or she may sing your praises. Conversely, if it was a negative experience, the candidate may be equally vocal in recommending that family and friends not buy your company’s products or services.

Join the fraternity of outstanding leaders by designing a professional, effective talent-finding formula. Your career and employer will reward you many times over.

How to Manage Your Gen Ys

If you’re like many managers, your employees are increasingly gen Ys who bring valuable qualities to the workplace. they’re willing to work long hours. and they relish working for organizations whose values matter to them.

To attract, retain, and get the most from Gen Ys, create the right kind of work environment. Start by emphasizing your company’s values, reputation, and community involvement to Gen Y job candidates. They often prefer to work on their own schedules, so be fexible about asynchronous work. Where possible, performance management should focus on task completion, not time spent.

How to Hire the Best Temporary Staff

When you need temporary workers you want to hire the best temporary staff available: Those with the right skills, drive, and attitude who will add value to your bottom line. As more organizations move towards a model of treating human resources – including temporary resources – as an asset rather than an expense, the competition for the best workers is increasing. Through the right temp agency, you can access the help you need to find, screen, and hire the best temporary staff for your organization.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: It Starts with Your Temp Agency

Every organization is different, including yours. Every temp agency is also different; some agencies may specialize in very narrow industry niches, while others are broad and established enough to specialize in several industries. As a hiring manger, it can be difficult to determine which type of agency is the right one to use to hire the best temp staff for your particular industry. There are, however, several advantages to choosing an agency with specialties in several areas:

  • A multi-specialty temp agency is more likely to be able to meet your current demands as well as future demands
  • A multi-specialty temp agency is likely to have a greater number of qualified temporary workers in its databases
  • A multi-specialty temp agency has deeper resources in the staffing industry to help you hire the best temp staff whenever and wherever need arises

These factors can save you from hiring temps through multiple channels, which can escalate into a confusing, and costly, endeavor when your organization is working on a tight schedule, detracting from your ability to focus on the drive to hire the best temp staff. A multi-specialty temp agency can also save you time through streamlined candidate screening, since an agency accustomed to working in multiple areas will already be familiar with best practices in hiring wherever your need may be.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: Thorough Screening Ensures Quality Candidates

All too many organizations shorten the candidate screening process when hiring temp staff. Although the temporary nature of these assignments makes it tempting to try to save expenses through reduced screening, organizations that follow this practice are usually putting themselves at a disadvantage. Several benefits of temp staffing, including the ability to move to permanent hiring based on a temp’s performance, are diminished or erased when screening is skipped.

Especially for longer assignments, your organization needs to know the skills and attributes of those on temporary payroll. Experienced temp agencies make it easy for you to screen candidates for quality by putting a range of technological and more traditional screening tools at your disposal, ensuring that you hire the best temp staff possible. Make sure that your agency screens its candidates before recommending them for your open assignments, and perform your own secondary screening whenever possible.

Hire the Best Temp Staff: Adopt a Long Term View

Temp agencies are of enormous benefit when your organization needs workers at the last minute for assignments of short duration. Still, last minute changes and rushed temporary hiring can be taxing and reduce your chances of recruiting top quality candidates. What if you could project when and where such help was likely to be needed and plan accordingly? An established temp agency will have the experience needed to partner with your organization to create a long term hiring plan that addresses your needs for temp staff and can make the best temp staff on its roster available to you during your rush times through such prior planning.

The competition to hire the best temp staff is not expected to slow anytime soon. Make sure that your organization is prepared and in a position to hire the best available candidates by working with your temp agency to address your organization’s temporary hiring needs. With a comprehensive temporary hiring strategy you can add value to your organization while saving costs, a winning approach.

How to Hire Collaborative People

In today’s densely interconnected workplaces, employees work in teams of all types — virtual, task force, and ad hoc combinations. and a company’s success hinges on workers’ ability to collaborate, share knowledge, and handle conflict productively within teams. as a manager, you need to help foster a culture where these things can blossom.
One way to do this is to hire for collaboration. Make sure candidates are interviewed by as many people as possible. (If all interviewers approve, a candidate is likely promising. And if hired, the newcomer will have an instant network for collaboration.) During interviews, present real-life work scenarios to candidates and ask how they’d respond. Their answers will provide invaluable insight into whether they prefer to work collaboratively or independently