HR practices enhance sustainable employability

By Taslim Ahammad:

 

Human Resource best practices have been around as guidelines for many HR professionals. It has been under close ongoing analysis for many years and continues to be a burning debate subject matter in business circles. HR best practices keep both clients and employees happy.

Best practices are a set of HR management processes and actions that work universally. It is the ideas that provide companies with best business performance, regardless of which organisation or industry. Hence, the best HR practices are a set of universal HR process that will lead to increased business performance, irrespective of the type of business or industry.

Top HR best practices can give the sustainable employability for the company. These best HR practices areas include recruitment and selection, training and development, transparency, employee benefits, employee incentives, compensation and evaluations, compliance, terminations and others discussed below:

Recruiting – Strong HR practices begin with the best recruitment process. When recruiters take the time to find the job candidate who is the best fit for the company culture, job description and management structure, the new hire is more likely to stay at their job for longer and be more productive on the job.

Induction – Induction is a method of reasoning in which business use individual ideas or facts to give employee a general rule or summary.

Training – It is an HR best practice to invest in training and development opportunities to improve current workforce, focus on skill-specific training, and realise the value that young workers place on learning. As industries are advancing at an ever-increasing pace, business can support and encourage employees to grow as well, keeping them more engaged in their work and the organization.

Compensation – If organisations want great employees, need to have great compensation plans in place. Above-average employees deserve above-average compensation, and want to show employees that company value them and the work they do. It is essential that HR keep abreast with current salary trends and also keeps line management informed.

Performance highlight and rewards – Employees like feeling valued, and employees that feel like an important member of the organization are less likely to leave. Incentives and performance-based bonuses are a great way to show employees that their work is valued by management. Create profiles of top performers and make these visible though company intranet, display boards and so on.

360 Degree feedback – HR best practices are all about making employees feel valued and content in their positions, and feedback can be a great way to let employees suggest changes to their workplace. This system, which solicits feedback from seniors, peers, and subordinates, has been increasingly embraced as the best available method for collecting performance feedback.

Knowledge sharing – Adopt a systematic approach to ensure that knowledge management supports strategy. Store knowledge in databases to provide greater access to information posted either by the company or the employees on the knowledge portals of the company. When an employee returns after attending any competencies or skills development program, sharing essential knowledge with others could be made mandatory.

Safe, healthy and happy workplace – Creating a safe, healthy and happy workplace ensures that employees feel at home and stay with the organization for a very long time. Capture their thoughts through frequent surveys.

Fair evaluation system – Develop an evaluation system that clearly links individual performance to corporate business goals and priorities. Each employee should have well-defined reporting relationships. Self-rating should be a part of the evaluation process as it empowers employees. Evaluation becomes fairer if it is based on achievements of the employee, tracked over the year.

Align business needs with HR recommendations – For any business practices to work, all individual process must be aligned. That way business can quickly identify areas where HR needs to step up and areas that are working well.

Business transparency – There is little value in trying to build a good employer brand if everything is kept a secret from employees. Business transparency is reciprocal because it promotes trust and better employee engagement.

Terminations – This is probably the toughest place to implement HR best practices because it will always be difficult for those involved. HR best practices include learning from employees who are terminating their employment as well as understanding which topics to be sensitive of for legal reasons. Issues that may warrant termination should always be addressed before they reach a boiling point. However, when it does come to terminating an employee, should not wait on the decision.

Improving job security – Although business dealing with a far more transient workforce today and people are no longer scared to leave their job or change careers, job security still matters. Employees want to know that they have control over their job and income. The thought that anyone can be unemployed overnight is always a scary because people have financial commitments.

Focus on compliance – Lack of compliance to local, national, and international labour legislation will blow any of the favourite HR practices out of the water. No company can plead ignorance of the law, so make sure that company have a labour law expert on-board, either as an employee or as a service provider.

After implemented, these best practices form the basis of good human resource management; however, implementation alone is not enough. These best practices also need to align with what the rest of the business is doing. Hence, the best practices that business organisation have in HR are aligned with what the organisation is striving for can create an HR best practices that adds value and that truly supports the business.

Taslim Ahammad, Assistant Professor

Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman Science and Technology University, Gopalganj, Bangladesh