Guide to Human Resources in the Workplace

All the many departments that work within a business are super important. From marketing to sales, these departments are crucial clogs to the business machine and how it works. As important as all departments are, there is none as important as Human Resources (HR).

What is Human Resources?

Human resources is a business department that is responsible for finding, recruiting, screening and training applicants. Additionally, the department is in charge of administering employee benefit programmes.
HR’s primary goal is to support employee recruitment, retention, engagement and general productivity. Also, HR is responsible for fostering a positive workplace culture and ensuring compliance with labour laws.

The five functions of HR include:

• Recruiting, hiring and onboarding new employees.
• Handling all employee compensation and benefits.
• Offering employees job/career development.
• Addressing work-related issues of individual employees and teams.
• Developing policies that affect the working environment company-wide.

In South Africa, HR is guided by the Labour Relations Act. The Act prohibits unfair labour practices such as discrimination, victimisation and unfair treatment of all employees. The Act also provides protection to employees against unfair dismissals.

As we go deeper into HR and what it does, you better understand what type of HR person you need in your business.

In this guide, we look at human resources as a whole and all that comes with the position.

As we mentioned before, the HR person is in charge of ensuring that employees are happy at work. They are also in charge of creating a work environment that keeps employees engaged.

Employee Feedback and Surveys

Employee feedback and surveys are important resources for a business to understand how the workforce is doing and feeling. It also helps to identify areas that require improvement. Some of the reasons surveys and feedback from employees are important include:

Continuous Improvement

Employee feedback allows businesses to identify where they need to improve in terms of work culture, policies, and processes. This helps HR create a more engaging work environment that supports employee satisfaction and growth.

Employee Engagement

Employee engagement surveys help businesses understand the level of employee satisfaction and commitment. It allows the company to quickly address any issues that are affecting employee engagement and implement strategies to enhance it.

Employee Retention

Understanding employee concerns and addressing them effectively and proactively helps businesses increase employee retention. This saves on costs associated with turnover and recruitment.

Decision Making

The employee surveys and feedback provide businesses with data-driven insights. This can help organisations make better-informed decisions on employee development, well-being and the company’s strategy.

Best Ways to Conduct Employee Surveys

• Keep employee surveys anonymous so employees feel comfortable sharing their opinions.
• Conduct surveys frequently to track progress and changes in employee sentiment.
• Use clear and concise language in your survey so employees understand it.
• Customise surveys to be relevant to your business goals, challenges and work culture.
• Keep surveys short and to the point. Longer surveys can lead to survey fatigue and low response rates.

The above information showcases the importance of HR keeping up with employee engagement. The use of surveys makes it easier to get honest feedback in comparison to one-on-one sessions which can make employees uncomfortable.

Rewards and recognition programmes are designed to acknowledge and reward employees for their contributions, achievements and behaviours that align with the company’s goals and values. These programmes are not only monetary incentives but also things such as day offs and vouchers. The aim is to create an environment which appreciates and acknowledges its employees.

Some of the benefits of employee recognition and rewards programmes include:

• They contribute towards a positive work environment.
• They help reduce employee turnover and improve retention.
• They help foster company loyalty amongst employees.
• Contribute towards improving employee engagement.
• They significantly increase productivity among employees.
• Improve morale and happiness amongst employees.
• Helps the company recruit and keep top talent.
• Helps align the company and employees through core values.
• Helps employees provide better customer service and experiences.
• Helps employees avoid burnout.
• Improves the overall well-being and mental health of employees.

Some of the most popular rewards programmes include:

• Years of service awards to recognise employees who have served the company for a long time.
• Customer service awards to show appreciation for employees in customer service roles.
• Social recognition awards are a great way to support positive work behaviours and help employees feel more supported.
• Office outings are also great to show appreciation to employees and to give them time outside the office.
• Monetary awards are always a great idea. You can provide employees with gift vouchers or just straight cash.

Using these ideas you can create rewards or recognition programmes for your employees. Remember to tailor the programmes to your company and to fit your employees.

Burnout is a huge concern for human resource managers in all businesses. As the year goes on, employees will start being less productive and start coming to work less. For HR, there needs to be strategies in place to reduce burnout.

Some of the signs of burnout to look out for in employees include:

• Feeling fatigued at work.
• Feeling sad and anxious at work.
• Employees disengaging and having trouble focusing on work.
• Experiencing negative feelings toward the job and coworkers.
• Significant decrease in work performance.
• Constant headaches or muscle pain.
• An overall feeling of dissatisfaction.
• Social isolation at the office.

Some strategies HR can implement to reduce burnout include:

• Change up the work environment. Human resources can tell employees to work from home or take the team out to work from somewhere else.
• Encourage employees to speak up. Encouraging employees to speak up on any issues they have will help HR spot burnout before it gets worse.
• Encourage employee self-care and rest time. HR can encourage employees not to work after work hours and provide employees with spa vouchers as a way to prevent burnout.
• Go on holiday or leave. Human resources should encourage employees to take leave as much as they can to prevent burnout. Some employees are reluctant to do so but it’s the responsibility of HR to encourage them to do it before they experience burnout.

With these strategies, HR can be proactive in ensuring that employees do not experience burnout. It is important to be proactive when it comes to burnout because it can lead to bigger physical and mental health problems.

Performance Management

The HR person in a company has a duty to manage employee performance and productivity. This allows the company to optimise its processes and improve overall efficiency. Performance management is a system that uses measurable and set goals and rewards to encourage employees to dictate their own work. Some of the reasons performance management is important are:

•  It helps with setting goals for the employees.
• It helps management engage better with the employees.
• It improves the overall productivity of the employees.
• It encourages transparency throughout the company.
• It helps employees improve in areas they lack.
• It helps management recognise high-performing employees.
• It can help management develop their own leadership skills.

This is how performance management plays a crucial role in the overall responsibilities of an HR person. Next to look at is how HR can affect productivity within the workplace.

Employee Productivity

Employee productivity defines the amount of work an employee can accomplish in a fixed amount of time. For example, if you have a salesperson, you will measure their productivity by how many sales done in a quarter. Additionally, employee productivity significantly contributes to employee goals and key performance indicators (KPIs).

There are many elements that can affect the productivity of an employee such as:

• The health and well-being of an employee.
• Communication and collaboration tools.
• Management practices within the company.
• Equipment within the workplace.
• Training opportunities.

In order to ensure that employee productivity is positive and increasing, consider the following:

• Keep track of employee goals.
• Measure the quality of work done by employees.
• Check the amount of work done by employees regularly.
• Allow for flexible schedules.
• Improve the working environment of the company.
• Optimise all meetings.
• Set clear deadlines and expectations for employees.
• Encourage employee self-care to prevent burnout.
• Emphasises time management skills.
• Avoid unnecessary interruptions.
• Continuously boost the morale of employees.
• Match employee tasks to their skills.
• Conduct employee performance reviews to gauge where employees are in their productivity.

The above can help any HR department monitor, increase and keep employee productivity high within the company. The next duty of the HR person is to keep an eye out for workplace culture and inclusion.

Workplace culture is defined as a collection of attitudes, beliefs and behaviours which make up the regular atmosphere in a work environment. A good workplace culture aligns employee behaviours and company policies with the overall goals of the company while also considering the well-being of the employees.
Some of the elements of a good and healthy work culture include:

• Accountability amongst all members of the company including management.
• Equity amongst the employees and management.
• Open expression of issues and positives from employees.
• Open communication amongst all members of the company including management.

Diversity and Inclusion

HR needs to have a deep understanding of what it means to have a diverse and inclusive workplace. Diversity in the workplace means the team is made of different races, genders, ages, sexual orientations, abilities and more.
Inclusion means creating an environment where every team member feels valued, respected and empowered to contribute to the company. Some ways to boost diversity and inclusion in the workplace are:

• Create an inclusive recruitment strategy.
• Have diverse hiring panels within the company.
• Provide all employees with diversity training.
• Establish employee resource groups.
• Adapt HR policies to be more inclusive for everyone.
• Create a zero-tolerance policy for discrimination.
• Make data-driven decisions using employee feedback.

Company Values and Mission Alignment

Company values are the set ethics and principles that govern the company’s decision-making and actions. The mission is a statement that describes the purpose of the company, its culture, goals and values.

The HR person is in charge of ensuring all employees and management align with company values and mission. This helps to make consistent decisions which align with the business and drive the outlook and behaviour of every individual in the company.

Employee Wellness Programmes

Employee wellness programmes are a benefits system which is designed to help employees maintain their physical, emotional and mental health. The wellness programme needs to provide a range of creative options that enable employees to nurture their well-being at work and outside the office.

The benefits of an employee wellness programme are:

• Increases overall productivity.
• Creates a significant boost to office morale.
• Improves the recruitment and retention of employees.
• Reduces absentees amongst employees.
• Fosters a collaborative culture in the workplace.
• Reducing health risks such as burnout.

Some examples of employee wellness programmes include:

• Healthy lunch and snacks for the office.
• Mental health assistance programme.
• Create a nap area for tired employees.
• Develop fitness activities for employees.
• Engage in community service activities.

The HR person needs to have a comprehensive employee wellness programme in order to ensure that employees are not only happy but also healthy. This will reduce employee turnover and the risks of burnout.

This guide will help any business struggling to outline its HR responsibilities and how they can help shape the culture within the company.