Economic downturns can make for difficult human resource situations. Apathy, reductions in workforce and high turnover can have a far reaching impact that can spiral out of control. Business performance can suffer because employees feel underappreciated and are worried about whether their position will be eliminated, or whether sweeping organizational changes will result in a loss of job status.
Even through economic turmoil, there are two types of factors that influence employee motivation and satisfaction - nonfinancial factors and financial factors. Balancing these factors can be tricky, but there is a science to improving employee morale when weighing factors that motivate employees.
According to a recent study by SHRM, the Society For Human Resource Management, "shows that the percentage of workers seriously considering leaving their organization has risen since the last time the survey was conducted prior to the economic downturn." Source: SHRM
How can human resource managers utlilize this information?
Nonfinancial factors are very important to employee motivation and engagement. Especially during a down economy and with a organization struggline through financial constraints there are significant ways to impact employee satisfaction. These include:
- Being treated with respect
- Work/life balance
- Type of work
- Quality of co-workers
- Quality of leadership
Financial factors are undoubtably also an important component for employee motivation and engagement. Among the financial factors that employees were motivate by:
- Base pay ranks highest.
- Benefits and incentive pay can be important to
- Other aspects of the employment deal
- Attracting great employees
- Retaining trained employees
- Rewarding employees
Understanding both nonfinancial and financial factors is important for retaining a motivated workforce and retaining high quality talent. During tough economic times, focusing on the nonfinancial factors may compensate in part for the inability to provide the full spectrum of financial factors. Although it may not cure everything, and employee who feels appreciated and who has a great work/life balance may be content to stay at a company regardless of whether they could be more highly compensated elsewhere.
HR Knowledge is a provider of integrated HR, payroll and benefits services. Our offices are located in the Boston, MA metro area and we service companies throughout the United States.
Advantages of HR outsourcing for start-up businesses are numerous, although small businesses and entrepreneurs may be reluctant to consider outsourcing, thinking that it is too expensive. The reality is that outsourcing human resources may actually be a much more cost effective option in both the short run and the long run.
An entrepreneur or start-up business owner is effective at beginning the business. As the organization grows, there are many challenges, not the least of which are the difficulties of evolving into a company with employees. The growing pains of moving from an informal, family business to one with employees can drive companies out of business because the cost of not understanding and complying with Federal and State employment law could be devastating.
As the company grows the challenges of maintaining a workforce multiply. At first, there is a loyal group of employees who are incented to be creative and innovative. In a larger organization, there is a need for some level of standardization of services, and this becomes a management objective. Employers need to provide an employee manual that defines the expectations for their associates, and which helps to offset risks of empoyees taking undue advantage, like serial absences or sickdays.
A human resources company can help to establish the benchmark expectations and define what should be included in a corporate policy manual. For example, the entrepreneur may not realize that there should be a social media policy. Without a policy in place, there is potential liability that could result in litigation.
No one wants to think of these things when focused on building the business, especially because most small business owners are expert at what they do, but not expert at human resource compliance requirements.
As a company grows and hires more staff, roles start to become specialized. This may be difficult for the original group of employees who had to creatively adapt to projects as they became priorities. Understanding how to adjust and relinquish control of duties can be difficult and this can result in miscommunication, duplication of work and a vexatious work environment.
With oursourced hr services, the learning curve is shortened and expensive human resource mistakes avoided. Training and preparation for job transitions, implementing employee retention and incentive programs, and anticipating costly workplace conflict before it arises are just a few of the benefits of working with a human resources company that has experience in start up company growing pains.
Preparing employees for workplace changes is only part of the hr challenges for a growing company. There also needs to be ongoing evaluation of each employee to assure the best associates are in positions that are suited to their talents. In the start-up phase, employee reviews may not have been necessary, however having a way to assess employee performance becomes much more important as the company grows.
A rapidly evolving company may need to reorganize workforce requirement and redefine job descriptions to streamline organizational structure and meet business needs.
Outsourced hr services can help the growing company by developing a plan to periodically evaluate the roles and structure of positions within the company and develop an employee expansion plan. These plans may include:
- Evaluating internal and external sources to determine best sources for services - for example, should the internal bookeeper maintain the payroll, or would it be better to outsource?
- Developing a training schedule, establishing a budget and creating incentive programs for employees to continue to improve their knowledge and skillset.
- Reviewing employees on an ongoing basis to determine what the employees talents and skills are to assure that there is a match with the requirements of the position.
- Re-defining job roles or re-engineering departments to assure organizational efficiency and workload.
- Hiring new employees to fill gaps in expertise or add to the skills the organization requires. An outsources organization can also recommend testing services to validate knowledge.
Organizational growth can result in greater revenues, but also may require some tough decisions. Having an experienced outsourced hr company that understands the pitfalls and can help to navigate through the rough spots can be one of the best investments a start-up can make.
HR Knowledge is a provider of integrated HR, payroll and benefits services. Our offices are located in the Boston, MA metro area and we service companies throughout the United States.
Human resources departments are tasked with overseeing the spiraling cost of group healht programs, yet there are some surprising ways to manage the expense of employee health care. Over the past five years, the number of organizations that have invested in incentive-driven health improvement programs has increased. It has been found that health improvement programs are more successful and have greater employee “buy in” when specific incentives, such as health savings account contributions, gift cards or cash are offered.
Health improvement programs can be broken down into three categories:
- Condition management. These are programs that help employees control and manage chronic illnesses such as diabetes and asthma.
- Lifestyle management. These programs may include smoking cessation, weight loss and EAP.
- Health risk management. A proactive approach to keeping healthy, these programs often include free flu shots and employee access to resources that will help them find health care providers.
While Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) and Smoking Cessation programs are the most common and the most successful health improvement programs, employers have found that they need to expand their offerings to include condition and health risk management programs to engage even more of the employee population.
Any health improvement program, even if it is backed by incentives, is not going to be successful unless it resonates with employees. One of the best ways to determine the success of a health improvement program and an incentive is to obtain feedback from employees. By doing so, employers will have a better idea of which programs and incentives to continue to invest in.
HR Knowledge is a provider of integrated HR, payroll and benefits services. Our offices are located in the Boston, MA metro area and we service companies throughout the United States.