A guide to the best hr practices

When it comes to establishing HR policies for your organisation, a lot of it depends on the organisational culture and the people working there. However, there are some universal HR practices that lead to good results (increased business performance) every time, regardless of industry type or company strategies. In most cases, the best HR policies are an amalgam of these universal practices and customised approaches for your specific organisation. In this article we'll discuss some of these practices to help you achieve your organisational goals.

Job security

Constantly feeling like your job isn't secure can be scary, so one of the best HR practices is to have solid plans for your employees whether its part-time or full time, so that there's a clear idea of what employees are expected to do, the terms of employment, how much they'll earn, etc. Having a reputation for dismissals hurts employer brand reputation, and can soon lead to high turnovers, which is a huge loss incurred on all the investments made on employee boarding and training.  Furthermore, these people are more likely to work for rival companies.

Establishing expectations

For getting the best performance out of employees, it's very important to have a clear goal-setting process, where both parties have a clear idea about an employee's duties and responsibilities, metrics and KPIs.  It's not uncommon for HR and management to be totally out of touch with employee experiences and perceptions. Likewise, employees often don't have a clear idea of their roles, performance expectations, etc. which leads to subpar performance.

Cross functional teams

Teamwork is crucial in achieving goals, especially in a corporate setting, where a lot of work is team-oriented. Teams are great for generating great, unique ideas because it has a diverse set of people working for a common goal. Creating such diverse and high performing teams is one of HR's main responsibilities. Understanding individual employee's strengths and crafting cross functional teams, and encouraging teams to work together is very important for an efficient and effective organisation.

According to Rawnak Zaheen Wasi, HR Global Graduate at BAT Bangladesh, "To achieve optimal performance in a high performing organisation, it is of vital importance that all team members are perfectly aware of and are communicated a series of specific, measurable and achievable objectives within a stipulated time period; the more aligned a team is, the more collaborative and successful it is likely to be."

Frequent feedbacks

When it comes to annual or biannual performance reviews, an entire year's worth of feedback is often packed into an hour, so naturally they lack optimum depth and clarity.  Both organisations and employees are better served when there is a frequent feedback mechanism. Employees can make quicker changes to their work, and have a better idea of what they can improve. Managers themselves are more involved, and this gives them a better understanding of employee skills and progress. Similarly, appreciative feedback to the good work of employees greatly increases their work satisfaction and also makes them more engaged, motivated and confident in their abilities. A 360-degree feedback system, which encompasses feedback from supervisors, peers and subordinates, is a great tool for understanding and evaluating overall performance, and can be easily adopted as well.

Proper training

While all managers agree that training is important and necessary, in many cases the training doesn't yield proper results. So it's very important to run a proper needs assessment to make sure that training is suitable to the employee needs and task specifications. Training should be collaborative, interactive and mentorship style, to better aid in learning and retention. The work environment should be encouraging to ensure that employees actually get to use the skills they've developed while training.

Development and career progression

Developing employees for future roles is beneficial for both organisation and employees. It makes sure that future management roles are filled with trusted long-term employees who are more familiar with the organisation. Outlining clear development and career plans for employees makes them feel valued and empowered, which leads to them being more eager to contribute to the success of the company.

Performance-based compensation

Having fair compensation schemes in terms of market rates is important for attracting and recruiting top talent, and reducing turnover. Performance based reward systems are also a great way to incentivise employees and reward the ones who go the extra mile. By linking higher business outcomes with individual rewards, an employee is incentivised to strive for better performance and business outcomes. According to Sharier Mahumud Tushar, HR Lead for Nielsen Bangladesh "It establishes meritocracy; in the global competitive corporate world, merit-based pay is the life-blood for any organisation to attract and retain the best talents from the market."

Tashfia Mamun is a final year business student at IBA, DU and an avid dog lover. Reach her at tashfia.mamun@gmail.com