Running a business often involves a variety of risks, which mostly depend on the exact nature of the venture. However, there are some risks that are common across all organizations as they are caused by everyday business practices and the consequent actions of the employees. According to the experts from the performance management consulting firms, these risks can directly impact the performance and efficiency of a business workforce quite significantly. The best way to minimize the potential liability of these risks is by gaining in-depth information about them. The most important of these risks are discussed in brief as follows.
Wrong Leadership Team Business leaders reflect the culture, expertise, and future of an organization,which is why it is important to ensure that only the most competent professionals are appointed on such positions. Promoting professionals having great technical and functional capabilities but lacking the ability to manage people effectively can lead to the development of a sense of disappointment and resentment among the employees. In most such cases, there is a considerable reduction in employee performance besides an enhanced risk of loosing really good talent for the organizations. Inconsistent Recruitment Practices Any inconsistency in the hiring practices followed by an organization tends to deeply impact overall employee performance. In fact, the leading performance management consultants are of the opinion that these inconsistencies enhance the overall stress levels of the employees as they feel constantly worried and insecure about their future with the organization.In addition, such practices tend to create major talent gaps within the organization which can hinder its smooth functioning due to the absence of right professionals needed to perform a task in the most efficient and timely manner. This creates a sense of dissatisfaction among the employees, who feel completely detached and disengaged from the organization and prevent them from focusing on their assigned tasks and responsibilities. Lack Of Proper Performance Management Strategies Despite being aware of its significance, most organizations still lack any proper performance management strategies. This makes the employees feel undervalued and often creates a culture of distrust and lack of corporation between the members of the workforce. The lack of performance management strategies is often accompanied by a lack of any provision for giving and taking feedback and open communication between employees. This further impacts the performance of the employees and decreases their efficiency significantly. Improper And Insufficient Documentation In the technology-driven world of modern times,most organizations pay little or no attention to maintaining proper and timely documentation. This, according to the top HR strategy consultants increases the chances of litigation risks and also makes the employees feel somewhat lost. Despite the time and effort involved in maintaining proper documentation, the process can help in eliminating any confusion and misunderstanding at the workplace. When employees have access to clear guidelines, they tend to work in a highly proactive manner.
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Integrating Compensation Planning With Financial And HR Objectives For Better Employee Retention8/1/2019 For most organizations today, the ability to attract and retain top talent in a highly competitive environment is at the forefront of their business development efforts. Contrary to the popular belief, attracting, motivating and retaining a highly-skilled and diverse workforce in a limited budget is quite possible. For this, companies need to have a more strategic approach to compensation management.
Taking A Closer Look At Compensation Management Compensation management is the process aimed at ensuring that any investment decisions related to paying the employees of an organization are made in an effective manner. In this context, organizations generally seek the help and advice of HR strategy consultants and compensation professionals for developing a well-defined compensation management process. The processes focus on the key objectives of ensuring appropriate compensation to professionals with different skills and experience levels, generating a return on investment and maximize the productivity of employees with the help of rewards and benefits. In addition, the process also uses compensation data to accurately predict the likely contributions of the employees to the organization in the future. This data is provided by managers based on their understanding of individual employees and their complete skill set and capabilities. Developing An Efficient Compensation Management Program An efficient compensation management program aims to enhance employee engagement besides aligning the business objectives of an organization. However, developing such a program is not an easy task as it involves the alignment of compensation plans with the financial and HR objectives. This helps in placing compensation as the key component of the overall talent strategy of an organization and fostering a culture based on performance. According to the experts from strategy execution consulting firms, employees feel valued in an organization that follows trusted performance feedback and promptly delivered reward system. This, in turn, helps in driving performance and ensuring better returns on compensation investments. Promoting Manager- Employee Communication An important aspect of developing an efficient compensation management program is efficient communication between managers and employees. Promoting a transparent dialogue between managers and employees helps the leaders to efficiently communicate the basis of staffing and pay decisions. It also helps them to explain any compensation discrepancies to the employees with the support of reliable and fair data. Professionals offering leadership consulting services also stress on the importance of promoting a coaching dialogue between managers and employees. Such dialogue helps the managers to gain a better understanding of the employee capabilities and their significance towards fulfillment of business objectives. This information can then be used for taking more accurate and effective compensation decisions in the future. Significance Of Rewards And Recognition It has become important for business organizations to ensure that they invest in employees, who contribute more to the organization while staying within their compensation budget. Moreover, frequent and informal rewards and recognition also need to be factored in for efficient compensation planning. A well-planned compensation program aligns award categories with employee behaviors that the organizations need to encourage. For this managers need to gain a clear understanding of both the financial and HR objectives of the company. It helps in incorporating a company culture where rewarded behaviors are supported by organizational values. Each and every business organization faces a number of problems when it comes to running the business or consistent enforcement of certain policies across all the departments. During such scenarios, the organizations feel the need to take help from HR Strategy consultants.
To throw more light, let’s take a look at certain HR related issues and how the HR strategist can conveniently deal with them: Retention It is a myth that the prime task of the HR consultants in an organization is to source new talent in the company. Instead, the main activity involves retaining the existing talent in the organization. The employees are indeed the lifeblood of any organization who are responsible to make or break the business. This is the reason, it is the utmost responsibility of HR functionaries to protect the valuable asset which comes in the form of employees. As per the companies providing leadership consulting services, the employees are attracted to those companies which offers a fine mix of remuneration and a good company culture. Recruitment In order to cope up with the loss due to natural attrition and to complement the existing team, recruitment of new talent is one of the issues faced by HR consultants. Searching for the staff with the correct blend of skill set, personality and motivation is a cumbersome task. The HR Managers can take the help of strategy execution consulting firms in effectively processing the applications and CVs received for the job posting. Productivity When the productivity is low, the HR is required to know the reasons for low productivity and ensure to eliminate the same, so that the business can operate in an efficient manner. A Time and Motion study is required to be done to understand who works and how an employee works. This will give powerful insights on efficiency gains and will give directions to the improved productivity. Training In order to ensure employee development, training is seen as the best avenue. There are certain roles in an organization which demands specialization and certification, for those roles, HR initiatives should include paying for the fee of exam and keeping a track and ensuring that the employee completes that course. Even during in-house training, to ensure genuine participation by the employees, the HR consultants are required to record the attendance for the course and take an assessment of the skills developed. Discipline When it is about discipline, HR is one department, which can satisfactorily resolve the issues between employer and employees. They are required to keep a well maintained, accurate and updated record of the disciplinary issues, if any. This may include, minutes of meetings, letters exchanged between employer and employee and other follow-up activities. With an integrated HR approach, much of the disciplinary work can be simplified which helps in reduction of legwork at a later stage of time. Payroll Accurate and timely payment of salaries to all the staff members is one of the attributes of an effective and efficient organization. The HR manager is required to maintain the records related to salary, perks, bonuses and other benefits which are payable to an employee, however the payment of salaries is being done through payroll. In order to prevent pay problems, the HR managers should integrate their systems with that of the payroll supervisor. Addressing the talent needs of the organization in a timely manner is essential for any business to gain long term success. For this, the HR executives need to be able to anticipate the skill gaps and nominate candidates for fulfilling critical roles. They also need to pair the training and learning initiatives of the employees with various mentoring and coaching opportunities. However, performing these and various other succession planning management tasks is not that easy. This is because, the type of succession management strategy that proves most beneficial for a business, may differ from one organization to another. That is why it is not uncommon for business organizations to hire professional HR strategy consultants to provide guidance and support to their in-house HR executives.
Two Common Methods Of Succession Management Contrary to popular belief, business organizations do not, generally, have a lot of choices when it comes to choosing the best strategy for succession management. In fact, there are only two common methods that HR professionals can opt from and these are described in brief as follows. Replacement Planning : This method of succession management involves replacing the employees, mostly by their immediate juniors, as and when they choose to leave the organization. In this scenario, the HR professionals simply assume that the people replacing the outgoing employees would be ready, willing and capable of shouldering the enhanced responsibility. However, in most cases, such an assumption proves to be erroneous as even the best professional might need some sort of mentoring and support before they can take on a higher job role. In fact, such a sudden rise might actually reduce the performance efficiency of the employees in question and might even affect the morale of the entire team. Talent Flow : This is an alternative method of succession management and focuses on building talent pools after proper identification of the skills and competencies that might be required by an organization. In this method, the actual task of filling vacancies is performed in real time based on the availability of a vacancy rather than focusing on filling a specific position. According to top strategy execution consulting firms, this method of succession management is slightly more advantageous as it ensures the skills and the attitude of the candidates appropriately matches the needs for the job role. Choosing The Best Option Having gained basic information about both types of succession management strategies, choosing the best one as per their organization needs, becomes easier for the HR professionals. The one important thing that they need to remember before making their choice is that both these methods are not mutually exclusive. This means that HR professionals can implement both these methods if they consider it to be the best way to get desired results. In fact, the professionals providing leadership consulting services advice their clients to have a plan for both of these management strategies. This requires them to believe in the growth potential of their employees and also to invest in development activities to prepare the candidates with the right potential for their next big role. It also requires them to develop strategies focused on promoting positive talent flow within the organization. Business organizations often face the need to seek expert advice and guidance in matters that might be beyond their level of expertise. In most such cases, the companies choose to hire the services of professional strategy consultants offering their services within a specific niche. These strategy consultants are highly skilled and experienced management experts, who can offer reliable advice about the strategic measures that an organization might be considering taking. They also help in providing the right direction for the companies to grow by providing a proper roadmap for the companies to implement the strategies they consider will be most effective.
In addition to hiring the services of financial and marketing strategy consultants, an increasing number of business organizations are now opting for HR strategy consultants as well. Discussed below are the three key roles that these professionals play in enhancing the business growth of their clients. They Encourage Informed Decision Making One of the key responsibilities of HR professionals is to make a wide range of decisions on a daily basis. These decisions impact not only the overall working of the organization but may also influence the performance efficiency and satisfaction level of the members of the workforce. The strategy consultants help in ensuring that HR professionals are able to make these everyday decisions in an informed manner. They design a customized framework that helps to clearly define the way of thinking of HR professionals and streamlining the process of decision-making. This requires the strategic consultants to actively participate in the HR team meetings of their client organizations. They are thus able to establish the requirements of the consultancy project, prepare a proposal and perform the research, analysis, and assessment of the various growth options. The consultants provide an unbiased perspective of the various HR decisions, enhancing their effectiveness. They Inspire The HR Teams To Do An Introspection The strategy consultants help their client HR teams to identify their strengths, weaknesses, and capabilities that can help promote growth and success. The help the HR professionals to gain a comprehensive understanding of the various factors that inspire the members of the workforce to give optimum performance. At the same time, they enable HR professionals to learn about the impact of their various policies and decisions on the motivation levels of the employees. This makes it possible for the HR teams to reflect on the things that they might have been doing wrong and the best ways to rectify these mistakes for better organizational growth. Suggest The Best Strategies And Methods To Boost Business Growth The HR strategy consultants help n bridging the gap between the current capabilities of their client organization and the available market opportunities. They do so by making suggestions about the best strategies and methods that can help boost business growth. The strategy execution consulting firms even provide a roadmap to help the HR teams with effective implementation of these strategies. In addition, the professional strategy consultants also help the client organizations to understand the risk factors and profitability margins associated with different growth options. They work consistently to help identify the issues hampering business growth and provide the best solutions for the same. Efficient leaders play an important role in building strong teams and ensuring the consistent growth and success of an organization. However, finding the right executive leaders from external talent pools can often prove to be a time consuming process. This has led the business organizations to look at alternate methods for finding the most efficient candidates through alternate methods. One such method is that of developing leadership talent within the organization itself. In fact, an increasing number of business organizations are becoming aware of the various benefits of using this method. The below discussed five guidelines can help organizations to turn their competent managers in to great efficient leaders.
Clarifying The Difference Between Managing And Leading According to the top professionals offering leadership consulting services, most managers are unaware of the difference between managing teams and leading them. Educating their top performing managers about the difference between the two is the basic requirement for turning them into efficient leaders. The managers need to understand that while management is about deliverables, production schedules and budgets, leadership is more about people and their needs and expectations. Teach The Significance Of Constructive Feedback Constructive feedback is an extremely important tool that can be used by business leaders to motivate their teams and improve their efficiency. In addition, it helps establish a strong relationship based on mutual understanding and trust between the leaders and their followers. Constructive feedback also helps in improving the level of openness between the leaders and the followers. This in turn ensures better sharing of ideas and opinions between the two which is essential for the success of a leader. Provide A Reminder About The Tenets Of Leadership The business organizations should make sure that they remind the top managers about the various tenets of leadership from time to time. They need to make the prospective leadership candidates well aware about aspects such as articulating values, need to establish trust, adapt an inspiring approach ad develop the courage to make tough decisions. While these aspects might not necessarily form a part of the working of managers, they are integral to the successful performance of every efficient leader. The organizations might also choose to invest in training programs designed to teach the managers in these aspects. Make Leadership A Part Of Their Professional Objectives One of the most effective ways to turn good managers into great leaders is by making leadership an integral part of their professional goals. This essentially means that the business organizations should work towards ensuring that that every aspect of the professional growth of the prospective leadership candidates should focus on improving their leadership performance. These aspects might include the professional evaluation, compensation and even the development goals of these candidates. Be Sure To Lead By Example No one can teach the nuances of efficient leadership to competent managers better than great leaders themselves. That is why HR strategy consultants stress on the importance of using the most efficient leaders within an organization to teach prospective candidates by example. It is important for the organizations to understand that the actions of great leaders prove more influential than almost anything they might say or preach. There is no denying the fact that technology has come to play a key role in speeding up the recruitment process and making it more efficient and manageable. Of the various technological tools being used by the leading HR consulting firms in India and across the globe, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is believed to be the most impactful. Even though, the use of this innovative technology in the field of talent recruitment is still in its initial stages, its wide ranging benefits are already making headlines. In fact, the top recruitment experts are now discussing about the most likely ways in which the integration of AI into the recruitment process can help change its future. The 5 most important ways in which AI can change the recruitment and hiring practices are discussed in brief as follows.
Can Make Hiring Faster And Smarter Most experts feel that the use of AI can help to increase the efficiency of the hiring process besides enhancing the overall speed of the process. The technology will be used to scan and identify the best candidates for specific job positions in a smarter and more reliable manner. The use of AI is also expected to automate the process of scheduling besides ensuring better responses from candidates through the use of natural language processing. The AI analytics can also come in handy for capturing both qualitative and quantitative data about the candidates to help the recruiters prepare better for situational and behavioural interviews. This will in turn help in minimizing the risk of a wrong match quite considerably. Can Help Promote Thoughtful Recruiting Artificial intelligence can prove highly effective bridging the gap of limited human time and bandwidth to ensure better recruitment results. In fact many experts are even considering the possibility of using the technology to conduct interviews with candidates and doing follow ups with them. This can assure the recruiters of an unprecedented communication system in the hiring process. It can go a long way in fine-tuning the recruitment system and minimizing the risk of losing good candidates due to poor communication. Can Prove Effective In Minimizing Hiring Bias Hiring bias, both intentional and unintentional can prove to be a major setback for even the best recruitment strategies. This problem can be easily resolved by using AI as an integral part of the recruitment process. The technology can help ensure the assessment of the various skills and competencies without being even slightly partial to any one candidate. The technology focuses solely on matching the provided list of skill sets at both professional and psychological levels with the ones desired for a specific job position. This naturally helps to eliminate the hiring bias that most humans teams are susceptible to. Can Help Boost Overall Hiring Efficiency Given that the use of AI can help in streamlining the overall hiring process while also reducing its overall time, it is not surprising that top HR strategy consultants believe it to cause a significant enhancement in hiring efficiency. An increasing number of recruiters have already started using AI for performing the seemingly mundane hiring tasks of scanning resumes, scheduling interviews and even sending routine e-mails. Not surprisingly, they have been experiencing an increase in adherence to established timelines, which is the first step towards increased efficiency and improved candidate engagement. Can Lead To Perfect Searching And Outreach One of the major challenges faced by recruiters today, AI is that of expanding their outreach and sourcing of the perfect candidates. The technology can make use of the data available on various platforms and channels to help the recruiters identify the right candidates, including the passive ones. This can help the in expanding the perfect searching and outreach for the recruiters in a highly effective and discreet manner. Simplicity And Centralization – The Two Keywords For Recruiting And Managing Talent Efficiently2/4/2019 One of the most important tasks assigned to executive search firms is that of bridging the gap between acquiring desired talents for their clients and managing this talent. In order to fulfil this responsibility in a satisfactory manner, individual search firms use different strategies. However, one of the best ways to attain this objective is to simplify and centralize the whole recruitment process. Doing so can prove beneficial to the overall talent acquisition efforts of the organization while also helping them to ensure workforce stability in the face of any fundamental changes to the overall recruitment policy followed by the organization. Discussed below are the various benefits identified by HR strategy consultants, which can be exploited by simplifying and centralizing the hiring process.
Reduce The Overall Operating Costs Having a centralized hiring policy helps the search firms as well as the hiring organizations to make significant savings on overall operational costs. Centralizing the process makes it possible recruiters specializing in one area to share relevant information and advice with their counterparts working in other territories. This not only ensures better management of the overall recruitment process but also brings down the cost of searching for the right candidates and publicizing different job postings. Better Focus On HR Skill Development With a centralized and simple HR policy in place, the recruitment professionals are able to focus more on developing their HR skills. This in turn helps in ensuring that they are able to offer more reliable advice to their clients and within a relatively shorter time period. They would also become capable of upgrading the nature of services being offered to the clients. This will in turn improve their reliability amongst the clients and also enhance their efficiency and overall goodwill. Effective Sharing OF Knowledge By opting for a simple and centralized hiring strategy, the recruitment professionals can share information readily and at a faster pace. This can prove critical in ensuring the success of top headhunting firms in India, as having the right information at the right time can help them reach out to the appropriate candidates before their competitors. Effective knowledge sharing can prevent the search firms from hiring the wrong candidates for key positions within their client organizations, especially for the top level posts. Constant Improvement Of The Process Most search firms need to make constant changes to their recruitment policies and strategies in accordance with the changing needs of their clients. Having a simple and centralized system in place makes it easier for the search firms to implement these changes without affecting their overall performance efficiency. In fact, the recruitment firms are able to bring about a constant improvement in their recruitment processes by implementing these regular changes through a simple and centralized policy. In addition, it helps them to better identify the policies and strategies that are no longer effective. Developing the right strategies is one of the key parameters for businesses to ensure a consistent and faster growth and a significant increase in its value. Traditionally the responsibility of developing such strategies lied on the shoulders of top management of an organization. However, with the increasing competition and the rapidly changing market needs and expectations, modern business organizations are now seeking the services of professional business and HR strategy consultants.
An Overview Of Strategy Consultants The primary responsibility of strategy consultants is to help and support the clients with strategic decision making and execution. Given the nature of their responsibility, these consultants generally work in close co-ordination with the top level executives and senior members of the management within a business organization. They help the companies to define the vision, mission and policies for the business besides offering advice on their objective and future direction. These professionals use their expertise and knowledge within the industry to analyse the company situation and develop the most appropriate plans for gaining a competitive advantage for enhanced market share and revenue generation. Need For Strategy Consultants Contrary to the popular belief, strategy consultation is not just about offering advice and guidance about key business issues to the clients. They can offer a wide range of services to help companies grow faster through the development and implementation of effective corporate, organizational and functional strategies. With the blurring of the lines of distinction between the strategic planning for different business disciplines, seeking the help and support of professionals has become extremely vital. In this context the strategic consultants possess the right vision and attitude to help businesses overcome the challenges in the path of their success and growth. Benefits Offered By Strategic Consultants Businesses can reap a multitude of benefits by opting to hire the services of strategy execution consulting firms. The most common of these benefits are discussed in brief as follows. Framework For Effective Decision Making Strategy consultants provide their clients with an effective framework that can streamline their decision making process. They educate the clients about developing the best way of thinking to tackle future challenges. They even perform the research, analysis and assessment of the different growth scenarios and options. Their independent perspective and detailed recommendations help the clients to make informed business decisions. Provide A Focused Approach The strategy consultants help their clients to define their operations and also identify their strengths, weaknesses and capabilities. In order for businesses to ensure that the market understands its capabilities, it is essential for organizations to first create an understanding of what they do. The consultants make work towards analyzing the product range of their client business besides learning about the skills of its workforce, its client base as well as its marketing communications. This information is then used to assess the current capabilities of the business and design the most appropriate strategic plans. Identify The Market Opportunities The strategic consultants help their clients to compare their current capabilities with the market opportunities. This enables them to identify a range of options that match the current capabilities of the client. They also help in defining the associated risks and any requisite changes. Given that the role of modern HR professionals has expanded to include the creation of a positive work environment, they need to give due thought to career advancement programs available within the organization. The HR strategies should consider the need to improve such programs further to keep the employees motivated. In fact the leading HR strategy execution consulting firms are of the opinion that the HR professionals should incorporate some positive changes in the career advancement programs for the employees with every new strategy they develop. The HR professionals today work in close co-ordination with the top-level management to create a positive workplace culture and environment. In order to fulfil these new roles and responsibilities in a successful manner, it is essential for the HR professionals to develop and implement the right strategies. According to the HR strategy consultants, the process involves the consideration of various key aspects, which are discussed briefly as follows.
HR Professionals To Consider While Devising Successful Strategies |
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