The shoemaker sews his own boots. HR, like the shoemaker, must also worry about himself - build his own adaptation in a new place. This is how it should be, but what happens in reality? The general director of the training company answers this and other questions LiCO, presenter business trainer Maxim Kikot.
Plan and priorities of the adaptation period.
How can a new HR director get comfortable in the workplace, how can he adapt faster?
In reality, HR managers often start in a new place with typical mistakes...
First mistake.
I'll come and figure it out myself (myself).
In fact, this is a serious misconception. For example, a new HR director needs the support of the CEO.
It is important that the general director, namely he, introduces and introduces the new member of the top team to other top managers.
This can be done at a traditional planning meeting or use some other format, for example, the nearest joint business training for top managers, a planning meeting, in the worst case.
Second mistake.
HR forgets: he (she), like all employees, also has a period of adaptation: to job responsibilities, to the team, to the company.
And once HR starts working, it immediately wants to show the results of its activities.
- Is it bad to immediately strive for results?
Fine. But even in the same area of business, different companies have different specifics and ways of working in the market. There is a high probability of messing things up without understanding this specificity.
Therefore, first of all, you need to understand:
- business rules and procedures;
- corporate standards;
- corporate standards of the company;
- business processes.
And adaptation periods, as a rule, vary in duration for different figures in the company.
The higher the position, the more hierarchy levels in the company, the longer the adaptation period for such an HR employee.
For top managers, this includes the HR director - up to six months.
Typically, adaptation is equal to a probationary period of 3 months.
The complexity of the situation is that HR is process-oriented, the results of its work are “immeasurable” and difficult to measure in the short term.
Well, like, say, less measurable than that of a commercial director (roughly - “ salesman”, the head of the service center or, especially, the production director.
He (HR) begins to work according to the principle “close the question with the personnel for me”, goes deeper into this process, and it is not clear: how, while doing current work, provide the manager with long-term plans on the issue development of personnel reserve, enterprises, companies in general?
Apparently, it is necessary to initially determine goals for the adaptation period, even medium-term and control points...
Another pitfall is the general director. He is like an internal client who assigns a task to HR for a trial period, or at least determines the direction of the desired result. So, he often has very subjective feelings, unspoken wishes, instead of clear criteria by which he will decide whether everything went well during the adaptation period with the HR director.
- Does the CEO’s task help the HR director build the stages of his adaptation?
In different ways: HR has received a set of specific tasks or has not received it, usually it starts with an audit of personnel records management.
HR is a person with a built-in hierarchy of needs. One of them is more important at the first stage than the other. This is safety - that’s why there are such aspirations to figure it out with personnel and office work.
This process is necessary, but it is difficult to limit it in time.
As a rule, there are a lot of rubble, and it takes a long time to clear them. There is no time left to solve other equally important problems.
And neither ordinary employees nor top managers know what the new HR director who came to the company does behind closed doors?
This is a trap from which he or she finds it difficult to escape.
The task of the first stage of adaptation of the HR director:
- collection of information,
- correlating it with the company's goals or objectives,problems identified by the CEO.
Another typical mistake: HR often “forgets” to build relationships with line managers during the adaptation period.
Considering themselves a little higher in rank, forgetting that they are also internal clients, customers of work for the HR director.
- Why else is this important?
Line managers actually manage personnel, and HR performs only a supporting function.
He (she) creates competencies, selects personnel for them, offers tools for assessing these competencies, and adjusts itself staff motivation etc.
The line manager is not required to know, for example, personnel assessment technologies- this is the professional competence of HR.
Therefore, it is the HR director who must build relationships with line managers, and when the need for assessment becomes urgent, offer tools that allow solving the problem in the shortest possible time and with minimal risks.
However, HR people do not always try to understand how they can be useful to line managers at the adaptation stage, although they can provide support in relations with the CEO.
- From your point of view, if you cannot avoid these mistakes, then at least minimize them?
Firstly, no matter who the personal manager is - an HR specialist or an HR manager - remember: in a new place, he, like any employee, is going through a period of adaptation. He experiences it precisely at the systemic level (knowing someone else’s system) and at the psychological level (addiction, adjustment to new conditions, a new environment).
Second: Before entering the company, he can and should draw up an adaptation plan for himself.
Third: It is necessary to clearly understand that adaptation is limited in time. At the end of it, HR must show the result - this, for example, could be a plan for solving a problem set by the CEO. And be able to make this result visual. Whether in a presentation at the board of directors, at the stand of the personnel department, or at the board of directors, or to show a set of posters - it is important that all these are not just words. Numbers, graphs, tables - business! This is what I did!
Fourth: The first stage in a new company is collecting information or auditing HR processes. There is no need to try to quickly “become useful to everyone” and propose some kind of plan.
The priority at this stage should be an initial acquaintance with top managers, line managers, then with performers and line staff.
That is, the priority is getting to know people, and the documents created behind the doors of your office are secondary.
The goal is to become “your guy” in the company.
- What is the criterion for the effectiveness of HR director adaptation?
In my opinion, adaptation will be effective and efficient when HR, after collecting information, proposes an action plan for a new direction in the work everyone is accustomed to.
A plan based on the collected information (audit of HR processes), “for the tasks” of the general director, for a given stage of the company’s development. Then, based on the current situation, based on the plan - offer solutions, new company standards, new development paths, new programs for the personnel reserve, maybe new business trainings, thereby showing your professional competence and becoming truly useful to the company.
In this case, tension and anxiety are relieved on both sides (HR and the person who hired him) and long-term partnerships are built.
Strategic planning in most leading enterprises includes setting goals and deadlines for their achievement, planning material and human resources to implement the strategy.
Human resource planning is an assessment of staff sufficiency. Not only the required volume of potential employees is assessed, but also the level of existing ones: so that it coincides with the plans and mission of the company.
HR strategies combine a number of methods: training and career development of existing staff, hiring new staff.
Moreover, determining the potential number of personnel and the level of competencies they need is one of the first advantageous planning methods, because without a sufficient number of people it is impossible to achieve almost any goal.
Assessing the sufficiency of the number and qualifications of personnel is a cyclical system of actions that helps determine whether the company’s potential corresponds to the set course.
Purpose of HR planning— ensuring the best fit between workers and jobs, while avoiding labor shortages or excess “spare parts”.
Three key elements of human resource planning:
Forecasting labor demand in a company.
Analysis of the current labor supply in the labor market.
Balancing labor supply and demand.
Stages of HR planning implementation
1. Assessment of current potential
The task includes developing a catalog of skills and abilities of working personnel to clearly understand their level at the moment. This list should include any activities of colleagues: volunteer, certified, interests, abilities and opportunities.
The list should not be limited only to the list of skills implied by the position; it makes it possible to assess the employee’s readiness for new responsibility and predict his further development plan.
2. Forecasting
This stage is based on the company's strategic goals. It is important to take into account and be prepared for the fact that external economic conditions may become an obstacle to the implementation of tasks.
Questions to help with planning:
Are there any plans to release a new product line?
What jobs need to be filled in the coming period?
How many employees will be needed to meet the organization's strategic goals?
How does the economy affect jobs and the ability to hire new employees?
How does the company plan to develop or what changes are expected in the coming period?
What skills and abilities will people need?
3. Gap Analysis
At this stage, a comparison takes place: where the organization is currently and where it should be in the future.
It is necessary to identify the list of employees and their current skills with what will be needed to achieve the goal in the future. It is also important to review current HR practices and determine what HR is doing that is useful and what can be improved to achieve the plan.
The stage includes answers to the questions:
What new jobs will be needed?
What new skills will be needed?
Are there any current employees who have the necessary skills?
Are employees currently able to play to their strengths?
Is the current HR strategy sufficient to meet the future goal?
What changes in technology are needed to remain competitive?
4. Developing a HR strategy to support the organization's strategy
There are 5 strategies that can be followed depending on the company's goals:
Restructuring.
Includes reducing staff, creating well-designed workplaces by reorganizing work groups to perform tasks more efficiently.
Education and development.
Includes training and development of existing employees to embrace new roles within the organization.
Kit.
who already have the skills that the organization will need in the future.
Outsourcing.
Involvement of external experts or other organizations to perform certain tasks.
Cooperation.
Collaborate with other organizations to see how they implement the necessary tasks. This allows staff to acquire skills and knowledge previously unavailable in their own organization.
5. Monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the plan
Allows you to make quick changes depending on the circumstances.
Factors influencing human resource planning:
Competition: Often businesses feel the need to expand their workforce to remain competitive in a particular market.
Technology: technological advances increase the demand for workers in certain sectors of industries or occupations.
Increased customer demand: Expanding demand for products or services requires more resources to keep up with the increased volume of work.
Economy: a growing economy or lower interest rates causes increased spending or increased business opportunities. Changes in the labor market affect the ability to find and retain employees.
Workforce changes: these include resignations, terminations, deaths, changes in employment status and retirement.
The ability to correctly forecast personnel needs is always inseparable from effective planning of business processes. Failure to consider potential threats in the labor market can impact overall success and put the viability of the business at serious risk.
If you react to circumstances that actually break into everyday work, this leads to the risk of hiring the “wrong” people, because in haste and stress you can not pay attention to important factors or even turn a blind eye to applicants, urgently closing the resulting gap.
Planning needs will help HR ensure that employees develop skills and competencies so that the business can succeed. In other words, HR plan goes hand in hand with the company's business plan to identify and secure the resources needed to achieve the goal.
HR department action plan
Recently, in many organizations, the question has arisen about planning the current activities of departments in accordance with the overall strategy so that it is aimed at successfully solving current problems. At the same time, it is worth conducting an analysis of the activities over the past year: think through all the shortcomings, problems and make proposals for improvement in all areas of personnel work. A list of future events can be compiled for a certain period - month, quarter, year.
Well, one of the departments is, of course, the HR department.
Conventionally, the process of developing operational measures by the HR department can be divided into three stages. At the first of them, it is necessary to collect the following statistical data: the permanent composition and structure of the staff, time lost as a result of downtime, absenteeism and illness, the level of staff turnover, the number of work shifts, information on the average salary and the social package provided.
At the second stage, an action plan is drawn up, which should contain a list of activities to achieve each intended goal, defining deadlines (preferably indicating the exact date - date and month), intermediate results and resources used. At the same time, it is advisable to keep records of the necessary organizational resources - human, material and financial. When developing a long-term action plan for the HR department, tasks that meet the requirements of labor legislation must be taken into account, namely:
- mandatory conclusion of employment contracts ();
- drawing up a vacation schedule for the next year ();
- development of local regulations (,);
- maintaining a time sheet ();
- accounting for work outside the established working hours (,);
- guarantees to the employee in case of temporary disability ();
- guarantees and compensation for employees sent by the employer for training to improve their skills ();
- drawing up written agreements on the full financial responsibility of employees (,);
- Conducting medical examinations of employees (,).
Some events can be planned in any month of the calendar year, for example, checking the availability of documents in a personal file, training, development of local regulations of the organization. However, it is better not to postpone them until December due to possible time shortages during this period. Department heads should involve the employees under their subordination in the development of a detailed project. It is well known that if the employee's role is not reduced to passive, he will delve deeper into the problem, will be ready to accept the well-founded conclusions and recommendations of the manager, and will also invest more diligence in achieving the intended goals. It should also be remembered that the content and structure of personnel planning are significantly influenced by the labor market, economic situation, and demand for manufactured products and services.
The third stage is the final one, it involves approval and coordination of the personnel plan, as well as support of the organization’s strategic line and systematic monitoring of the implementation of activities throughout the year.
The appendix presents the organizational plan of activities of the HR department for the first quarter, which covers such areas of HR activities as the selection and adaptation of new employees, personnel records management, work with the military registration table, development and training, preparation of documents for filing in the archive, etc. d. At the end of the reporting period (in this case, the first quarter), an assessment of the effectiveness of each activity as a percentage (25, 50, 75, 100%) is entered in the “Completion Mark” column. Based on such an analysis, it will be possible to adjust and stabilize actions in the next reporting period.
HR planning is only fully effective if it is consistent with the overall work process in the organization. In this case, its positive impact is obvious.
- Hiring procedures are being improved, because planning is a source of information about the organization's personnel needs. This allows you to minimize costs and avoid crisis situations associated with labor shortages.
- The use of personnel is optimized, since the unclaimed potential of workers is revealed through the expansion of job responsibilities and the reorganization of production processes based on new technologies.
- Careful development of training and professional development of personnel allows us to ensure the necessary qualifications of employees and achieve results with the least loss.
- The overall labor costs are reduced thanks to the organization’s well-thought-out, consistent and active personnel policy in the internal and external labor markets.
APPLICATION
SAMPLE EVENT PLAN FOR THE HR DEPARTMENT FOR THE FIRST QUARTER
Modern companies require departments and employees to plan their work for the year. The budgets of departments and the organization as a whole often depend on this, so managers take this process seriously and expect the same from their subordinates.
The following main goals of personnel planning can be identified.
Providing the organization with workers of the required qualifications and in the required quantity.
Maximum use of the potential of working employees.
Solving problems arising from possible excess or shortage of personnel.
Development of corporate culture, maintaining a comfortable psychological climate in the team.
Drawing up a budget for the personnel service (determining the costs required for the implementation of personnel activities, ways to save and optimize these costs, etc.).
Let's look at the key stages of developing an annual HR department action plan, including its coordination and approval. We will give the technology for drawing up a plan for a situation where the planning process starts from the top and the head of the service has received formulated goals and objectives of the work from the company's management.
ON A NOTE
Each company in the process of planning activities can use one of the following methods.
Break-down method (top to bottom). The work starts from the top: the organization's management formulates the main goals and objectives of the work in the next calendar year and clarifies what is required from each division, by what criteria the performance will be assessed and how the achievement of the goals will be determined.
Build-up method (bottom-up). The work starts from the bottom: structural units present their vision of goals to the organization's management and propose ways to achieve them.
Before planning your service next year, you need to:
analyze the results of its work over the past year, understand which stages of the plan were successfully implemented, and identify errors in previous planning;
clarify (if required) the goals and objectives that management sets for the company as a whole and the personnel service in particular for the next year, and distribute these tasks in order of importance.
Each company sets priorities in the areas of personnel policy and spending on personnel based on its specialization and business development strategy.
STAGE 1. DETERMINING GOALS AND ITEMS OF PERSONNEL COSTS
Based on the strategic goals of the company, at the end of the current year, the general director sets tasks for the heads of structural divisions to achieve these goals for the coming year. At the same time, modern companies, summing up the results of their work for the year and determining the direction of their development, update their strategic goals.
You must plan personnel activities for the next year and put forward proposals for personnel policy in accordance with the tasks set by management. It is most convenient to do this in the main areas of personnel work. These could be, for example:
identifying the need for workers and attracting candidates for vacancies (on our own or through recruitment agencies);
selection and selection of candidates for vacant positions;
personnel adaptation and mentoring;
personnel training and development;
career development and formation of a personnel reserve;
personnel assessment and certification;
system of material and non-material motivation, social package;
corporate events, etc.
STAGE 2. COMPLETING WORKFORCE PLANNING FORMS
You will draw up a work plan for the department, distribute individual procedures and activities by month of the year, and predict the time and financial costs of implementing plan items, based on specific numbers and data. Before collecting all the information and presenting it in one document, you can use convenient and visual HR planning forms (Appendix 1). Thus, the work is planned not as a whole, which is quite difficult to do without missing anything, but for individual areas and activities.
STAGE 3. OBTAINING THE NECESSARY INFORMATION FROM DIVISIONS AND EMPLOYEES
At this stage, heads of structural divisions and other employees of the company, within a certain time frame, submit information to the personnel service, on the basis of which a personnel action plan is drawn up.
This information could be:
about the need to recruit new employees;
directions and forms of personnel training, as well as their retraining;
the need to test the knowledge and skills of individual workers;
holding corporate events on a specific topic, etc.
Provide department heads with workforce planning forms with the issues you need information on.
Invite heads of structural divisions to fill out special forms (tables, questionnaires, questionnaires). This will speed up and facilitate the process of collecting information necessary for planning personnel activities.
After receiving the completed forms (Appendix 2), do not rush to immediately enter all the information into the draft plan. It is likely that some information will have to be clarified. For example, what tasks do managers expect to recruit staff for, what are their expectations from employees completing training courses, how, in their opinion, the assessment and certification activities that they insist on will affect the productivity of department employees, etc. Having identified the needs and expectations of managers, reflect individual provisions in your plan, while taking into account both the company’s personnel policy and external factors: demographic situation, changes in the labor market, provisions of current labor legislation, etc.
STAGE 4. FORMULATION OF THE DRAFT PLAN
The information received from line managers, which you consider necessary to include in the work plan, and the information that you planned independently for individual personnel activities in the department, must be combined into a single document - a draft annual work plan.
STAGE 5. DEFENSE OF THE DRAFT PLAN
Securing key HR objectives and the resulting budget for HR activities is one of the main steps in the planning process.
When preparing to defend your work plan, write an explanatory note for the document with a brief summary of the main stages of the plan
A work plan is a multi-page document that is quite difficult to analyze. When preparing for a work meeting in which you will defend your work plan, you can first (on 1-2 pages) briefly outline the most important activities and stages. What follows will be a detailed transcript of each stage with explanations, which the meeting participants will refer to if necessary.
It is often at this stage that it turns out that the vision of middle and senior managers, approaches to planning personnel activities, and setting priorities do not coincide. Thus, when forecasting the optimal number of personnel for the year, heads of structural divisions strive to increase labor productivity by attracting additional labor. This often does not take into account the potential of existing employees and the ability to effectively use existing resources. Company managers are usually inclined to increase the volume of work and reduce the number of workers (sometimes excessively, which leads to overtime, burnout of the remaining workers and a decrease in labor productivity in general).
Therefore, before work plans and expense budgets are submitted to the head of the company for approval, they must be reviewed at work meetings, agreed upon with key managers, studied and approved by the financial department. In the process of defending the work plan, you will be able to answer all questions, defend individual points and activities that you consider important, and find out where your forecasts and plans do not coincide with management’s assessment of the situation.
At the meeting to defend the work plan, take all the documents that were used to draw it up
Be prepared to justify why you are planning these particular events - in such a volume, in these terms, focusing on a certain cost, etc. The data on which you relied when drawing up the draft plan will help you with this: statistical indicators of past periods, results of personnel work services, proposals and requests from department heads, information on prices for services of recruitment agencies and other information.
Please keep in mind that not all planned events will be approved and approved. To avoid this, try to anticipate questions from higher management. Most often they relate to events that have never been carried out in the company, new processes and ways to solve personnel problems. Those stages of the plan that will require greater expenses compared to previous periods will certainly attract attention. Justifications for this should be prepared in advance.
STEP 6. PLAN ADJUSTMENT (IF REQUIRED)
During the discussion of the draft plan, it is advisable to document all proposals, comments and decisions in writing, for example, in the minutes of the meeting. Based on this document, you will have to adjust the annual action plan. All changes made can be noted on the change registration sheet (Appendix 3). Such documents are attached to the amended plan and facilitate the process of its final approval before being submitted to the head of the company for approval.
STEP 7. SUBMISSION OF THE DRAFT PLAN TO THE GENERAL DIRECTOR FOR APPROVAL
At this stage, your actions depend on how the company documents are submitted to the manager for approval - in the final version or with the attachment of all previous versions, minutes of the meeting, and change registration sheets. This should only be a work plan or should be accompanied by an explanatory note in a certain form (Appendix 4), etc.
Finally, after the work plan of your department has been approved (possibly with adjustments by the head of the company), you need to organize its implementation and control over the execution of individual stages and activities.
Appendix 1. Example of filling out personnel planning forms in the personnel service
Appendix 2. Example of filling out personnel planning forms in a structural unit
Appendix 3. Example of a registration sheet for changes to the annual action plan (fragment)
Appendix 4. Example of an explanatory note for the annual action plan (fragment)
28.02.2018 11:01
Many HR specialists have to work at the intersection of competencies: HR, marketing, media, PR. HR managers often have to write vacancy texts, prepare materials for the intranet, do email campaigns, manage communities on social networks and messenger channels. What does it take to successfully work with HR content?
Creating HR content involves developing a content plan, choosing formats and editing text. To do this, you can use various services that greatly simplify the task.
What is HR content marketing
According to the wording According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI), content marketing is a strategic marketing approach aimed at producing and distributing valuable content. The main objective of this approach is to attract and retain the target audience, as well as stimulate them to take any action.
In HR management, content marketing can perform the same tasks. For example, attract applicants with vacancy texts or articles on a career resource, encourage staff to study on the intranet, serve the purpose of onboarding new employees with the help of a beginner’s book.
Working with HR content is essentially no different from working with any other content. The main task is to achieve business goals, work with the funnel through which your “clients” pass.
Basic conditions for the effectiveness of HR content marketing:
High-quality content created for the right target audience for specific tasks. These are publications of different formats - text, video, infographics, presentations, etc.
Effective distribution channels for this content.
Content plan and publication formats
A content plan is a clear plan for working with content, which includes publication dates, formats, topics, responsible persons and distribution channels. Often, HR has to work with several platforms, for example, social networks and the intranet, and such a plan will help structure the work.
How to create a content plan
Analyze the audience (applicants, employees): who you are making content for, what they need and are interested in. For employees, you can use surveys, for applicants - Mark Sherrington’s 5 W matrix. In it, you need to answer five questions yourself: what - what do you offer to the target group, who - who are your readers (applicants), why - what motivates them to consume your content, when - in what situation, where - points of contact with the audience. Then summarize the received data in a table or mental map and analyze it. This tool will allow you to better understand your audience and create a content plan.
Find sources of topics for content. Analyze competitors' content resources, conduct surveys, use data Wordstat (key queries on the Internet), do not forget about market news. You can also analyze the experience of foreign companies. Finding topics is an ongoing process. To work with content, you need to be on topic all the time, read all possible communities on social networks and newsletters, monitor news events both within the company and on the market.
Come up with formats and categories. They will depend on your goals, capabilities, platforms and audience. It is necessary to determine the serving style and volumes in advance. Here are some possible HR content formats:
News
Job texts
Texts about the company
Reports from corporate events
Interview
Beginner's book and other materials for the adaptation period
Instructions
Useful articles for the corporate portal
Useful tips
Event announcements
Translations of useful materials
Video content (training materials, informational videos), etc.
Prepare a materials release schedule. Plan publications and bring them into one table at least a month in advance, taking into account topics, formats and platforms. It is most convenient to use for these purposes Google Sheets.
Useful services for working with content
High-quality content should be useful first and foremost. However, in addition to usefulness, there are other metrics, for example, meaning, literacy, uniqueness. You can prepare and check materials using free services.
Work with text
Spelling.The service highlights errors in different colors and explains spelling rules. With its help you can detect most errors in the text. Checks spelling, punctuation, style, semantics, typography, and even the use of the letter “е”. Checks are paid - from 1 rub. per text or from 300 rub. per month of use.
Advego.The service is free and useful for checking text for uniqueness. Finds only the most common errors. It can also be used to perform a semantic analysis of the text - to measure “nausea” and “wateriness”, if there is such a need.
A fresh look.A program for searching for tautologies in text. The service is free.
Chief editorThe service detects the presence of stop words (extra words that do not carry meaning) for free and recommends corrections.
Reformer.A free service that will help smooth out rough edges that people who are far from working with texts usually don’t see: it will replace quotation marks with “Christmas trees”, insert em dashes, remove extra spaces, and arrange the necessary elements in the article.
Gramota.ru. An authoritative information portal about the rules of the Russian language. You can check your spelling for free and ask questions to the help desk.
Birman's Handbook.
Online directory of Russian language rules.
Working with Images
Free stock photos. If you don’t have your own illustrator on staff, you have to use pictures from stock photos. It is important to be aware of the risks and only take images that have been authorized for commercial use by the copyright holders. The easiest way to work is with CC0 or Public Domain license types (there are others, but there are nuances for commercial use or image processing).
Pixabay
Flickr
Dreamtime
Free Digital Photos
Picjumbo
Freerangestock
Unsplash
Paid photo stocks. Everything is simple here: pay a subscription or buy a separate image and use it for your purposes.
Depositphotos
Shutterstock
Photogenica
Lori
Canva.Graphic designer. With its help, you can create designs for various tasks, banners, covers for social networks, work with images and photos.
Pho.to.Online image processing.
Email Marketing
Email-Competitors.A collection of email newsletters that can be used to find ideas and analyze other people's experiences. You can search for newsletters by brand, email type, and niche. Open source code and statistics.
Services for email newsletters. Several well-known services for working with mailing lists for any budget and for any task:
MailChimp
SendPulse
eSputnik
Presentations
Services for preparing presentations with animation, the ability to combine with PowerPoint and other options.
Swipe
Prezi
Slides
Slidecamp
Infographics
Sometimes it is most convenient to structure information in the form of infographics.