A
start-up company has recently been hired as the new human resources director
for a budding tech startup that is scaling up rapidly. It’s an exciting time:
What started as just a few dots on a tiny organizational chart has quickly
ballooned into multiple sections and departments.
As
the startup grows, so does its need for a designated HR department. That’s
where Start-up Company comes in. They must determine how activities within the
HR department will be organized, controlled and coordinated.
Sound
like a fun challenge? It certainly is. For startup owners and HR
decision-makers like this company, here are three innovative ways to structure
a successful HR department from the ground up:
1. Hire for people operations.
When
people think “people operations,” Google usually comes to mind. The tech giant
pioneered this data-based approach to human resources, and today’s most
cutting-edge startups are following suit (as is the case with many things
Google does).
What
makes people operations different from traditional HR? For starters, people
operations is more than just human resources -- it’s a data-based approach to
understanding a company’s most valuable asset: its people. Most importantly,
this approach to HR is based on retaning employees by understanding what drives
them.
When
it comes to employees, eliminate the guesswork from employee satisfaction
surveys, team assessments and social media. By having a dedicated team to
solicit employee-related data, HR can more accurately identify issues that lead
to disengagement and attrition, and thereby prevent it.
2. Boost a small team with big
software.
For
small businesses with even smaller human resources teams, HR professionals
often have to juggle multiple roles, from recruiter to talent manager to
accountant. In an effort to put the “human” back in human resources, companies
today are choosing to automate particular HR tasks to make notoriously tedious
processes easier for both employers and employees.
By
automating time-consuming administrative HR functions, such as payroll, legal
or benefits administration, there’s more time to spend interacting with and
managing employees. In this way, technology can literally put the human back in
human resources. For companies with a small but growing HR team, software picks
up the slack to make a small team feel super human.
3. Adopt a business partner model.
Companies
that adopt this HR model rely on much more than your average HR generalist. In
the HR business partner model, designated employees -- business partners --
from the human resources department work closely with the company’s senior
leaders to develop an HR agenda that closely supports the overall company
mission.
HR
business partnering is becoming increasingly popular, as companies place more
focus on aligning individual agendas toward common company goals. The business
partner model requires HR to be more involved in almost every aspect of
business, from financial status to sale projections to production statistics --
you name it.
Rather
than acting as the silent partner within an organization, business partners
play an active role within the company. This integration of HR and other
business functions makes it easy to identify, develop and align employees. And
that’s smart business.
Sources: www.entrepreneur.com