Sometimes it’s worth questioning traditional HR processes and reassessing

It’s easy to get immersed in your organisation’s well-established HR processes, especially when we’ve been using them for years on end. However, sometimes it’s worth questioning these traditional processes and reassessing what we’re doing to ensure we can create the most value for everyone involved.

Today we’ll explore 7 common HR process pitfalls and how you can avoid them happening in your organisation.

1. Giving new starters menial tasks during the onboarding period

Employees decide in their first 90 days if they want to stay in a business long term, so you simply can’t risk letting them get bored or become disengaged during this critical onboarding period. Not only can this result in higher attrition rates over time but it also inhibits people from reaching peak performance and productivity sooner, costing you money. By giving people interesting, high-value tasks when they’re new to a role, you can get them trained up faster, while helping help them feel valued and excited about the future.

The right onboarding process can help increase profitability and reduce attrition – learn how.

2. Reviewing performance annually

Who can remember what they did a year ago? And what is the point of discovering an issue after it has been happening for months? Annual reviews are a staple in most HR strategies, but they can create unnecessary stress for employees. Without regular and automatic recording of key events it’s near impossible to accurately recall what happened 12 months ago. This means a manual process often results in recency bias, with those participating in the review process more likely to focus on what has happened in the not-so-distant past.

More accurate performance data can be gathered through regular check-ins where employees can answer a few quick questions on topics they can see immediate value in. Think questions like: How are you progressing with your goals? What have you achieved recently that you are proud of? Do you require any type of support or extra training?

This not only gives HR and managers better insight into how people are tracking but also allows them to be proactive and step in early  if help is needed.

3. Using misaligned rating scales

If you want to improve workplace culture, first take a good look at your rating scales. A strategically-designed rating scale helps frame the mind of the manager to the desired outcomes of measuring an employee’s performance.

For example, rating scales like ‘Below Expectations’, ‘Meeting Expectations’ and ‘Above Expectations’ place managers in the mindset they need to reprimand employees who are under performing. It also makes employees feel threatened when talking about performance and may prevent them from asking for help.

Consider a rating scale like ‘Needs Help’, ‘Good Job’ and ‘Great Job’ or similar which steers conversations towards helping people improve or congratulating them for doing well rather than causing them undue stress or angst that will further inhibit performance.

4. Creating performance reviews manually

If you work in Human Resources,  chances are you’ve spent your fair share of time manually creating performance reviews. Not only does this process create hours of unnecessary administration time but it also facilitates bias, as results must be largely formulated based on personal perceptions.

By using intelliHR to automatically track continuous feedback results, goal progress, diary notes and other information in real-time, you can create instant performance reviews for any employee on demand. This not only saves a lot of time but also removes any chance of unconscious bias impacting the results of the report. Having an automated performance review will provide a much more accurate snapshot of an individual’s performance and allow for better conversations between managers and their direct reports.

5. Offboarding too slowly

It’s vital to be able to identify when an employee’s productivity starts to decline so you can aim to remedy it straight away. Having a continuous feedback process in place and tools like sentiment analysis to process the information captured can help identify the signs of reduced productivity earlier to give the best possible chance of helping employees get back to their full potential. If early intervention doesn’t work, by being aware and actively managing the team member you are in the best position to make a well informed off-boarding decision which is in the best interests of all. It’s about making the employee a positive participant in the process and helping them find a new opportunity that is a better fit for them where possible.

6. Using static position descriptions

Position descriptions can be useful to determine salary requirements and advertise positions – but they shouldn’t serve as a restriction on what your people can do. Position descriptions should be malleable and grow with staff over time. This allows staff to try out new skills or get exposure to other teams if they wish. It also means roles can be adapted to hone in on individual skills of different staff. Both of these possibilities have the flow on effects of helping keep staff engaged and allowing them to fulfil a role where they can perform at their peak, undertaking the duties they’re best at.

7. Not having a centrally available org chart

An organisation’s org chart can only provide so much value if it is locked away in a Microsoft Word document or only available to senior staff. Having a centrally available (and automated) org chart allows all staff to instantly see where they fit and feel part of the team from day one, from both a reporting lines, and business unit perspectives. Ideally your central org chart should also include contact details and allow employees to contact relevant people in the business they might need to get in touch with.

Discovered a few changes you might need to make? Contact us to see how intelliHR can help you maintain better than best practice HR processes.