Amid a pandemic, focus on your core business strategy

The pandemic has created intense change and impact on the people who make up your organization. Strategic human resource planning is a vital component to successfully navigating this business evolution. We are all searching for solutions to protect, stabilize, and grow our businesses. But how do you define solutions when your time and energy has been dramatically stretched? A helpful first step is to identify what the human resource challenges or opportunities are that require problem solving. To support leaders in identifying human resource solutions, ask yourself a few of these questions to flush out potential areas that will require change. You can then begin formulating solutions to address these challenges.

Workforce Development

• Have you identified specific training or development investments to grow key employees?
• Are your employees cross trained if a key individual leaves the team?
• Does each position have a career progression plan? Have you openly discussed it with the individual?
• Do you have silo's between departments requiring increased collaboration?

Hiring

• What are current bottlenecks or challenges to your business, and what type of professional would you hire to solve these problems moving forward?
• Is your current hiring process both compliant with applicable employment law and producing the desired and necessary results for your organization?
• Are your H-2A/H-2B and I-9 protocols fully compliant?
• Are your HR-related marketing tools and company branding message aligned with the current strategic plan to attract the proper level of talent to drive these organizational directives?
• Do you have a positive company brand image on social media and sites such as Glass Door to help attract top talent?

Total Rewards/Compensation/Benefits

• Have you updated or benchmarked your benefits and compensation packages lately? If yes, how frequently do you do so?
• Do you include perks like profit sharing, continual education, or health initiatives to better invest in your employees?
• What unique benefits do you offer that are attractive to potential new hires or increase retention?
• Are your compensations in line with your geographic region, cost of living, and other industries so that you can attract top talent?

Human Resource Systems/Software

• Do you have an organized electronic system for classifying and holding all your employee's documents?
• Do you have an up-to-date chain of command to report HR issues?
• Do you have the appropriate technology and tools to maximize efficiency and effectiveness? (i.e. HRIS, LMS, TS, ERP, Payroll? Do these systems seamlessly integrate? Are HR employees effectively trained on them?

Employee Relations

• Are your employees truly engaged in the business or simply punching the clock?
• What is your retention rate or turnover rate?
• What type of leader would your employees communicate that you are?
• Has an appropriate investigatory process been put in place, and are HR professionals trained to objectively implement such process, to resolve employee relations issues regardless of the severity or nature of the issue?

Human Resource Compliance

• If the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission audited your human resource policies and practices, would you pass without a fine?
• Have current policies been recently reviewed and updated to conform with recent changes in federal, state, and local legislation, court cases, and executive orders? Especially revised FMLA, EPSLA and FFCRA regulations.
• Are internal and external HR audits conducted regularly to ensure compliance with all federal, state, and local employment laws?

Succession and Exit Planning

• When was the last time you took time away from your business as its owner or leader of a division?
• Are you able to take time away knowing you have a team in place to keep running the business profitably and efficiently?
• Do you know what you will do when you retire?
• Have you mapped internal succession paths including yours, so you know where to recruit externally and where to develop internally?

Diversity

• Would the effectiveness of your organization benefit from someone with a different background, mindset, viewpoint, or set of values?
• Have you hired individuals from various backgrounds and educations?
• Have you properly followed Equal Employment Opportunity Laws?
• Are you tracking appropriate diversity data regardless of whether you must file an EEO-1 or related annual report?

Operations/Production

• Are you struggling to achieve complete buy in to LEAN principles or health and safety protocols?
• Do you have employee retention or engagement problems with your production team?
• Are current performance metrics or KPI's aligned with job expectations, job descriptions, and organizational outcomes?

Sales/Marketing

• Do you hire sales professionals based solely on their knowing your product knowledge and customers or have you taken time to identify and assess for successful sales or marketing behaviors?
• Have you worked with your sales, marketing, and production teams to understand and increase collaboration with one another relative to production capacity and sales growth?
• Are your customer facing professionals a positive reflection of your company with customers and industry?

New Products/New Markets

• Do you have new products in the pipeline that will require hiring professionals with a new skill set or knowledge?
• Have you identified new markets to enter that will require hiring professionals with the targeted industry knowledge?

Finance/Accounting

• Is ROI data calculated and retained for HR related projects and initiatives?
• When was the last time you had a valuation of your business or division compared to others?
• Is HR partnering with finance and accounting to develop ROI and payback period models as appropriate for HR related projects and initiatives?
  
  

Source and Photo Courtesy of Greenhouse Grower

Source: Greenhouse Grower