Human Resource planning to grow your business[In 2020]

Your organization may start with just you being there doing coding, sales, receiving customer helpline calls, writing checks, and whatnot.
Like most others, you may have started this business with the dream of having a huge empire with many employees and customers. But as you grow into a company of multiple employees, it’s not easy to manage them.
But I will guide you divide this tedious task into small doable steps so that you can make an early human resource plan for your business.

What’s here for me?

1. Define your work
2. Organizational Structure
3. How to hire?
4. Office Culture
5. Successor Planning
6. Retaining Talent
7. FAQs

Define your work

In my years of experience of working with startups, I have seen that founders love their companies so much that they want to handle every aspect of it. From deciding growth plans to fixing the fan at the office.
They want to micro-manage everything. This level of passion for there dream is commendable. But the fact is that you have only 24 hours in a day. If you spend your time doing these pity things, they won’t give any great results.
To make use of your time in the best possible way you should carefully look into your business and see which parts really need your intervention.
Which part of the organizational work is focused on the most important aspects like company growth or organization mission, etc. and also aligns with your skills. Those are the parts where you should give most of your time in a day.

Organizational structure

This is a method by which work is distributed in an organization. It allows small groups of people to work together, each doing their individual functions for the task in hand.
Mostly each group is made on the basis of function they do(such as HR, technical, finance, etc.).
Startups mostly have, people overlapping into multiple roles due to a lack of resources in the beginning. As the company grows they try defining particular roles to each employee. Make a probable organizational structure for your business on a large paper for the near future.
Write down each position and number of people required at that position also write their job description. What will be their specific tasks in the organization? What skills are required for that position?
For example, if you want to hire a web developer. They should know PHP, JavaScript, HTML, CSS, or whatever another stack you are using for your website.

How to hire?

Hiring is an essential part of any growing organization. Whether you are hiring your first employee or bringing in a new member in your team. If done right, it can transform your business.
you may be very dedicated to your business but if other people in your team are not putting enough effort, it will be next to impossible for your company to flourish.
Just a not-so-fun fact, it has been seen very often that a wrong hire in your team can have a negative impact on your total work environment. So it is very important to hire the right candidates which would eventually result in long term benefits.

Few steps which would help you hire are:

• Build a strong brand: Great brand building helps in positioning in peoples’ minds because people are not just your probable customers but also qualified and skilled candidates to be hired.
  According to a Glassdoor survey, 69 percent of candidates are likely to apply for a job in your firm and if you actively respond to reviews, timely update the company’s profiles, and share updates on company culture and work environment.
  
• Better job descriptions: While posting for jobs, do a little research before writing the job description. It should align with the type of candidate you are looking to hire. Also, be specific about their role after joining.
  
• Use digital media in your favor: Use digital media and the ongoing trends in the hiring process. Moreover, one simple thing you can do is to check the social media handle of your prospective employees. Check if he/she is the type of candidate you are looking for.
  
• Be quick and responsive: If you seem to be interested in a candidate act upon it quickly. Complete the hiring process because you are not the only one looking for great candidates.
  And if for some reason the decision is taking a long time, keep following up with the candidate. Respond to their queries. Keep them updated throughout the process.
  
• Candidate should fit in your company culture: Although the right skill set seems to be the most important factor while hiring a candidate but the fact is that if the candidate is a little offtrack in terms of skill ones he joins your company, they can easily catch up.
  But if he does not fit into your company culture, developing a new personality for them won’t be really easy.
  
• Evolve your hiring process: Evolve your hiring processes over time else you will be left behind.
  Make a note of the right credentials according to your experience needed in the candidate to do the job. Don’t rely on the old set credentials.
  For example, while hiring a web developer, rather than looking at their degree, look for experience. Ask for projects they have worked upon.

Office Culture

For a new organization, it is very important to consciously decide an office culture that aligns with the company goals, and the type of business you are into.
For an old organization, it is important to see if they are going the right track in terms of culture. The culture you create within the company is what makes it unique. In the long run, it sets the traditions, behaviors, interactions, and attitudes of the people in the company.

What I have seen is, a lot of times office culture starts forming naturally if it is not defined well in the minds of the upper management. And that sometimes turns out quite ugly.

Importance of positive work culture:

• Attracts talent: It gives you an edge over other companies because great candidates are attracted to good work culture companies.
• Happy employees: Employees spend half of there day in the office. Thus it is your duty to give them a happy and stress-free environment.
• Increases performance: A positive vibe in the office boosts the individual performance of employees which in turn increases the overall performance of the firm.
• Employees become brand advocates: If your employee is happy working in your company. They will obviously go out and talk good things about you.

I guess these are enough reasons for you to spend time in your company culture and make it a happy place!

Successor Planning

I have seen this many times. No matter how well is your organization doing currently. It can go on a downfall in no time if only the current key members of the company(even you) decides to leave for any reason. This is why it is very important to do successor planning in advance and build candidates who can take up the vacant leadership(even yours) roles whenever necessary.

Few simple ways to implement it would be:

• Cross-train employees to develop their skills
• Impart company knowledge to your employees on a regular basis.
• Identify some bright employees and make them work directly under specific leaders in the organization, so that they get a first-hand experience of that work.

Retaining talent

Imagine, you hire a candidate, give them the best of practical training in their respective field, only to find out later in a few months they are sitting in front of you for the last time in an exit interview.
That’s not the scene you would like to see in real. Isn’t it? But if a few simple things are not taken care of in an organization, this is what ends up happening with the good candidates.
And if suppose you can see this trend in your organization for some time, it is high time to act else it won’t take long for all the good candidates to go away.

So the question is what can you do? Some simple things could be:

• Help them reach their full potential: Provide education and provide opportunities to grow within the organization both activity-wise and financially. In short no one wants to be stagnant.
• Provide them extended benefits: Not just financial benefits. Also, try to understand what else they need and give them those perks like stock options, healthcare coverage, incentives, travel opportunities, etc.
• Be transparent: They should feel like an important part of the organization and not just one more resource in the company.
  This can be easily done by communicating with them on a regular basis, keep them informed about where the organization is moving, and more importantly, take inputs from them and act on it.

In the end, I would like to add, don’t just go only by whatever is written above or in any other resource for that matter. Be empathetic and look at it, what are the loopholes in your organization for an employee and try fixing them to whatever extent your current resources permit.

FAQs

Santosh Kumar Gupta