Being a human resources (HR) professional takes a unique skill set because the HR department acts as a mediator between upper management and staff, bridging the gap between each. Despite this challenging role, making mistakes can quickly ruin your career in HR if you’re not paying attention to the consequences. This article will highlight some of the most common mistakes every HR should avoid.
Not Performing an Employee Background Check
One of the most important parts of hiring an employee is ensuring they have no criminal past or other undesirable histories. Failing to do this can be a significant risk for your business, even more so if you operate in a highly regulated industry. It’s essential that you thoroughly screen all applicants before bringing them on board.
Hiring a company like Triton Canada to perform background checks on prospective employees is a great way to reduce risk and save time. With years of experience and access to thousands of records, they can provide reliable and comprehensive background checks.
Poor Hiring
Hiring can be challenging if you’re doing it alone. You may find yourself going through the interview process countless times before getting the ideal candidate for the job. However, it’s important to remember that hiring the wrong person can significantly impact your HR career. You must be careful when evaluating candidates and selecting the best fit for the position. This means considering all aspects, such as education, experience, skills, and personality.
To avoid the hassle and mistakes when hiring, create a plan like an HR hiring checklist detailing what you’re looking for. Then dig deep to find the candidate who’ll demonstrate these qualities in the best way possible
Outdated Employee Handbook
An outdated employee handbook risks your business, as this is where most HR mistakes occur. Therefore, you must build your employee handbook and update it every year. You can also have all your employees sign a statement that they received the handbook copy and will abide by the policies listed. Managers should also know their legal limits regarding day-to-day management, hiring, and terminations.
Poor Communication
Effective communication is crucial to any company’s success. This can be difficult to achieve as most HRs easily get lost in their work, forgetting that they’re leading people who need to hear from them. Poor communication may lead to bad performance, low workers engagement, errors, poor morale, and turnover. Try scheduling at least weekly meetings with your employees where you discuss priorities, expectations, successes, and challenges to ensure everyone is on the right track.
Failure to Quickly Act On Employee Problems
Dismissing employee issues is easy, especially if they don’t appear serious. However, doing so can easily affect your employees’ engagement leading to absenteeism, more tension, and underperformance. Address any problem in your team or team members immediately after it occurs. In addition, provide them with whatever they need to resolve the issue. If the problem persists, do a performance improvement process or progressive discipline.
Failure to Offer Manager Training
Training managers can be challenging, especially if they’re older than you. However, doing so can help them become thoughtful and more productive, positively affecting your employees’ productivity. While you’re responsible for your employee’s performance, you’re also responsible for that of their leaders. Ensure your managers understand your company’s ethics, core values, HR rules, and hiring process.
As an HR professional, you have a lot of responsibilities and need to be aware of the risks associated with each step. It would be best if you strived to stay up-to-date on all policies and regulations, extend support to managers when needed, and always have a practical employee handbook. Doing these will help prevent any costly HR mistakes from happening.
Authored by Martin William, Kamil Web Solutions