As we inch closer to 2020, you may be thinking about how you can make your small business even more successful. Good for you! As you audit what works and what doesn’t in various aspects and departments of your company, you should pay special attention to what’s going on in the realm of HR. In this article, we’ll identify four common human resource challenges many companies are expected to face in 2020, and how human resource management can help you face these challenges head-on.
Benefits Of Human Resource Management: 4 Challenges You Can Overcome With HR
Challenge #1: Attracting & Retaining Talent
Finding and keeping the very best employees will continue to be one of the most important (and most difficult) challenges business leaders will come up against in 2020. Hiring the best people for your company (and then making sure they stick around) is not a new idea, but it is one that continues to grow in importance. The current environment of low unemployment and high competition means HR teams must be on their A-game to attract the best and brightest people; they must also be strategic and consider ways the company can make employees want to stay.
This is where human resource management comes into play. At Genesis, we help small to midsize companies in New England and across the U.S. with their human resource efforts in hiring and onboarding by providing training for things like interviewing candidates, providing best practices for thorough employee onboarding, and much more. While these may seem like foundational components of HR, many businesses don’t have these things—as a result of these lacking hiring and training processes, their employees’ roles are unclear, goals are not achievable, and employees become dissatisfied and leave. And the cycle continues.
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Challenge #2: Providing Competitive Benefits
In addition to providing structure for hiring and onboarding, one of the biggest ways companies can see the value of human resource management for organizational performance is through providing competitive benefits for their employees. Smaller companies are able to offer competitive benefits when they partner with PEOs like Genesis HR. (Wondering what a PEO is? Start here: PEO: The Ultimate Guide (Everything You Need To Know)
Here’s how: Because PEOs are considered large employers, we have access to health plans not offered to small businesses. In addition to providing access to these plans, our PEO also helps you manage the plans and help your employees when needed, giving you back valuable time you can use to grow your business. The numbers prove how much small businesses value this partnership—70% of businesses that partner with PEOs report increased revenues after becoming a PEO client.
Challenge #3: Compliance
Another key issue issue that comes to mind regarding creating value through human resources is compliance. For companies who try to stay compliant on their own, the ever-changing federal and state laws and regulations can be confusing and complex. HR management, like that provided through Genesis HR, gives small businesses confidence, knowing that a team of experts is guiding them through the murky waters of compliance issues.
Compliance In Hiring
As we monitor the human resource landscape, we’re continuing to see new employment regulations and laws popping up across the United States. In regards to recruiting, interviewing, and staffing, the processes and documents employers use may have different requirements (or things that are not allowed) depending on the state. For example, “ban the box” laws, blacklisting laws, and regulations regarding checking and giving references all vary—it’s imperative companies that are recruiting and hiring know and enforce all of these laws.
Compliance For Employees
- In the wake of the “Me Too” and “Time’s Up” movements, we’re seeing many states pass new harassment prevention laws. New policy language and mandatory training on harassment (like in California, New York, Delaware, Illinois, Maine and Connecticut) are things companies must be aware of and in compliance with.
- Pay equity movements across the U.S. continue to pick up steam. Several states have banned companies from asking pre-employment questions about a candidate’s salary history. While talk continues in some states, in others, legislation is already being passed; for example, the Massachusetts Equal Pay Act (MEPA) went into effect on July 1, 2018.
- Marajuana laws are evolving and hitting the books in many states. Both medical and recreational usage laws are popping up, so employers must now navigate how to clarify this in their policies and handbooks, how to handle pre-employment drug testing, as well as how to balance this with safety-sensitive positions that require random drug testing.
- Many states are enacting paid leave and other types of leave laws. These laws vary widely from state-to-state, and some have tax implications as well. For employers, there’s a considerable task list to accomplish between now and when these leave laws are implemented, including posting and notice requirements along with creating policy language (just to name a few). Massachusetts isn’t the only state implementing a paid leave law; other states have specific paid leave laws on the books, and more still are pending.
Challenge #4: Managing Employee Performance
Performance management is one of the most crucial aspects of managing employees, and yet, most business owners and managers don’t take the time to evaluate employee performance on a regular basis. Managing employee performance does not come easily to many managers. Perhaps they were not taught how to evaluate performance, perhaps they are uncomfortable providing feedback, or sometimes it can simply be that managers are too busy to conduct meaningful performance reviews.
Performance management is one of the most crucial aspects of managing employees, and yet, most business owners and managers don’t evaluate employee performance on a regular basis. Click To TweetObviously, employee performance management is important for many reasons, but for Massachusetts employers, it is especially critical in preparation for the upcoming implementation of paid family and medical leave (PFML) in 2021.
Massachusetts PFML is going to be paid for by way of employee and employer taxes. The state is going to determine who whether or not your employees can take a leave of absence from your workplace for up to 26 weeks a year. The statute also calls for presumptive retaliation if an employer takes any adverse action against an employee for as much as 6 months after they return from a leave. Long before we get to January of 2021, when employees are eligible to begin requesting a leave of absence, employers will want to make sure they have been managing employee performance to weed out any poor performers before they receive additional job protections that will inhibit your employment decisions.
Is your company undervaluing the importance of human resource management?
These four major benefits of human resource management aren’t only for huge corporations with hundreds of people on the HR team—they’re accessible to small and midsize businesses like yours right now.
As you prepare to grow your business in 2020, one of the smartest things you can do is to review your current HR game plan and how it can be optimized through a partnership with Genesis HR. We’d love to set up a discovery call with you to learn about your company and your current HR practices, identify your company’s HR challenges, and share the Genesis service model and information about partnering with a PEO.
