Putting the Human in HR
Human Resources professionals have the task of managing the most important asset a company has: its people. This area is about monitoring processes, functions, and policies for employees. They make sure that the relationship between employer and employee is a fair exchange of compensation for performance. However, it’s not that simple and the process evolves with society, technology, global market trends, and the economy.
The reality for many people is that they don’t like going to work, some “hate it”, feel very uncomfortable, and want to leave the office (or turn off their laptop) as soon as possible. This happens mainly for 3 reasons: low pay for work required, unkind or disrespectful bosses/colleagues, and cumbersome or extremely difficult work duties. So, the question is, how can HR professionals make work suck less or not suck at all? A simple answer to this is, we need to put the HUMAN in Human Resources. Here are some ways of doing so:
Humanize- this means to make it human. We have to stop treating employees as interchangeable and disposable objects and start treating them as human beings. We need to be more sympathetic and offer more work/life balance benefits to show employees that we care about their overall well-being. This makes the organization more human and creates a better environment during their hiring and incorporation processes.
Understanding- we need to understand how to work together. We need to understand the job duties we require our employees to perform; think of Undercover Boss, the reality show about the boss who pretends to be a “base” employee but ends up learning a lot about his employees and the real jobs they perform. Your staff is smarter and more capable than you think, and they may have great ideas to help improve the company as a whole.
Manage- everyone needs structure. We must stop thinking that employees need babysitters and realize that they need management. Employees need development, learning, constructive criticism, and proper direction. This gives them purpose and people feel better when there is a purpose in their work duties.
Analyze- bosses and managers should take the time to interact and involve their employees to analyze work and labor. We need to audit the work and the employees to determine the characteristics and requirements needed to be successful.
Nurture — By nurturing we mean to educate, to train, and to bring up. In our organizations, we need to onboard and train our employees properly and teach them to never stop learning. Once we hire an employee it doesn’t mean they’ll stay with us forever, if they don’t feel well treated and if they don’t feel like they’re growing, they’ll likely leave.
In conclusion, an employee-employer relationship is like marriage, successful ones are the ones who have great communication, where both feel well treated and appreciated, where we feel we’re supported and where we feel the other cares about our growth. Make sure you’re creating the work environment where you’d be happy to work because when you take care of employees, employees will take care of your business.
