11 HR Best Practices That Can Transform Your Workplace

A study states that 7 out of 10 employees would not work for a top company if it had a bad work environment. This highlights the importance of positive employee experience in recruitment and retention. But how will you ensure a positive workplace environment in your organization? By upgrading your HR practices! This blog will help you explore some of the human resources best practices to implement in your organization that can transform your workplace.

HR Practices Overview 

HR practices are strategies that the human resources department of an organization adopts to manage its operations effectively and improve employee experience. They help HR develop procedures and policies that suit the objectives of the organization.

HR best practices are vital because these practices lead to constant improvement, enhance employee productivity, and allow effective talent management, and employee retention. With a high level of job satisfaction, a good employee experience is created. It contributes to a positive organizational reputation. To get a better understanding of the human resources department, you can refer to an online human resource management course.

11 HR Best Practices

When was the last time your organization’s human resources department evaluated its practices? If it has been a long time, you must upgrade the practices your human resources rely on. Here are some of the good HR practices that you can explore as per the requirements of your organization:

1. Enter the New Era with Digitization of the HR Activities

Employ new tools and technologies that align with your business and HR needs. These tools should help with all the activities, such as hiring, onboarding, reporting and analytics, payroll, applicant tracking system, management, and more. Consider using cloud-based HR software for automating manual tasks and allowing HR department professionals to focus more on other productive tasks. 

2. New Technological Trends for Employees 

Employees must also follow the latest technological trends to upgrade and maintain efficiency. With platforms like self-service portals, they can manage their employment information on their own. Further, the controlled use of Artificial Intelligence and machine learning can help employees automate repetitive tasks and boost productivity. 

3. Streamline Hiring Process with Innovation

Recruitment is a tiring process but is essential because every organization wishes to hire the best talent. Video interviews are the best example of new-age hiring methods. They save you time and allow you to select candidates genuinely interested in working for your company. Internships with possible job offers attract several potential candidates who do not have the experience but possess the desired zeal to learn and enhance their skills. 

4. Make Onboarding and Training Effective with Opportunities to Learn

Several employees seek to work at an organization that provides them with opportunities to grow. With effective onboarding and training programs, you can project the effort of your organization to align with their expectations. Ensure you train your employees in skills that align with the work requirements of your organization. You can also optimize training costs by training the interns and selecting the full-time employees from among them. 

5. Provide a Safe Environment with Prioritization of Workplace Security

One of the major concerns of the employees is workplace safety. As an employer, you must ensure your employees have a safe working environment. It is one of the essential HR best practices. Safety and security of the workplace are enhanced by adopting basic hygiene practices, taking breaks to avoid fatigue, and having strict policies against harassment.  

6. Empathy is the Key to Handle Layoffs

The reasons for a layoff include changes in the structure of the workforce, financial crunches, changes in management, etc. What is important is how you handle these layoffs. Remember to show empathy towards the employee but also maintain your stance over the decision related to their termination. Conduct an exit interview to analyze possible areas of improvement and areas where your organization is doing well. 

7. Get a Comprehensive Perspective with 360 Feedback System

Feedback is a requirement for formulating new strategies or reinventing older ones. HR can get unbiased feedback with a 360 feedback system where anonymous feedback is given to employees by their peers, managers, and at times, by customers. It helps the HR to get a comprehensive perspective and better understand the developmental requirements.

8. Formal Contracts to Provide Assurance of Job Security

As an employer, you want your employees to be at their best productive selves and provide good results. But how will they be if they are in a constant dilemma over their employment status? One of the good HR practices is to formulate a professional contract with all the details related to the employment of the candidate. It provides much-needed assurance to the employees that their job is secure for the stipulated time.  

9. Avoid and Resolve Violations to Ensure HR Compliance

With simple compliance training programs, you can educate your recruits about the laws and regulations of your organization, and the local, national, and international legislations specific to your industry that they need to know.

Additionally, you can appoint a designated person to keep track of changing laws and regulations and inform the HR department about the same.  

10. Motivate Employees with Incentives and Competitive Compensation

Working on similar tasks can be monotonous for many employees, and they may lose their zeal and become unproductive over time. To motivate your employees you can introduce incentive-based tasks or competitive compensations. These compensations include company discounts, additional leaves, stock options, etc. 

11. Allow Hybrid Work Opportunities for More Productivity

One of the transformative changes in the work culture after the pandemic was the reliance on the work-from-home model. A study states that there is a 47% increase in productivity while following the work-from-home model. But now that we are returning to the in-office work culture, employees will take time to get accustomed to it. Therefore, a way to ease the transition is to introduce a hybrid work model in your organization with a remote work option available for some days to the employees. It will also help increase the diversity of your workforce and reduce gender and disability-based inequality.

HR Practices vs HR Activities

You will often find human resources practices and HR activities mentioned in the same space but do not confuse between the two. The practices work closely with the business plan of the organization and involve strategic operations such as planning and organizing. Whereas, the HR activities involve daily operations of an HR department. 

Examples of HR best practices include setting goals and objectives for the HR department and measuring the effect of the program. Examples of HR activities include job posting, recruitment, training, employee and labor relations, payroll, attendance, etc.

Conclusion

You can include these HR practices in your organization to prove better employee experience and align the HR department’s goals to those of the organization. Remember, these practices are different from the HR activities that are simply the operations of the department. To gain in-depth knowledge of these operations, you can refer to an HR specialization course. 

Did you find this blog informative? Share which of these practices aligns with your organization’s goals.