A Modern HR Blueprint for Managing People, Platforms, and Principles

Human resources teams often have a wide range of important job functions to attend to. In addition to their essential duties, they must help build and strengthen the company’s culture. They are also responsible for coordinating employee benefits administration, handling payroll, and assisting new employees in settling in and succeeding in their new roles.

Balancing all of these tasks often requires the right mix of people, technology investments, and guiding business principles. This ensures that HR teams remain actively engaged in helping different teams in the business achieve success while also leveraging helpful tools and policies to support them along the way.

However, reaching this point requires the use of a wide range of strategies.

Cultivating a High-Performing Workforce

1. Improving Recruitment Efforts

When trying to assemble an optimal team for the business, most HR teams quickly learn that simply offering a competitive paycheck isn’t always enough to seal the deal. Because there is so much competition from other businesses when reviewing a pool of potential job candidates, any additional benefits or perks your organization provides can often make a significant difference.

Given this, it’s essential to explore various ways to make your packages more distinctive. For example, you may want to consider offering more generous amounts of health coverage, introducing various wellness initiatives, or allowing for flexible working arrangements.

2. Proactive Skill Development and Future-Proofing

Industries are changing regularly, and it’s important that your teams have the ability to adapt and grow in the roles they’re in. This means regularly seeking opportunities where they can step out of their comfort zones and develop their capabilities in the long term.

Try to keep a close watch on various industry trends while investing in different training and professional development opportunities as they come along. This not only helps all employees to improve their day-to-day work efficiencies, but it can also help develop the skills they’ll need to tackle new business challenges as they come up in the future.

3. Boosting Employee Retention and Engagement

Losing great quality employees can create a large negative ripple effect for the business. The productivity level of other team members is often affected as they take on additional workloads, and employees can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the thought of having too much work to handle.

One of the most effective ways to reduce excessive employee turnover is to create a working environment that feels supportive and regularly recognizes the contributions of current employees.

Having a strong benefits package in place is an effective way to achieve this. When employees know that their employer regularly looks for ways to support their family’s health or is willing to extend generous paid time off to help them recharge, it makes them much less inclined to search for employment elsewhere.

Integrating Technology for Smarter HR Operations

1. Leveraging Technology for Simplified HR Management

Modern technology has become an essential element that HR teams rely on to help manage their increasing workloads. Best-of-breed BenAdmin platforms are a significant investment that helps teams streamline and automate their numerous HR tasks, while taking a substantial amount of pressure off their shoulders.

For example, these platforms can simplify everything from open enrollment to centralizing employee information make it much more efficient to handle all benefits administration processes.

These tools also provide employees with multiple self-service support options that allow them to research different coverage options and compare plans on their own time. This creates a huge efficiency win for everyone. With fewer routine questions to answer, your HR professionals are free to focus their time on more strategic work, like ensuring compliance with ACA reporting or planning for the next enrollment cycle.

2. Essential HR Tech Stack Components

Another impactful way to help streamline your HR operations is to make sure all your core systems are able to communicate efficiently with one another. This includes making sure your HRIS systems can easily exchange information with your payroll providers and benefits platforms without requiring additional manual intervention.

Creating this seamless data exchange means your HR teams will no longer need to hop back and forth between multiple platforms while manually copying over important employee details. This not only simplifies information management but also improves accuracy and maintains data privacy standards.

Building a Foundation of Trust and Integrity

1. Establishing Clear Communication

Being able to establish trust with your team is critical to building a cohesive and collaborative workforce. However, to achieve this, it’s essential to create an environment where all employees feel comfortable sharing their ideas with one another and company leadership.

Another part of building a strong foundation of trust and integrity with employees is to be transparent with them wherever possible. This includes providing clear guidelines on how everyone’s work contributes to the bigger picture. Taking this approach makes it easier for employees to look at the work they’re doing with more value and helps to keep them more engaged day-to-day.

2. Empowering Employees Through Collaboration and Autonomy

Although you may have sourced a team of talented professionals, you’re only able to extract that talent successfully if you place them in an environment where they feel comfortable taking risks and stepping out of their comfort zones.

When you’re able to create this type of safe and encouraging job culture, it helps each one of your staff members to feel more confident in their abilities and bring more passion into the workplace.

3. Championing Ethical Practices

When an employee shares their personal details for things like payroll, benefits, or onboarding, they are placing a great deal of trust in your company. Upholding that trust requires more than good intentions. It means implementing strong cybersecurity protocols and maintaining strict controls over who can access sensitive data.

By committing to these practices, businesses can build much more trust from their employees and more respect as they go forward.

Optimize Your HR Workflows

Your HR team has a lot on its plates. But by following the guidelines discussed, you’ll ensure they have the right systems and processes in place to help continue supporting and building up your teams.

About the Author

Frank Mengert continues to find success by spotting opportunities where others see nothing. As the founder and CEO of ebm, a leading provider of employee benefits solutions. Frank has built the business by bridging the gap between insurance and technology-driven solutions for brokers, consultants, carriers, and employers nationwide.