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Getting your HRM priorities right
- HRM basics
- Intelligent HRM
- Your HR policy screened
- Strategic business planning
- Employee satisfaction, more than just today’s trend?
HRM basics
Every day you invest in talent: you constantly attract, employ, nourish and reward employees. The basis of an adequate HRM policy is administrative excellence: the correct and timely processing of salaries, correct and transparent application of social law, clear and unambiguous communication on regulations and procedures. As an HR professional, you cannot leave things to chance and therefore you rely on experts to take on specific administrative tasks. The HR department should excel by … not being noticed.
Intelligent HRM
The more complex an organisation and its environment become, the more important it is to simplify policies. Performance Management? Knowledge Management? Competence Management? As an HR specialist, you are continuously on the look out for opportunities and means to implement tools and management techniques. Sometimes, you may have the feeling that your business operations are not exactly ‘polished’ or ultra modern. However, sophisticated tools are not your top priority. It is far more important that the people in the organisation know how a personal development plan is established and executed; or that they understand how bonus and salary adjustments are performance-related. Recognition, repetition, communication and acceptance are key notions if you want to introduce a system that is transparent and valid for everyone in the organisation.
It is a huge challenge to efficiently align all aspects of your HR policy with the general company strategy. To successfully meet this challenge, you can rely on the expertise of a specialist HR partner. Acerta HR Consulting focuses on competence-driven HRM and helps you with the strategic planning, implementation and integration of instruments and tools. We also verify that the HR solutions are workable both for line managers and their teams. To us, this is the key condition to come to successful HRM. We organise and facilitate workshops for top management and line mangers to determine which aspects in the HR policy are crucial for the global company strategy and whether HR processes need to be adjusted to better comply with the strategy. Acerta helps you to establish high-quality and efficient HR processes (from recruitment, performance management, personal development plans, talent management and outsourcing to employee exits). Additionally, we have competent, flexible resources to help you with this in-company.
Your HR policy screened
The foundation of an adequate HR policy is to ensure timely and correct personnel administration. Once the foundations are in place, it is essential to develop a clear progress plan. Which tasks deserve priority? Which HR activities are crucial to the company strategy? How can the HR department provide support during a reorganisation where the focus needs to shift from a product-oriented to a service business? To what extent can you anticipate culture issues during mergers and what is your role in this? Being proactive is an absolute must.
In the fast-changing corporate world, it is important that the HR department is sufficiently flexible to set new priorities and introduce new ways of thinking. HR managers need to continuously assess and re-invent themselves and their teams. The key question is: are you focussing on the right issues?
A full screening can provide useful insights. By questioning the effectiveness and efficiency of your HR approach, we do not just focus on the strengths and weaknesses of your HR operations, but also offer valuable pointers for the future. This enables you to fine-tune processes and modify HR priorities where needed.
Acerta has worked closely with Prof. Dr. Luc Sels of the K.U. Leuven to develop a practical HR Scan which serves as a navigation tool for your organisation’s HR policy. The HR Scan tests whether your HR policy is fit-for-purpose and efficient. Based on the results, we formulate clear recommendations for the future. At all times, we bear in mind your company’s specific situation, the HR context and internal priorities.
The aim is to conduct an audit of the global HR policy. In a next step, we look more closely at nine subcategories (from recruitment and selection, salary and employment conditions to employee exit).A fixed set of parameters is defined for each of the subcategories. These parameters are the basis of a survey which your HR staff members are asked to complete. The survey enables us to put a score against each of the parameters. The scores define which stage your company is at for each of the subcategories: entry-level, advanced or completed.
Additionally, we give an indication of the ‘level’ of your HR policy. We also perform a SWOT-analysis for each of the subcategories.
The result of this analysis is a synthesis of practical tips and advice for the short, medium or long term. If required, our consultants will be happy to help you to develop a detailed action plan.
Strategic business planning
You can also rely on Acerta HR Consulting to help you to streamline your company strategy. We have developed a dynamic method for strategic business planning based on the work of Robert Fritz, an American business expert. Fritz’s concept of structural and creative thinking is crucial to Acerta’s approach.
Furthermore, we believe that the full commitment of the management team is crucial to successful, strategic planning. Without their commitment, any new strategy would be doomed.
We always start with a structural analysis of the current situation through a combination of interviews and group sessions. Next, a detailed action plan is established. For this, we use the ‘telescope’ method: in a -day off-site workshop each crucial step is magnified and categorised in smaller sub action plans. Developing the action plan is a true group process that has a contagious effect on the team and strengthens internal relationships. This method ensures that the fundamental conditions for successful implementation are set. If required, our consultants can provide further support during the actual implementation process.
Employee satisfaction, more than just today’s trend?
Today, there are numerous nominations and awards that can confirm your reputation as a respected employer. ‘Top Employer’, ‘Investors In People’, ‘People-friendly Company’: employers can participate in a multitude of employee-satisfaction and employee-commitment surveys. In the ‘war for talent’, employee satisfaction is a strategic weapon.
The question is: what do you do with these results? Does employee satisfaction become an extra responsibility for your department, on top of the many administrative responsibilities you already have? Would you like to know exactly how satisfied employees are? How do you approach the concept of employee satisfaction?
For Acerta, ‘the power of people’ is what makes the difference in our knowledge-based society. That is why we believe that employee satisfaction is an integral part of company strategy. We even take it a step further and link it to commitment. Focussing on commitment is not a myth. It is the belief that happy, motivated employees do make the difference… if you can keep them on board.
Generally speaking, business facts and figures and feedback from performance reviews provide useful information on employee satisfaction. However, you can also opt for a more focused approach by relying on Acerta HR Consulting to assist with specific employee-satisfaction research.
We guide you through every step of the research process. To achieve a qualitative analysis, it is important to have suitable and reliable measuring instruments. Our strategy is built around the Loyalty Management Program McMe. This online research tool has been developed by a team of academics, IT professionals and HR consultants, supervised by Pol Coetsier, Professor Emeritus of Human Resources Management at the Universiteit Gent. For more information on McMe, visit http://www.mycosynus.com/PublicWebsite/nl/pers_tevredenheid.html.
Since 2001, McMe has been successfully deployed by many organisations. Using McMe in your business yields many benefits:
- Efficient online surveys via the Internet or intranet, and automated data processing
- Guaranteed privacy
- Timely reporting: the entire process – from start to finish – can be completed in eight weeks
- User-friendly, transparent reporting
- Correct and reliable follow-up measure moments for continuity in results
- Available in Dutch, French and English
In the first stage, employees classify seven factors in order of importance: economic and financial factors, personal growth, job tasks, quality of working life, ambience, colleagues and management, workload and stress (Importance). Then they evaluate whether other organisations would score better, higher or lower for each of these factors (Uniqueness). The higher the product of these two scores, the higher the factor's priority (Urgency). In a last step, the employees indicate their satisfaction level for each factor in a validated survey (Satisfaction). Apart from standard questions based on international scientific research, additional questions can be added to the survey to optimally customise McMe to your business situation and the research objectives. Factors which employees have put at the top of the priority list but that have a low satisfaction score should be addressed by your organisation as a matter of urgency.
The actual survey is an integral part of a structured process. At the start, a steering committee is formed to oversee the process. To guarantee optimal response, the employees are informed about the project. Participation is monitored during the set period in which the survey can be completed. Once the survey results are analysed, a qualitative analysis follows. In a workshop, the steering committee checks how the results connect with the current HR policy. These results are the foundation for the development of a detailed action plan. After the action plans have been decided on, the project enters its most crucial phase. The research results and the recorded action items are presented to and clarified for the employees, with Acerta HR Consulting consultants providing the necessary support. In the final stage of the process, concrete actions are set up and carried out. This is also the time when you decide whether or when you would like to further assess employee satisfaction in your company, to what extent and how frequently.
