February 1, 2023 • 25 mins
Here we cover some of the basics of HR that can have a huge impact on the operation of your company and are many times overlooked when businesses are trying to keep up with the day to day business. You will get a better understanding of how to cover your HR basics and set your company up for success.
Your HR Problem Solver host is Mark Mitford, a strategic HR leader who is business and HR focused. Mark is a management team advisor with 20+ years working as an HR executive in mid-size to Fortune 50 companies. He brings in depth, hands on experience successfully leading and advising company and business leaders through all life cycle stages. Mark is viewed as a key advisor to C-Level Executives and has strengths in Improving Company Culture, Performance Management, Compensation Benchmarking, Employee Engagement, Talent Management, Leadership Development, Coaching, Succession Planning and Mergers and Acquisitions.
During his career, Mark has successfully held HR executive positions in companies such as PepsiCo, Ericsson, Nortel, Telmar, Texas Instruments and Safeco. Mark has also worked for private equity backed organizations, S Corporations, and publicly traded firms and has lived and worked extensively overseas. He has led several Enterprise wide transformations including Cultural Change and IT transformational change at Fortune 500 companies. He holds two Masters’ degrees, one in Organizational Psychology, and an MBA in Strategy and International Management.
In 2013, Mark transitioned from a Corporate HR career to start his own HR Strategic consulting company, HR Catalyst Consulting with the goal of helping small to mid-market companies in growth or change and in need of Human Capital leadership to drive their continued growth and success. You can reach us through our website – hrcatalystconsulting.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello every, everyone.
My name is Mark Mitford, and I'mthe managing director and
founder of HR CatalystConsulting.
I started the firm in 2013, sowe're celebrating our 10 years,
uh, 10th anniversary this year.
And our focus and purpose is tohelp companies like yourself
actually help you to create andimplement a people strategy
(00:27):
within your business to be ableto support your growth and be
able to help you scale yourbusiness to that next level of
success.
So with that, let's just goahead and jump into our slides.
What we're go gonna talk about,as I mentioned a couple of
seconds ago, is the 10 mostcommon HR mistakes for small
business.
And we have run into this withour clients over the years.
(00:49):
Within 10 years, we have workedwith hundreds and hundreds of
clients, and it's amazing to seethat there are a very, there's a
lot of common commonality andcorrelation to these 10 biggest
things that they get, um, thatthey really struggle with from
an HR perspective and that wecan help them with.
So with that, I'm just gonnajump right into the slides here
so we can get started.
(01:10):
In most cases, these are veryunintentional mistakes, but what
we do is we actually act asfractional strategic HR
consultants.
And so we're here to help thembecause these mistakes are
usually not ones that areintentional, they're very
unintentional, and they just misjust unknowingly stray from HR
(01:31):
laws or HR best practices.
And this is, again, somethingthat's done very innocently, but
it can really come back toeither hurt you, uh, from a
legal perspective or also justnot be able to help you optimize
your business.
So number one of the, uh, the HRmistakes, and this is one we see
time and time again withclients, is really the, the poor
(01:54):
or inconsistent type of hiringand selection process.
Most of the time, managers andleaders within the organization,
whether it's uh, 50 employees oreven three, 400 employees,
they've never been taught a veryconsistent way to actually
interview people.
And there's no consistentselection process for hiring
(02:15):
people.
And a lot of cases it's donevery haphazardly, very
disjointed.
So what we try to help with isreally creating interview guys
that are, that are, uh,consistent that'll ask the
baseline questions and put thesein tools and templates.
And that also we can even trainmanagers on how to interview
successfully the right questionsto ask, how to take the
(02:39):
appropriate amount of notes, howto keep things like that going.
Because if you don't have aconsistent hiring process, guess
what, sometimes you will be ableto find a perfect fit, but most
of the time you won't.
And so what you'll run into isyou'll end up to, you might be
hiring A players, B players, Cplayers, and sometimes D players
(02:59):
.
So it's really, really importantfor you to have a hiring process
that is consistent, because ifyou're not bringing in the right
type of candidates in the doorfor day one, then chances are
within three months, six months,12 months, a lot of those people
will, will either leave oryou'll actually be looking at,
uh, terminating them becausethey really were not the right
(03:22):
fit for the organization.
So having a proper andconsistent hiring sign selection
process is really, reallycritical.
The next one we run into is alsoaround missing vague or outdated
job descriptions.
And it's truly amazing.
Sometimes job descriptionseither have not been made ever
(03:43):
within an organization and as anorganization grows, of course
it's simple when it's five or 10employees because everybody
pretty much intuitively knowswhat everyone else does.
But as the company grows fromfive to 10 to 20 to 30 to a
hundred employees, you find thata lot of times people are still
doing very similar roles, butyou in some cases, worst cases,
(04:08):
you have three or four peopledoing exactly the same thing and
they, they're stepping on eachother's toes, kind of tripping
over each other.
There's not a common flow howbusiness processes work.
So even though it sounds sofundamental, we all know what we
do.
Market's not that big a deal.
Well, when it gets down to it,we help companies that are, uh,
(04:29):
working with a company right nowit's about 12 or 15 employees
where they're going back andredoing their job descriptions
because they found as they grewand they've, and they, and they
continue to grow, they'refinding a lack of, in lack of
consistency and also a lot ofduplication of what people do.
So having some of the basics,and again, we can help if that's
(04:50):
a needed service for you, ishelping you either retool you on
how to equip you to do jobdescriptions that are crisp and
concise and or we can help youdo that or we can do those for
you if you needed to, but, oryou can do those yourself.
So your call.
But definitely having jobdescriptions that are current
and accurate is critical.
(05:12):
It's also very critical as yougrow.
But because some positions couldgo from hourly to salary
positions, and that's reallycritical because in a lot of the
companies we work with, there'sa lot of confusion as to when
you convert somebody over tosalaried versus an hourly
position, and that if that's notdone correctly on a widespread
basis, that could lead you intoa tremendous amount of hot water
(05:33):
legally with the Department ofLabor and also cost you a lot of
money.
So it's really critical to getthese right.
The next thing, and, andsometimes this is one of the
biggest things that we focus onand we help clients work
through, is the lack of trainingor development or equipping your
people, managers, your leadersto be successful.
(05:53):
I, I used to work years andyears ago when I started my HR
career, I worked with very namebrand companies that were in the
Fortune 500 space, and theyliterally poured millions and
millions of dollars into theirleadership development,
succession planning, leadershipcoaching.
Of course, in a company thatmakes 5,000,020 million, that's
(06:16):
not feasible to pour millions ofdollars into coaching people,
but you still need to equip yourmanagers to be successful.
It's just like if you tellsomebody to do a, a, a critical
job.
An organization we're workingwith now is, um, an, an
organization that has a lot ofwelders.
If you teach somebody, if youtell somebody to go weld
something, here's a weldingtorch, here's some gloves and
(06:39):
here's some steel, good luck,it's not gonna be successful and
there's a great chance they'regonna really injure themselves,
worst case or they're just notgonna do a, a good quality job.
Same thing with people,managers, it's a skill.
Managers can be turned intoleaders and can be very
competent in what they do.
But unless you equip them withthe tools and the basics there
(07:02):
of how to give and receivefeedback, how to do disciplinary
actions in a respectful andtrustful ways, how to build a
proper team, how to create trustin the organization, unless you
equip people to do that throughsome sort of training mechanism,
the chances are they're notgonna be successful.
Worst case is they're gonnasuboptimize their team, they're
(07:24):
gonna have a lot of employeeturnover.
The number one reason, which isreally critical, the number one
reason people leave anorganization spend the same for
probably 10, 20 years.
They don't even have a trust, alot of trust or respect for
their manager, their directmanager.
So it doesn't matter how goodyour leadership team is, your C
level team is, if you do nothave a lot of trust and respect
(07:47):
for your first level manager,your boss, then the chance of
that person leaving is much,much greater.
And a lot of times it's done.
It's not done because the personhas something out for that
individual, it's done becausethey've never been equipped and
never given the tools to besuccessful in the people manager
(08:08):
role.
So equipping people to developtheir people managers is also a
wonderful thing.
We have a modular program that'svery cost effective that we be
happy to talk to you with, ifthat made sense to give some of
the basic tools.
Just be thinking about any, anykind of a skill, any trade
needs, tools, it doesn't matterif you're a knowledge worker or
(08:29):
you work as a carpenter or awelder or you, um, you work in
the construction industry, youstill need basic tools to do
your job.
That's very similar toleadership.
You need basic tools to be ableto do your job successful.
So make sure you focus ongetting that done for your
people managers as soon aspossible.
(08:50):
HR mistake number four, nothaving a performance review
process that's formalized, thatis really tick and tied, that's
consistent because we, and, andI may sound like I'm beating a
drum here, but a lot of thecompanies we deal with as our
clients, they have never done aformal review process.
These things are either reviewsare either non-existent or they
(09:14):
are done in a very poor fashion,very informally.
So some managers do them and,but there's no documentation.
Some managers don't do them cuzthey don't wanna meet with the
employees.
And so there's nothing around aformalized process, a cycle of
doing re reviews on a, excuseme, nothing about doing reviews
(09:36):
on a quarterly process,semi-annual, annual basis.
Nothing about a formalizedprocess to give and receive
feedback to employees who aredoing great in some areas, but
also need development in otherareas.
So making sure you have a reviewprocess that's systematized,
that's done on a quarterly,semi-annual or annualized basis
(09:56):
is critical.
So it's one of those things too.
And a lot of the organizationswe run into, they're either done
inconsistently or they're notdone at all.
And that's not a good thing forboth the company or the employee
who deserves to receive thefeedback.
Number five, for HR mistakes, noemployee onboarding process For
(10:17):
new hires, that's so criticalthat the onboarding, let's
define the onboarding processfirst and foremost.
So onboarding an our mind isabout a three month, 12 week
process to onboard somebody.
If you do a bat onboardingprocess, a lot of companies say,
well, onboarding, I do that inday one.
We do all the fo we do all ofthe paperwork, we take the
(10:41):
employee out to lunch with themanager and the team, we show
them where their desk is andgive them, get'em on their,
their computer or where theirwork area is and that's, that's,
then they're onboarded, right?
And I'm like, absolutely not.
Remember I just said a couple ofseconds ago, onboarding is a 12
week very intentional process tohelp that person to in become
(11:03):
integrated into the culture ofthe company.
And without that process, thechance of that individual, that
employee leaving the company isabout four to five times greater
within the first year than ifyou actually have an onboarding
process.
So think about an onboardingprocess, absolutely, it takes
(11:24):
time.
Everything you do takes time.
If you're trying to work out, ifyou're trying to lose 30 pounds
for the new year, we're in thebeginning.
We're in January, 2023 rightnow.
If you're trying to lose 25pounds this year as a goal over
the next six months or whateverthe number is, and you're like,
well, I'm just going to not eatas much and maybe I'll go for a
(11:47):
walk occasionally, if that'swhat your game plan is, I'd
almost guarantee that's notgonna be successful.
If you don't have a a game planto do that, it's not gonna be su
a successful outcome.
Very similarly, if you don'thave a temp, if you don't have a
process to do onboarding, I'llguarantee you that the process,
you're, that employee withinthree months is still going to
feel like worst case, they'regoing to feel like they're not
(12:10):
part of the organization andthey're a person who's looking
on the outside ver looking intoan organization as if they were
somebody on the outside of thecompany.
And what you wanna do in theonboarding process, give or
receive feedback, get thatperson trained, the sooner you
can get them to a hundredpercent productivity, the
better.
And that is directly correlatedto having a good onboarding
(12:31):
process.
Again, we have tools, we havetemplates that can help you
throughout that process.
If you'd like to discuss thatwith us, just, um, we'll, we'll
have our contact information atthe end of the, um, uh, this,
uh, this podcast or info ourthanks.
Next HR mistake halfway through.
So, uh, kind of, uh, kind ofwe're at the hub now, and number
(12:52):
six, lacking an employeehandbook that's legally
compliant and updated.
Again, I hate to say horrorstories, but we see handbooks.
Probably the worst case I'veseen is we worked on a handbook
two years ago that was dated1999 and it was pretty much
garbage.
I hate to say folks, but most ofthe information in there, the LI
(13:12):
requirements, even just theverbiage, the vacation policy or
p t o, uh, the company holidays,everything in there was
outdated.
So this should be kind of like acompany bible, you know, small B
of course on the, on the Bible.
But this is your go-to formanagers and employees around
(13:32):
probably 90, 95% of the normalHR processes within the company.
If you haven't had, we recommendevery two to three years you get
your handbook updated and, um,because it's just a good thing,
not only from a legalperspective, but depending on
your size.
Also, there's different legalrequirements that have to occur
(13:54):
when you had 50 employees or ahundred employees, which needs
to be embedded into yourhandbook.
And there we've strengthened alot of handbooks around things
like, um, like code of conductand ethics in the last couple of
years.
Also, social media, because somany people, especially if you
have a younger workforce, theydo everything through social
(14:16):
media platforms.
We put in a lot of things aroundsocial media and the dos and
don'ts of social media foremployees, because that's really
critical.
So bottom line is make sure youhave a legally, um, uh, a legal
handbook here, because that'sgonna be really, really
critical, critical for you.
Um, HR mistake number, um,number seven is really not
(14:40):
having a set and a formalizeddisciplinary process for low
performing employees.
Every employee, every company,excuse me, has lower performing
employees.
I don't care if you have 10employees, you have some that
are better and some that areworse.
And what happens is, uh, youknow, I, I use this quite a bit
(15:01):
and when I talk to audiences ordo a presentation for a group,
if I had a nickel for every timea manager came in and said, I
wish I had terminated thisperson six months ago or 12
months ago because they havebeen consistently a poor
performer, and they would comeinto me or they talk to us now
and say, well, I want toterminate this person, mark,
(15:22):
because they really do not do agood job.
I'm like, okay, have you evertalked to them about them not
doing a good, good job?
Have you given them specificfeedback about not doing a good
job?
Have you actually written themup and given them a formalized
document to say they might beterminated if they don't do a
better job?
And the answers are, no, no, andno.
(15:45):
Then I'm like, well, timeout.
It's not fair to the employee.
You have to let them knowthey're not doing a good job.
They may have not been mentoredor trained by a person who was
doing a good job.
If you do a mentoring program ora development program,
especially as we mentionedearlier about onboarding, make
sure that person is teamed upwith somebody who is one of your
(16:08):
better performers.
Because if they don't learn froma good performer, guess what,
then it's almost like learning anew skill.
If you are learning fromsomebody, I use the analogy of
golf, I'm a frustrated golfer ona good day, if I learned how to
play golf from somebody who'svery bad at golf, guess what
kind of a golfer I'm gonna be?
Chances are I'm gonna be a badgolfer because they're teaching
(16:30):
me all of their mistakes andthen I am mimicking their
mistakes or copying theirmistakes.
So making sure that you have adisciplinary process for low
performing employees is criticalbecause that person may not know
they were trained by somebodywho wasn't a great employee.
So they may just be doing whatthey do and they're copying
(16:51):
their mistakes.
Make sure that you give theperson the chance, give them
specific feedback.
Don't tell'em you just need towork harder.
What does that mean?
How does working hardercorrelate to me doing something
differently and improving anarea where I'm bad at?
It doesn't.
I can speculate all day long,but it doesn't.
So bottom line on disciplinaryaction, making sure you have a
(17:15):
process that is a sequenceprocess, a consistent process
for low performers, becausequite often with a company who's
a, they have a lower performingemployee, guess what, if they
put'em on a coaching plan ordisciplinary plan, quite often
they will turn around.
Sure, will some people getterminated?
Yes, they will.
(17:35):
That's just the reality of thefact.
But in some cases, that personwill actually, within a year or
two, they may become one of yourbest employees and you've
already invested, depending onthe job, you might have invested
in tens of thousands of dollarsto get that person trained.
You don't want to just terminatethem randomly or haphazardly.
You want to give'em a chance toimprove.
(17:57):
And you also need to be there asa leader.
You need to be there to coachthem, to actually show them what
good looks like within yourorganization.
So having this process isreally, really critical.
HR mistake number eight, no exitinterview process for exiting
employees.
It's really critical.
It sounds so basic, but when aperson leaves asking them why
(18:20):
they're leaving, because chancesare they will tell you very
specifically why they'reactually leaving the
organization.
So why not go ahead and actuallygive'em the courtesy of talking
to them, because you mightactually find out some really
good information while I leftbecause of my manager, I left
because of your, I didn't thinkthe pay was that competitive
(18:42):
anymore, and the job I'm goingto is gonna pay me 30% more.
Um, I left because I felt likethe company really lacked of,
um, lacked direction and lackeda growth strategy.
Those could be all things thatcome out and gleaned from an
exit interview have, ideally, ifyou have an HR person on staff,
(19:03):
have them conduct the exitinterview process.
If you don't have an HR personon staff, then um, maybe you
know somebody else who's a, nottheir boss of course, but
somebody else in theorganization who can be
objective.
A finance person sometimes, youknow, HR runs through finance,
the finance department.
But making sure you do thisprocess, um, because it's
(19:25):
amazing the gle the amount ofinformation you can glean from
doing an exit interview.
And it can be, it can be like 10minutes or 15 minutes long, have
a consistent process for that,as I've mentioned before and
everything else we're doinghere.
But ask them a couple ofquestions and in most cases
they'll be happy to share.
And if you, and if you do this,that person may come back to the
(19:47):
organization saying, Hey, theyasked me my opinion and I
appreciated that.
So making sure you you get thatinformation from them is gonna
be really, really critical.
Almost done here folks.
So, um, HR mistake number nine,inconsistent filing system for
employee files.
This one's gonna really go tothe HR person, the finance
(20:08):
person who has employee files.
First of all, of course,employee files are highly
confidential.
They only, they need to bringtheir lock and key.
There's only a couple of peoplein the company need to have that
information because it hassocial security date of birth.
You definitely don't want a databreach.
Ideally you have anHRinformation system, payroll
(20:30):
system where you can actuallyupload all of the files so that
you're not doing this in a paperversion anymore within your
company.
You're actually doing thisvirtually through an automated
system that's tied to yourpayroll system.
But if you still keep paperfiles, making sure that you have
them set up in a consistentfashion, making sure you have
(20:51):
things like an I nine formseparated from the actual
employee file, keeping thoseseparate because there's only a
G one government agency, um,Homeland Security ice that is
actually, um, legally allowed tosee that information.
But making sure you also havemedical record records separated
(21:11):
and things like that, it's veryscary if we do an audit on file,
it's just amazing.
Sometimes we will find the, um,just the most bizarre
information.
I guess I'll keep it polite andjust say the most bizarre
information.
So making sure you have aconsistent filing system for
employee files.
Also, making sure they're highlyconfidential, under lock and
key, and you just making sureyou can do that is a really,
(21:34):
really, um, good informationthere.
Last but not least, uh, joboffer, um, job offers.
Making sure, you know, that's alot of times that's besides the
hiring process and the, theinterview process, making sure
that you have a consistent joboffer template.
Uh, I've seen some that arewritten so poorly, some that
(21:58):
have typos, some that don't.
Mention things like employmentat will, making sure that you
have, these are done in a veryconsistent fashion.
These are done professionally.
Who's that person gonna reportto?
What are the working hours?
Um, if you're a, you know, youhave a hybrid workforce, what
are the days you need to be inthe office?
(22:19):
Um, when should you re youreport to work?
Just some basics, but it'samazing how many times we look
at offer letters that are two orthree pages long.
And I've seen the worst case iswe, we, we find some that are,
that have typos or they mighthave the wrong person's name and
their congratulations.
Welcome to the company Tom andthe person's.
(22:40):
Um, the new hire is Mary.
So making sure you just have,again, good I first impressions
go a long way.
So the first impression, thefirst thing that's going to be
given to an employee in writingis gonna be an offer letter.
Um, so making sure that's donecorrectly and done in a very
concise, uh, is done to welcomethe company.
Give'em some key information,should not be longer than one
(23:01):
page.
And that's the, um, you know,that's the last thing I'm gonna
talk about here, but it's reallythe first impression with the
company.
So with that, I just wanted toshow a couple of ways that we
can help here at HR Catalystover the last few years we've
developed, because we kept on,as I mentioned throughout this,
(23:22):
um, this session.
We have just time and timeagain.
Mark, do you have disciplinaryaction processes?
Do you mark, do you have aperformance review we can use?
Do you have job descriptiontemplates?
Over and over and over againwithin our team, having an HR
starter kit, this is very basic.
We have something called anessentials and premium HR
(23:44):
Starter Kit.
Kit includes a number ofcritical forms for you, and of
course you can find this on ourwebsite.
Um, but, and they're very lowcost.
These are editable forms andWord documents, so you can
download them by the actual, uh,the starter kit and then
actually download those formsand they're your yours to use.
(24:05):
Because if you, sure, can youfind a lot of this information
on Google?
Absolutely.
Is that information correct?
Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
Is that information from a validor, or verified source that is a
professional who understands allthese tools and, and techniques?
Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
(24:25):
So getting something like this,again, we have a couple of our,
the essential and premium HRStarter Kits are both priced
under a thousand dollars.
And for a company that's justgetting started or doesn't have
some of this information, it'sreally critical.
And again, for a thousanddollars, for$500 or about$900,
consider this an investment.
(24:45):
And I would guarantee you thisis gonna be really, really good
for you to have.
Last thing we, we wanted to talkabout here is how to, how do we
get, how do you get in touchwith us?
So here's, um, so I'm onCalendly.
Um, there's our website, there'smy email address
hrcatalystconsulting.com as thewebsite.
(25:06):
And there's my personal LinkedInprofile.
So I think that should get allthe information you need, get in
touch with us.
We would love to talk with, um,you know, you can talk to myself
or one of my other team members.
We, like I said, we'recelebrating our 10th, uh,
anniversary.
You're very blessed to be inbusiness to help our goal and
purposes helping companies likeyourselves, just helping you to
(25:27):
be successful in your business,taking some of the burden and
the challenges from a peopleperspective off of your plate.
And then we are the peopleexperts to work with you and
ultimately we're there to helpyou optimize your, your
employee's performance.
So with that, thanks a lot forlistening.
Have a great day and we'll talksoon.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
Hello every, everyone.
My name is Mark Mitford, and I'mthe managing director and
founder of HR CatalystConsulting.
I started the firm in 2013, sowe're celebrating our 10 years,
uh, 10th anniversary this year.
And our focus and purpose is tohelp companies like yourself
actually help you to create andimplement a people strategy
(00:27):
within your business to be ableto support your growth and be
able to help you scale yourbusiness to that next level of
success.
So with that, let's just goahead and jump into our slides.
What we're go gonna talk about,as I mentioned a couple of
seconds ago, is the 10 mostcommon HR mistakes for small
business.
And we have run into this withour clients over the years.
(00:49):
Within 10 years, we have workedwith hundreds and hundreds of
clients, and it's amazing to seethat there are a very, there's a
lot of common commonality andcorrelation to these 10 biggest
things that they get, um, thatthey really struggle with from
an HR perspective and that wecan help them with.
So with that, I'm just gonnajump right into the slides here
so we can get started.
(01:10):
In most cases, these are veryunintentional mistakes, but what
we do is we actually act asfractional strategic HR
consultants.
And so we're here to help thembecause these mistakes are
usually not ones that areintentional, they're very
unintentional, and they just misjust unknowingly stray from HR
(01:31):
laws or HR best practices.
And this is, again, somethingthat's done very innocently, but
it can really come back toeither hurt you, uh, from a
legal perspective or also justnot be able to help you optimize
your business.
So number one of the, uh, the HRmistakes, and this is one we see
time and time again withclients, is really the, the poor
(01:54):
or inconsistent type of hiringand selection process.
Most of the time, managers andleaders within the organization,
whether it's uh, 50 employees oreven three, 400 employees,
they've never been taught a veryconsistent way to actually
interview people.
And there's no consistentselection process for hiring
(02:15):
people.
And a lot of cases it's donevery haphazardly, very
disjointed.
So what we try to help with isreally creating interview guys
that are, that are, uh,consistent that'll ask the
baseline questions and put thesein tools and templates.
And that also we can even trainmanagers on how to interview
successfully the right questionsto ask, how to take the
(02:39):
appropriate amount of notes, howto keep things like that going.
Because if you don't have aconsistent hiring process, guess
what, sometimes you will be ableto find a perfect fit, but most
of the time you won't.
And so what you'll run into isyou'll end up to, you might be
hiring A players, B players, Cplayers, and sometimes D players
(02:59):
.
So it's really, really importantfor you to have a hiring process
that is consistent, because ifyou're not bringing in the right
type of candidates in the doorfor day one, then chances are
within three months, six months,12 months, a lot of those people
will, will either leave oryou'll actually be looking at,
uh, terminating them becausethey really were not the right
(03:22):
fit for the organization.
So having a proper andconsistent hiring sign selection
process is really, reallycritical.
The next one we run into is alsoaround missing vague or outdated
job descriptions.
And it's truly amazing.
Sometimes job descriptionseither have not been made ever
(03:43):
within an organization and as anorganization grows, of course
it's simple when it's five or 10employees because everybody
pretty much intuitively knowswhat everyone else does.
But as the company grows fromfive to 10 to 20 to 30 to a
hundred employees, you find thata lot of times people are still
doing very similar roles, butyou in some cases, worst cases,
(04:08):
you have three or four peopledoing exactly the same thing and
they, they're stepping on eachother's toes, kind of tripping
over each other.
There's not a common flow howbusiness processes work.
So even though it sounds sofundamental, we all know what we
do.
Market's not that big a deal.
Well, when it gets down to it,we help companies that are, uh,
(04:29):
working with a company right nowit's about 12 or 15 employees
where they're going back andredoing their job descriptions
because they found as they grewand they've, and they, and they
continue to grow, they'refinding a lack of, in lack of
consistency and also a lot ofduplication of what people do.
So having some of the basics,and again, we can help if that's
(04:50):
a needed service for you, ishelping you either retool you on
how to equip you to do jobdescriptions that are crisp and
concise and or we can help youdo that or we can do those for
you if you needed to, but, oryou can do those yourself.
So your call.
But definitely having jobdescriptions that are current
and accurate is critical.
(05:12):
It's also very critical as yougrow.
But because some positions couldgo from hourly to salary
positions, and that's reallycritical because in a lot of the
companies we work with, there'sa lot of confusion as to when
you convert somebody over tosalaried versus an hourly
position, and that if that's notdone correctly on a widespread
basis, that could lead you intoa tremendous amount of hot water
(05:33):
legally with the Department ofLabor and also cost you a lot of
money.
So it's really critical to getthese right.
The next thing, and, andsometimes this is one of the
biggest things that we focus onand we help clients work
through, is the lack of trainingor development or equipping your
people, managers, your leadersto be successful.
(05:53):
I, I used to work years andyears ago when I started my HR
career, I worked with very namebrand companies that were in the
Fortune 500 space, and theyliterally poured millions and
millions of dollars into theirleadership development,
succession planning, leadershipcoaching.
Of course, in a company thatmakes 5,000,020 million, that's
(06:16):
not feasible to pour millions ofdollars into coaching people,
but you still need to equip yourmanagers to be successful.
It's just like if you tellsomebody to do a, a, a critical
job.
An organization we're workingwith now is, um, an, an
organization that has a lot ofwelders.
If you teach somebody, if youtell somebody to go weld
something, here's a weldingtorch, here's some gloves and
(06:39):
here's some steel, good luck,it's not gonna be successful and
there's a great chance they'regonna really injure themselves,
worst case or they're just notgonna do a, a good quality job.
Same thing with people,managers, it's a skill.
Managers can be turned intoleaders and can be very
competent in what they do.
But unless you equip them withthe tools and the basics there
(07:02):
of how to give and receivefeedback, how to do disciplinary
actions in a respectful andtrustful ways, how to build a
proper team, how to create trustin the organization, unless you
equip people to do that throughsome sort of training mechanism,
the chances are they're notgonna be successful.
Worst case is they're gonnasuboptimize their team, they're
(07:24):
gonna have a lot of employeeturnover.
The number one reason, which isreally critical, the number one
reason people leave anorganization spend the same for
probably 10, 20 years.
They don't even have a trust, alot of trust or respect for
their manager, their directmanager.
So it doesn't matter how goodyour leadership team is, your C
level team is, if you do nothave a lot of trust and respect
(07:47):
for your first level manager,your boss, then the chance of
that person leaving is much,much greater.
And a lot of times it's done.
It's not done because the personhas something out for that
individual, it's done becausethey've never been equipped and
never given the tools to besuccessful in the people manager
(08:08):
role.
So equipping people to developtheir people managers is also a
wonderful thing.
We have a modular program that'svery cost effective that we be
happy to talk to you with, ifthat made sense to give some of
the basic tools.
Just be thinking about any, anykind of a skill, any trade
needs, tools, it doesn't matterif you're a knowledge worker or
(08:29):
you work as a carpenter or awelder or you, um, you work in
the construction industry, youstill need basic tools to do
your job.
That's very similar toleadership.
You need basic tools to be ableto do your job successful.
So make sure you focus ongetting that done for your
people managers as soon aspossible.
(08:50):
HR mistake number four, nothaving a performance review
process that's formalized, thatis really tick and tied, that's
consistent because we, and, andI may sound like I'm beating a
drum here, but a lot of thecompanies we deal with as our
clients, they have never done aformal review process.
These things are either reviewsare either non-existent or they
(09:14):
are done in a very poor fashion,very informally.
So some managers do them and,but there's no documentation.
Some managers don't do them cuzthey don't wanna meet with the
employees.
And so there's nothing around aformalized process, a cycle of
doing re reviews on a, excuseme, nothing about doing reviews
(09:36):
on a quarterly process,semi-annual, annual basis.
Nothing about a formalizedprocess to give and receive
feedback to employees who aredoing great in some areas, but
also need development in otherareas.
So making sure you have a reviewprocess that's systematized,
that's done on a quarterly,semi-annual or annualized basis
(09:56):
is critical.
So it's one of those things too.
And a lot of the organizationswe run into, they're either done
inconsistently or they're notdone at all.
And that's not a good thing forboth the company or the employee
who deserves to receive thefeedback.
Number five, for HR mistakes, noemployee onboarding process For
(10:17):
new hires, that's so criticalthat the onboarding, let's
define the onboarding processfirst and foremost.
So onboarding an our mind isabout a three month, 12 week
process to onboard somebody.
If you do a bat onboardingprocess, a lot of companies say,
well, onboarding, I do that inday one.
We do all the fo we do all ofthe paperwork, we take the
(10:41):
employee out to lunch with themanager and the team, we show
them where their desk is andgive them, get'em on their,
their computer or where theirwork area is and that's, that's,
then they're onboarded, right?
And I'm like, absolutely not.
Remember I just said a couple ofseconds ago, onboarding is a 12
week very intentional process tohelp that person to in become
(11:03):
integrated into the culture ofthe company.
And without that process, thechance of that individual, that
employee leaving the company isabout four to five times greater
within the first year than ifyou actually have an onboarding
process.
So think about an onboardingprocess, absolutely, it takes
(11:24):
time.
Everything you do takes time.
If you're trying to work out, ifyou're trying to lose 30 pounds
for the new year, we're in thebeginning.
We're in January, 2023 rightnow.
If you're trying to lose 25pounds this year as a goal over
the next six months or whateverthe number is, and you're like,
well, I'm just going to not eatas much and maybe I'll go for a
(11:47):
walk occasionally, if that'swhat your game plan is, I'd
almost guarantee that's notgonna be successful.
If you don't have a a game planto do that, it's not gonna be su
a successful outcome.
Very similarly, if you don'thave a temp, if you don't have a
process to do onboarding, I'llguarantee you that the process,
you're, that employee withinthree months is still going to
feel like worst case, they'regoing to feel like they're not
(12:10):
part of the organization andthey're a person who's looking
on the outside ver looking intoan organization as if they were
somebody on the outside of thecompany.
And what you wanna do in theonboarding process, give or
receive feedback, get thatperson trained, the sooner you
can get them to a hundredpercent productivity, the
better.
And that is directly correlatedto having a good onboarding
(12:31):
process.
Again, we have tools, we havetemplates that can help you
throughout that process.
If you'd like to discuss thatwith us, just, um, we'll, we'll
have our contact information atthe end of the, um, uh, this,
uh, this podcast or info ourthanks.
Next HR mistake halfway through.
So, uh, kind of, uh, kind ofwe're at the hub now, and number
(12:52):
six, lacking an employeehandbook that's legally
compliant and updated.
Again, I hate to say horrorstories, but we see handbooks.
Probably the worst case I'veseen is we worked on a handbook
two years ago that was dated1999 and it was pretty much
garbage.
I hate to say folks, but most ofthe information in there, the LI
(13:12):
requirements, even just theverbiage, the vacation policy or
p t o, uh, the company holidays,everything in there was
outdated.
So this should be kind of like acompany bible, you know, small B
of course on the, on the Bible.
But this is your go-to formanagers and employees around
(13:32):
probably 90, 95% of the normalHR processes within the company.
If you haven't had, we recommendevery two to three years you get
your handbook updated and, um,because it's just a good thing,
not only from a legalperspective, but depending on
your size.
Also, there's different legalrequirements that have to occur
(13:54):
when you had 50 employees or ahundred employees, which needs
to be embedded into yourhandbook.
And there we've strengthened alot of handbooks around things
like, um, like code of conductand ethics in the last couple of
years.
Also, social media, because somany people, especially if you
have a younger workforce, theydo everything through social
(14:16):
media platforms.
We put in a lot of things aroundsocial media and the dos and
don'ts of social media foremployees, because that's really
critical.
So bottom line is make sure youhave a legally, um, uh, a legal
handbook here, because that'sgonna be really, really
critical, critical for you.
Um, HR mistake number, um,number seven is really not
(14:40):
having a set and a formalizeddisciplinary process for low
performing employees.
Every employee, every company,excuse me, has lower performing
employees.
I don't care if you have 10employees, you have some that
are better and some that areworse.
And what happens is, uh, youknow, I, I use this quite a bit
(15:01):
and when I talk to audiences ordo a presentation for a group,
if I had a nickel for every timea manager came in and said, I
wish I had terminated thisperson six months ago or 12
months ago because they havebeen consistently a poor
performer, and they would comeinto me or they talk to us now
and say, well, I want toterminate this person, mark,
(15:22):
because they really do not do agood job.
I'm like, okay, have you evertalked to them about them not
doing a good, good job?
Have you given them specificfeedback about not doing a good
job?
Have you actually written themup and given them a formalized
document to say they might beterminated if they don't do a
better job?
And the answers are, no, no, andno.
(15:45):
Then I'm like, well, timeout.
It's not fair to the employee.
You have to let them knowthey're not doing a good job.
They may have not been mentoredor trained by a person who was
doing a good job.
If you do a mentoring program ora development program,
especially as we mentionedearlier about onboarding, make
sure that person is teamed upwith somebody who is one of your
(16:08):
better performers.
Because if they don't learn froma good performer, guess what,
then it's almost like learning anew skill.
If you are learning fromsomebody, I use the analogy of
golf, I'm a frustrated golfer ona good day, if I learned how to
play golf from somebody who'svery bad at golf, guess what
kind of a golfer I'm gonna be?
Chances are I'm gonna be a badgolfer because they're teaching
(16:30):
me all of their mistakes andthen I am mimicking their
mistakes or copying theirmistakes.
So making sure that you have adisciplinary process for low
performing employees is criticalbecause that person may not know
they were trained by somebodywho wasn't a great employee.
So they may just be doing whatthey do and they're copying
(16:51):
their mistakes.
Make sure that you give theperson the chance, give them
specific feedback.
Don't tell'em you just need towork harder.
What does that mean?
How does working hardercorrelate to me doing something
differently and improving anarea where I'm bad at?
It doesn't.
I can speculate all day long,but it doesn't.
So bottom line on disciplinaryaction, making sure you have a
(17:15):
process that is a sequenceprocess, a consistent process
for low performers, becausequite often with a company who's
a, they have a lower performingemployee, guess what, if they
put'em on a coaching plan ordisciplinary plan, quite often
they will turn around.
Sure, will some people getterminated?
Yes, they will.
(17:35):
That's just the reality of thefact.
But in some cases, that personwill actually, within a year or
two, they may become one of yourbest employees and you've
already invested, depending onthe job, you might have invested
in tens of thousands of dollarsto get that person trained.
You don't want to just terminatethem randomly or haphazardly.
You want to give'em a chance toimprove.
(17:57):
And you also need to be there asa leader.
You need to be there to coachthem, to actually show them what
good looks like within yourorganization.
So having this process isreally, really critical.
HR mistake number eight, no exitinterview process for exiting
employees.
It's really critical.
It sounds so basic, but when aperson leaves asking them why
(18:20):
they're leaving, because chancesare they will tell you very
specifically why they'reactually leaving the
organization.
So why not go ahead and actuallygive'em the courtesy of talking
to them, because you mightactually find out some really
good information while I leftbecause of my manager, I left
because of your, I didn't thinkthe pay was that competitive
(18:42):
anymore, and the job I'm goingto is gonna pay me 30% more.
Um, I left because I felt likethe company really lacked of,
um, lacked direction and lackeda growth strategy.
Those could be all things thatcome out and gleaned from an
exit interview have, ideally, ifyou have an HR person on staff,
(19:03):
have them conduct the exitinterview process.
If you don't have an HR personon staff, then um, maybe you
know somebody else who's a, nottheir boss of course, but
somebody else in theorganization who can be
objective.
A finance person sometimes, youknow, HR runs through finance,
the finance department.
But making sure you do thisprocess, um, because it's
(19:25):
amazing the gle the amount ofinformation you can glean from
doing an exit interview.
And it can be, it can be like 10minutes or 15 minutes long, have
a consistent process for that,as I've mentioned before and
everything else we're doinghere.
But ask them a couple ofquestions and in most cases
they'll be happy to share.
And if you, and if you do this,that person may come back to the
(19:47):
organization saying, Hey, theyasked me my opinion and I
appreciated that.
So making sure you you get thatinformation from them is gonna
be really, really critical.
Almost done here folks.
So, um, HR mistake number nine,inconsistent filing system for
employee files.
This one's gonna really go tothe HR person, the finance
(20:08):
person who has employee files.
First of all, of course,employee files are highly
confidential.
They only, they need to bringtheir lock and key.
There's only a couple of peoplein the company need to have that
information because it hassocial security date of birth.
You definitely don't want a databreach.
Ideally you have anHRinformation system, payroll
(20:30):
system where you can actuallyupload all of the files so that
you're not doing this in a paperversion anymore within your
company.
You're actually doing thisvirtually through an automated
system that's tied to yourpayroll system.
But if you still keep paperfiles, making sure that you have
them set up in a consistentfashion, making sure you have
(20:51):
things like an I nine formseparated from the actual
employee file, keeping thoseseparate because there's only a
G one government agency, um,Homeland Security ice that is
actually, um, legally allowed tosee that information.
But making sure you also havemedical record records separated
(21:11):
and things like that, it's veryscary if we do an audit on file,
it's just amazing.
Sometimes we will find the, um,just the most bizarre
information.
I guess I'll keep it polite andjust say the most bizarre
information.
So making sure you have aconsistent filing system for
employee files.
Also, making sure they're highlyconfidential, under lock and
key, and you just making sureyou can do that is a really,
(21:34):
really, um, good informationthere.
Last but not least, uh, joboffer, um, job offers.
Making sure, you know, that's alot of times that's besides the
hiring process and the, theinterview process, making sure
that you have a consistent joboffer template.
Uh, I've seen some that arewritten so poorly, some that
(21:58):
have typos, some that don't.
Mention things like employmentat will, making sure that you
have, these are done in a veryconsistent fashion.
These are done professionally.
Who's that person gonna reportto?
What are the working hours?
Um, if you're a, you know, youhave a hybrid workforce, what
are the days you need to be inthe office?
(22:19):
Um, when should you re youreport to work?
Just some basics, but it'samazing how many times we look
at offer letters that are two orthree pages long.
And I've seen the worst case iswe, we, we find some that are,
that have typos or they mighthave the wrong person's name and
their congratulations.
Welcome to the company Tom andthe person's.
(22:40):
Um, the new hire is Mary.
So making sure you just have,again, good I first impressions
go a long way.
So the first impression, thefirst thing that's going to be
given to an employee in writingis gonna be an offer letter.
Um, so making sure that's donecorrectly and done in a very
concise, uh, is done to welcomethe company.
Give'em some key information,should not be longer than one
(23:01):
page.
And that's the, um, you know,that's the last thing I'm gonna
talk about here, but it's reallythe first impression with the
company.
So with that, I just wanted toshow a couple of ways that we
can help here at HR Catalystover the last few years we've
developed, because we kept on,as I mentioned throughout this,
(23:22):
um, this session.
We have just time and timeagain.
Mark, do you have disciplinaryaction processes?
Do you mark, do you have aperformance review we can use?
Do you have job descriptiontemplates?
Over and over and over againwithin our team, having an HR
starter kit, this is very basic.
We have something called anessentials and premium HR
(23:44):
Starter Kit.
Kit includes a number ofcritical forms for you, and of
course you can find this on ourwebsite.
Um, but, and they're very lowcost.
These are editable forms andWord documents, so you can
download them by the actual, uh,the starter kit and then
actually download those formsand they're your yours to use.
(24:05):
Because if you, sure, can youfind a lot of this information
on Google?
Absolutely.
Is that information correct?
Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
Is that information from a validor, or verified source that is a
professional who understands allthese tools and, and techniques?
Maybe it is, maybe it's not.
(24:25):
So getting something like this,again, we have a couple of our,
the essential and premium HRStarter Kits are both priced
under a thousand dollars.
And for a company that's justgetting started or doesn't have
some of this information, it'sreally critical.
And again, for a thousanddollars, for$500 or about$900,
consider this an investment.
(24:45):
And I would guarantee you thisis gonna be really, really good
for you to have.
Last thing we, we wanted to talkabout here is how to, how do we
get, how do you get in touchwith us?
So here's, um, so I'm onCalendly.
Um, there's our website, there'smy email address
hrcatalystconsulting.com as thewebsite.
(25:06):
And there's my personal LinkedInprofile.
So I think that should get allthe information you need, get in
touch with us.
We would love to talk with, um,you know, you can talk to myself
or one of my other team members.
We, like I said, we'recelebrating our 10th, uh,
anniversary.
You're very blessed to be inbusiness to help our goal and
purposes helping companies likeyourselves, just helping you to
(25:27):
be successful in your business,taking some of the burden and
the challenges from a peopleperspective off of your plate.
And then we are the peopleexperts to work with you and
ultimately we're there to helpyou optimize your, your
employee's performance.
So with that, thanks a lot forlistening.
Have a great day and we'll talksoon.
Take care.
Bye-bye.
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