It's common knowledge that Human Resources is important for any business with employees, but how can HR help the business grow and flourish? Learn how HR can support business growth with this guide from HR consultant and author Gemma Dale FCIPD.
How can good Human Resources help your business to grow? Easy. HR is all about your people, and people are one of your biggest assets. Without the right people doing the right things at the right time, business growth will be hard to achieve, if not impossible. HR is the key to making this happen.
The employment lifecycle is the formal term used to describe each stage of the employee journey through a particular organisation over time. It begins with the very first contact a potential employee has with a prospective new employer and ends on their final day of employment.
This lifecycle encompasses recruitment, induction, reward, recognition, learning and development, performance management, and employee relations. It includes every people related document, policy and process, communication, and interaction. Quite a list indeed – but each of these areas make up the entire experience that an employee has with their employer. The Human Resources department is responsible for each of these functions.
Separate to the employment lifecycle, but fundamentally connected, is every single person within the organisation. Together, these related elements create employee engagement and job satisfaction – or they don’t.
Engaged, happy employees are more likely to be productive, effective, and motivated. They are also more likely to stay with an employer when they have job satisfaction, have a supportive manager, and are able to contribute to meaningful work. Employee engagement in particular has been linked to organisational and financial performance.
Learn more: Employee engagement strategies: how to engage employees
Recruiting, training, engaging, and retaining good people is essential for organisational effectiveness. This is what good HR can deliver to your business – when it is also properly understood, supported, and resourced.
Business growth is driven by many different activities. Marketing, branding. and sales are of course key. So too is the overall product or service proposition, the customer service provided, and the business processes that enable delivery. But every single one of these elements also needs good people to deliver them.
Good HR, and specifically HR that will support business growth, ensures excellence at every stage in the employment lifecycle. The CIPD, the professional association for Human Resources in the UK, describes good HR as being principles led, evidence based, and outcomes driven. Treating people fairly and ethically, striving for good and meaningful work, and introducing initiatives that are known to deliver results are just some of what good HR is all about.
Here are just a few ways that effective Human Resources practice can support and enable business growth:
Of course, no HR department can accomplish these tasks alone. They need to be undertaken in partnership with people managers and business leaders. For HR to play an optimal role in business growth, the activities described above should be aligned to the particular strategic aims and objectives of the business.
Learn more: How to create a business-driven HR strategy
If HR is treated predominantly as an administrative function, responsible only for managing the paperwork and getting people paid, it will have a limited opportunity to contribute to long term business growth.
Cut down the time you spend on HR admin and spend more time on HR strategy and business growth by getting HR software in place.
When businesses are growing, especially in the early stages, it is all too easy to respond reactively to human resource needs, addressing issues only as they arise. This is a common mistake, but one to avoid. Taking a planned approach instead to people, talent and culture will deliver results.
When a business is aiming for growth, a long term people plan must be part of the strategy. Every growing business needs a unique selling point. With great HR in place, this might just be the people that work for you.