Top Tips to Make Your HR Department More Efficient

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |HR Department|Top Tips to Make Your HR Department More EfficientHuman resources are one of the most influential departments in the build-up of an organisation; due to this, HR professionals must be able to work efficiently in a fast-paced and rapidly changing environment. To achieve optimised productivity levels, it is paramount for those working within a human resource department to implement various techniques to keep individuals working at maximum efficiency.

From looking out for the welfare of employees to organising company events, HR professionals have a long list of tasks and responsibilities to juggle on a daily which can be challenging. So how do HR professionals do it? We’ve looked at some of the best ways for HR professionals to remain efficient even when balancing a heavy workload; read on for our top tips for an effective HR department.

Switch To Cloud-Based Systems

Overflowing file cabinets. Folders of documents everywhere. Pieces of paper spilling out all over desks. If this sounds like your HR department, then it might be worth considering switching to cloud-based systems to store all your essential files and documents. Making the switch from traditional storage methods to cloud-based solutions can boast many benefits from increased security, the ability to access documents anywhere and at any time, being able to store hundreds of documents in one place and better organisation.

Nowadays, there is a cloud server for everything, making everything from file storage to payroll easier for HR members and improving the department’s efficiency overall. For instance, you can make mundane, routine tasks like payroll easier by using cloud-based payroll software through providers such as PayCaptain. Consider looking at their product offering for more ideas on making your HR department more efficient.

Make The Most Of Technology

In our new era of hybrid working, making the most of technology and practising effective communication can help HR professionals be more efficient in their jobs. For instance, instead of solely relying on emails and direct messages to convey long, detailed messages, you could try using software such as Skype or Zoom to video-call colleagues.

Doing so will save you the time and effort of typing out your message and avoid typing out responses to any queries that it may spark. Making the most of social media platforms can benefit HR members whose workforce is compiled of remote, hybrid and in-office staff as it enables you to communicate with everyone in various time-effective ways.

Use Social Media Platforms For Recruitment

Another mundane, routine task that HR professionals are tasked with is staffing, whether that is dealing with hiring, onboarding and many more. The recruitment process can be a long-winded and challenging process for HR professionals; however, it can be made easier by social media platforms. As well as being a well-loved place for people to socialise and reconnect with people all over the globe, social media is also an excellent place for businesses to advertise their vacancies instead of using job boards or recruitment companies.

As well as significantly reducing the amount of time HR professionals spend sourcing and recruiting new talent, advertising jobs via social media can also save the company money and help their adverts reach a wider network of people. Utilising social media can make HR more efficient as they can use the time not wasted to focus on other business areas.

Give Employees Regular Feedback

Although it may seem counterproductive to be giving employees regular feedback, ensuring that employees are praised or criticised when necessary can help their ongoing development and save HR professionals time in the long run. Waiting for monthly annual appraisals can be counterproductive as, by the time the scheduled meeting arrives, it may be too late for the feedback or no longer relevant.

Ensuring that you praise and criticise employees accordingly can help employees with their ongoing development, so they’re aware of their talents and the areas that need improvement and can work towards growing or mastering their skills. Giving employees regular feedback will help to strengthen the bond between management and their workforce, as it clarifies work expectations. It also helps employees learn from their mistakes and makes them feel good about themselves as they know that management has their best interests at heart.

Work On Your Relationships

One of the critical elements in human resources is communication and negotiating, both of which are improved if you actively try to maintain or improve workplace relationships. One of the tasks that HR are shouldered with is creating a workplace environment that is friendly and where their employees are valued and listened to.

Ensuring that you maintain a good working relationship with everyone is crucial for creating this environment; otherwise, employees won’t feel obligated to share their thoughts with you, making HR’s job difficult. In the business world, it’s essential to make connections; otherwise, you run the risk of missing out on opportunities and helpful resources, which is why it is equally as necessary to maintain your workplace relationships so that you don’t limit yourself.

From the Top Down: Tips for Getting the Best Out of Your Employees

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Getting the best out of your employees|From the Top Down: Tips for Getting the Best Out of Your EmployeesEmployees are the lifeblood of any company. Without them, nothing would get done. Employee productivity is key to the success of any business. When employees are productive, the company benefits in several ways: lowered costs, increased output, and higher profits. But how can you ensure that your employees are productive? There is no one-size-fits-all answer when it comes to getting the best out of your employees. Every business is different, and every employee has their own unique set of strengths and weaknesses. However, there are a few general tips that can help you get the most out of your team. This blog post will discuss four ways to motivate and inspire your employees from the top down!

Set Clear Expectations

One of the best ways to get the most out of your employees is to set clear expectations for them. This means making sure that they know what you expect from them and what their specific job duties are. It also means establishing standards for performance and behavior and communicating these standards clearly to your team. By setting clear expectations, you can help ensure that your employees know what they need to do to meet your expectations and succeed in their roles.

Encourage Employee Engagement

Encouraging employee engagement is another excellent way to get the best out of your team. This involves creating a workplace where employees feel engaged and motivated and can contribute ideas and suggestions that can help make your business more successful. In addition, an engaged workforce is more likely to stay loyal and productive for years to come, which ultimately translates into more robust profitability for your company.

Communicate with Your Employees

Another essential tip for getting the most out of your employees is communicating with them regularly. This means keeping an open line of communication so that you can discuss any issues or concerns they may have about their job duties or responsibilities. It also involves taking time each day to check in with employees individually (or as a group) so that everyone feels heard and valued at work! When workers feel like they are being listened to, they will be much more likely to put forth their best effort.

Create a Sense of Ownership Among Employees

When employees feel like they own their work, they’re more likely to take pride in their work and do their best. So encourage employees to take ownership of their work, and give them the freedom to make decisions and develop new ideas.

Reward and Recognize Achievements

Last but not least, one of the best ways to get the most out of your employees is to reward and recognize their achievements. This can involve anything from a simple “thank you” for a job well done to awarding them with bonuses or promotions for exceptional work. By recognizing and rewarding employee achievements, you are helping to motivate them to do their best work possible.

These are just a few tips for getting the best out of your employees from the top down. However, it’s also vital that you give the best team possible from the get-go. Apart from making sure your employees meet the requirements for the job and having a pre employment medical done, you can also add a virtual experience to the interview so that your possible employees know what they are being expected to do before signing the contract. Follow these tips, and you’ll be on your way to creating a successful and productive team.

Team Building Tips and Tricks for Managers

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Team Building Tips|Team Building Tips and Tricks for ManagersThe modern world is all about collaboration and teamwork. Without it, companies wouldn’t be as successful. After all, almost every great product in history was created by a team – not an individual.

At the moment, you might have 10, 100, or even 500 hundred employees. Whatever your exact number is, it’s important to focus on team building. This is because it:

  • Creates stronger co-worker relationships
  • Boosts morale
  • Enables better communication and collaboration

On top of all this, team building also helps to unlock potential leaders for your company – which is something else to bear in mind.

With the introduction covered, let’s now take a look at some team-building tips and tricks that all managers need to know.

Use Virtual Team Building Games

Unless you’ve been living on a faraway planet for the past few years, you’ll be aware that the workplace has gone virtual. Now, millions of employees have adopted hybrid schedules where they work between the office and home – it’s been a long time coming.

Of course, this means that teams are now using laptops, tablets, and smartphones to do their work and communicate together.

This is great for team building, as it means you and your teams have an opportunity to play virtual team-building games together when you’re not in the same place. A good example is the name that price game, which is perfect for boosting morale and allowing employees to have a good time.

Friday is usually the best day for virtual team-building games, as it’s the end of the week and everybody is looking forward to relaxing at the weekend.

Provide Your Teams with Goals

Whether you have one or multiple teams working under you, it’s important to provide them with goals. This will give them a clear direction moving forward and ultimately create greater focus and teamwork.

Teams should be briefed with goals at the beginning of each new month. Plenty of encouragement and incentives should be given to your teams, too. For example, there could be pay bonuses or extra time off for the early completion of tasks.
Plus, you should also encourage teams to set their own goals.

Use Microsoft Teams

As mentioned above, the modern workplace has gone virtual.

Now, it’s all about using internet-based tools to get work done and communicate. One of the best tools for this is Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft Teams allows teams to hold video conferences with each other as well as send chat messages. Altogether, it’s the perfect platform for team building, especially when employees don’t see each other face-to-face.

Request Feedback

Sometimes, the best way to gain an in-depth understanding of what your teams want is through feedback.

Every month (or bi-monthly), you should hold meetings with your individual teams to discuss feedback in detail. For example, you might discover that your teams want more tools to use in the office, such as better computers.

Lastly, Get Social

It’s essential that employees don’t exclusively spend time together in the office. In addition to this, they should spend a little time together outside of work in social settings. This is because it enables employees to blow off some steam and have fun together in a less serious environment. Example locations include bars and restaurants.

Also, you should make it a rule that employees can’t discuss work when you’re socializing together! Moving forward, this will create stronger team bonds.

How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program Ideas

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article | How To Maximize Your Call Center Productivity – Call Center Incentive Program IdeasIt is important to recognize that every job position and every employee needs a bit of a boost from time to time. This is why incentive programs are critical to driving performance. This is especially true in call centers, where a highly stressful working environment can make it difficult for the employees to remain in their position for a longer time.

Due to this, most of the large organizations have a formal reward and recognition program in place. Out of those organizations, more than 70% have different call center incentive programs, ranging from 3 to 6. They are based on different incentives and aimed at individual workers. Studies show that the companies with the call center incentive program in place have increased the performance of their workers by 27%.

In a stressful working environment, your employees might feel like their efforts were not appreciate. It is likely that individual employees would work harder if they were more appreciated. This is why it is a good idea to set up formal recognition programs for your employees. These programs make employees feel appreciated and encouraged to work harder.

A good call center incentive will lead to a boost in performance and overall improvement in your company culture.

Call Center Incentive Ideas

In every call center, employees have the opportunity to work with customers to create pleasant experiences. While the work can be complex, the effects of delivering an exceptional experience to customers are worth it. However, if your employees are unhappy, they are not likely to provide a pleasant experience to your customers.

Your employee mental health, and their feeling of appreciation, are closely connected with your customer experience. In order to improve the service and the customer experience, it is critical to provide incentives that will motivate your employees to do better. And the best way to keep your employees motivated is by providing incentives that will boost productivity and maintain morale.

Here are some ideas on building a successful call center incentive strategy.

1. Awarding the Employee of the Month

It has been proved that recognition is one of the most significant call center incentives. It’s essential to recognize people for a job well done regularly. A lot of companies have an employee of the month award to recognize the efforts of their employees. You can also split your call center into teams and set up a friendly competition.

When you break up your call center into more teams, you can have more awards given. These awards can be by votes and can encourage co-workers to be supportive of their peers. Most of the employees believe that rewarding employees who perform well is important. This emphasizes to your employees that you value their efforts and notice their hard work.

A side benefit is that when their manager appreciates them, it improves their relationships. Employees end up trusting their managers, and it leads to a more positive experience for everyone. It is an essential step to recognize your best employers in order to keep them motivated. Have a variety of ways to showcase your appreciation towards your workers.

2. Set Goals for Your Team

In order to know what habits to praise and which employees to award recognition to, it is important to have set goals as an individual. The first step to this would be finding out how you can help your employees reach their goals. You can locate the people that want to advance in your company and have a talk with them. Figure out what would work the best for them as individuals and for your company as a whole.

By helping your employees achieve these career goals, you can have them working for you more productively. Get your employees to clarify their goals; you can encourage them to pursue the next stage of their life.

This might be hard to do with remote teams. You would need to rely on video calls and online conferences to connect with your team. Try using HR videos to communicate ideas more creatively across the team.

It won’t always be the case that your employees want to remain working in a call center. Some employees will have goals to move to another position. Instead of having them disengage with the work, encourage them in the work they are doing, and help them get to the next stage of their career.

There is no better way to motivate your employees, but by helping your best employees have a fantastic future for themselves. Find your workers who have ambitions toward advancement and encourage them. Help them improve their position and be better workers. Consider how to get people to the next level and develop your employees in your company.

By helping your employees become better at their job and helping them prepare for future careers, you showcase a great culture and a team mindset. Having people collaborate fosters camaraderie. It brings people together. When combined with fun events and programs, it helps people stay motivated and think about being a part of a more excellent ideal.

Combine personal goals, a fun time, collaboration, and managers that care. It makes a powerful combination and encourages people to try more for their companies.

3. Reward the Employees Who Care

Your employees will feel more appreciated if they know that the rewards are personal. They don’t have to be expensive outings or trips. Even a personalized thank you note can make a huge difference to your employees.

Having a formal recognition plan can boost employee morale. Personalized rewards are even better.

To make a personalized reward means that you need to understand what interests your employees. For example, make sure you have asked beforehand what is essential for them. This can be done by conducting focus group interviews, or by online forms and surveys. After this, formulate a plan on considering how to reward them for their work beyond better pay.

Sometimes you should consider using incentives that aren’t cash payments. It can be travel or merchandise awards. Make something personal to your employees. It can be a dream vacation or a personalized cup with a picture of their family. There are a lot of these subtle touches that can impact your relationships with your employees and boost everyone’s morale. Whenever possible, consider how to personalize your rewards and recognitions.

A way to find out what your employees care about and what interests them is to survey your employees. Try forming a pre-formatted questionnaire about different prizes, a dream vacation, and career goals. When you set up a survey it should express that you want to help them achieve their goals and get things they want in life. Even if it doesn’t match your specific goals, encouraging them will lead to increased morale and trust in your company. Employees will work harder for you and it will ultimately lead to more productivity.

4. Shake up the Routine

Agent churn can be a big issue in call centers. This is mostly due to having little room for growth and nothing is done to relieve the monotonous nature of the job at regular intervals. Not to mention that the stress in call center calls is a real thing. Your employees are front line in dealing with your customers and the customers are not always pleasant.

Then it is no wonder that call center agents rank as one of the highest turnover jobs in the world, This turnover rate can get up to 45% in certain cases.

One way to reduce turnover and poor performance is to invest in gamification to motivate employees to engage and achieve. Try setting up a few games to be played in your call center in Fridays, to make the day-to-day slightly more interesting.

5. Allow Time-Off or Working From Home

Sometimes the best reward can be some time to yourself. If you would like to set up a wonderful call center incentive program, consider making impromptu time away from the office a spot prize optional for on-the-fly recognition. According to researches, instant recognition has been linked to increased productivity, greater employee satisfaction in the workplace, enhanced teamwork, and more.

Of course, this may require some work in the resource management, but when executed correctly, it can become a fantastic incentive to perform at optimal levels throughout the day.  Having a day off, or a chance to work a few days from the comfort of their home could be a great morale boost for your loyal employees.<

6. Let Your Employees Pick Their Shifts

Because many call centers operate 24/7, employees will always have a preference for certain work shifts. This may also differ from one person to the next. Some of your employees will prefer working the nights, while some better function in the early mornings.

This is why, if possible, you should have a talk with your employees and set up the shifts in your call center according to their preference. This won’t always be possible, however, with a bit of compromise it can be a great call center incentive.

Workplace Improvements for Your Office

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StrategyDriven Managing Your People Article |Workplace Improvements|Workplace Improvements for Your OfficeWhen you run a business, you have all sorts of areas to focus on. You’re going to have to accept helping hands at some point or another. Sure, outsourcing can work for one off and occasional tasks, but when it comes to the day to day running of things, you’re going to need to build a team to keep up with your consumers’ demand. If you’re going to have a team, you’re going to have to provide them with a workplace. Now, over the course of the past couple of years, many people have been working from home wherever possible, slowing and reducing the spread of coronavirus around the world. However, now that hospitalisations are reducing, many people are preparing for a return to the office. You may be wondering how you can make the office as positive and productive an environment as possible for your staff. Here are a few options that you might want to take into consideration.

Make the Space Covid Secure

Some people will still be nervous about returning to the office. You should make sure that the space is Covid secure to make people feel as comfortable as possible heading back. There are a number of measures you can take to make the space better. Hire a professional cleaner to carry out in-depth cleaning and you may even want to consider anti-viral fogging. Implement social distancing measures by separating desks or installing perspex barriers between each workspace. You may also want to implement a one way system and limits to numbers of people in smaller spaces.

Provide Lockers

People may want to be able to leave their personal belongings in a secure and safe space, as opposed to just shoving their bags and other items under their desks, where they can get in the way and even cause a trip hazard. Consider investing in lockers, each with a locker door, for your team, so they each have a locked, private space to store personal belongings during the work day.

Make Sure There’s Plenty of Natural Light

Believe it or not, natural light does so much more than making an office space look better. It can also help to maximise staff members’ productivity. Our body’s circadian rhythms control our sleep wake cycle and this cycle determines when we’re feeling productive and when we’re not. If your workspace is flooded with natural light, your team’s bodies will recognise that it’s daytime and they will perk up.

Consider Hybrid Working

Sure, fully remote working isn’t ideal for every company. But many staff members have found themselves enjoying working from home. So, you may want to reach a compromise by providing hybrid working contracts. This will require staff to work in office on set days and will allow them to work from home some days. This can help with staff retention rates.

Each of these steps can make all the difference when it comes to making your workplace a more pleasant and productive for your staff to spend time in. Implement a few to see improvements!