Strong HR Does These 3 Things. Does Yours?

So what characterizes strong HR?

Great question.

Strong HR is HR that’s not an afterthought or mere checklist, but that is woven into larger business strategy and operations.

Of course, weaving HR into the tapestry of your business starts by understanding the full scope of what HR actually does. Hiring, onboarding, termination, benefits, payroll, employee and labor law compliance – these you know. But HR is actually a lot more. Here are three lesser-known responsibilities that strong HR departments and professionals handle, harness, and optimize:

• Professional training and development – Growing your employees is the key to many desirable outcomes, including higher retention. Still, this critical aspect of business often gets overlooked, in part because management assumes it falls on their shoulders.

With strong HR, it doesn’t. Effective HR professionals train on workplace topics like harassment prevention and discrimination while also creating and implementing professional development workshops and training

• Company culture – Want a workplace that’s lighthearted? Socially conscious? Flexible? All of the above?

Whatever your vision for your business culture, a strong HR department will absorb it and take the lead. As Forbes wrote, HR should assist company leadership in defining company culture, measuring it, and fostering a transparent environment that engages employees and leadership in achieving it. This often starts by gathering employees’ thoughts on the matter through surveys and other measures to see whether efforts and outcomes are aligning.

Don’t overlook the importance of a defined and deliberate company culture. While it sometimes gets discarded as a buzzword or a trivial matter, it’s a priority among Millennial and Generation Z talent that’s rapidly becoming a larger portion of the workforce.

• Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DE&I) – DE&I is so much more than sensitivity, hiring quotas, or crisis plans. Strong HR departments understand that DE&I is a mindset – one that’s more critical today than ever before. Beyond the moral imperative at play, there are numerous business benefits to prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion among your staff and leadership team. For starters, a positive correlation exists between diverse perspectives and productivity, profitability, and morale.

If your HR professional or team doesn’t do all of these things, your company is vulnerable to a number of high-stakes pitfalls, including opportunity cost. Don’t let that happen. Schedule a call to learn how we are helping businesses like yours implement complete, scalable, and strong HR at a cost that’s in reach.