The SSAA Convention flew by so quickly, and what a great time it was! This year, we were lucky enough to have been asked to present to members on HR. For those of you who were not able to make it to HR Central’s presentation, keep reading to learn a little about how investing in your people is key to your business achieving success.

When you think about any business, whether it be a pencil store, accountant firm, or even a storage facility, your team are behind it all. Regardless of how great your price, product or brand image is in the market place, one of the key factors of success in any business is your people. Taking some time to invest in your people through your HR processes such as recruitment, induction and performance can be instrumental to optimise employee retention, performance and engagement. So here are our tips!

Recruiting new staff is a serious decision, like purchasing a new car or a house. You wouldn’t dive into buying a house or new car without knowing exactly what you wanted, conducting research, analysing reviews and asking relevant questions. One of our tips to help your efforts in this area is to be clear on your company values and culture and look to find behaviours that align. Try going off topic during interviews. For example, if you are looking for a team player, or a good support person, asking a question like “when was the last time you did a nice deed for someone, and what was it?, can be telling and gives great insight into core values.

Now that you have found your new employee, you need to induct them into your business to set them up to be successful. A good induction won’t leave an employee flailing but will provide an increased sense of acceptance and increase the employee’s productivity. When it comes to induction, we recommend setting induction and performance milestones to help keep you on track with the induction, and affirm how the new employee is settling into your business. Shift the focus from a ticking the box exercise to seeing the employee achieve their goals.

Investing in performance ensures that performance expectations are clear and can be met, employees are rewarded for good performance, and provides a basis for employee development and career growth. Our tips are to carve out uninterrupted time for performance conversations to show appreciation and build mutual respect. Further, make sure you provide both positive and constructive feedback. Positive feedback is easy to give, but constructive feedback is where the greatest value lies. If you find these conversations hard, be sure to practice and use tools to frame feedback in a helpful way.
If you liked these tips, there are plenty more that we covered in our presentation at the Convention. Get in touch with us at HR Central if you would like more information or need assistance with any HR issue including those relating to recruitment, induction and performance.