Employees are important assets to every business. But managing people can be a tricky business. Great people management is critical to the success of any business with employees. Human resource mistakes can cause a lot of legal headaches for your business.
A lot of new employers don’t pay attention to their hiring process and hence lose out on the best people who could do more than just doing their job. Bad hiring decisions can waste your company’s time and resources.
These are some of the most common mistakes new employers are making everyday when hiring or managing employees.
1. Hiring the wrong people
Hire character. Train skill. – Peter Schutz.
The worst decision you can as an employer is to hire people who may be qualified on paper but wrong for the position you need to fill. You can’t build a great company without amazing and smart people. Bad hiring is one of the most costly decisions business leaders make.
“My biggest mistake is weighing too much on someone’s talent and not someone’s personality…it matters whether someone has a good heart.” Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX, Tesla and SolarCity)
A qualified candidate for any position has always been an important factor of hiring. But personality cannot be taught – it’s inherent to each unique person. And you should look out for that too.
Your new hires will be working with other employees on tasks and projects, find people who can work better with others. Attitude and character that perfectly match a company’s unique culture is insanely crucial to the success of any business.
If you are thinking long-term and growth, bring in people who have both skill and character. Look out for personality, values and integrity. Ask questions that make your candidates talk a lot more about how they work and what’s important to them in life.
Related: How to Hire the First 10 Employees for a Startup
2. Failing to engage new hires about what to do and what to expect
Onboarding (the process where new hires acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviors to become effective employees) is an important mechanism of the hiring procedure. Don’t leave your new hires to find things out about work ethics and culture themselves.
Onboarding can help your new staff develop connections, build networks, and learn how things get done in the company. People who feel disconnected from their companies are less loyal, less engaged, and far more likely to leave.
Put structures and procedures in place for new employees to get adjusted to the social and performance aspects of their jobs quickly and smoothly. This process can build trust and loyalty and boost new hire retention.
New employees need to learn the attitudes, knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to function effectively within your company. Start engaging with them and start the welcoming process before their first day on the job.
Develop a structured communication and welcoming plan your company can use for all future hiring processes. You can assign onboarding responsibilities to one of your employees.
3. Failure to document while managing people.
How do you manage employee relations? What policies and procedures do you have in place to deal with workplace issues? Employers are served with lawsuits from former employees nearly every day.
You can prevent a lot of legal issues if you take care of almost everything that could be a problem. Start documentation as soon as you hire new employees.
You can get experts to handle documentation for your human relations issues including grievances, disciplinary hearings, appeals and investigatory meetings. Proper documentation goes a long way toward avoiding unlawful claims in the future.
Professional transcription services can also help you concentrate on your core functions whilst your business consultations, workshops, and training sessions are properly documented for future references.
Employees’ performance documentation is even more crucial. Proper documentation goes a long way towards avoiding someone’s claim that he or she was wrongfully terminated.
Once a new employee receives a contract, make sure your employee handbook provides every job-related information which employees need to know, such as holiday arrangements, company rules and disciplinary and grievance procedures.
4. Ignoring basic employment laws
The moment you start hiring, you should put in place legal structures to protect the business. Never assume that employment laws don’t apply to your small company.
Familiarise yourself with, discrimination, overtime and minimum wage requirement, family leave, age and gender discrimination, disability, gender-pay differences, safety in the workplace and immigration.