Going into the New Year as a business leader is always exciting. Whether you’re the head of a department, the head of a company or a team leader, the New Year is the perfect time to reset your mindset and focus on growth in the year ahead.
For HR leaders the New Year is a brilliant opportunity to get your team together and decide how you can help facilitate your businesses growth in 2022. This could be done by onboarding some new HR software or by payroll outsourcing.
There are many ways your team can help facilitate the growth of a company and in this article we’ll explain four ways your HR team can be instrumental in your businesses growth in 2022.
How do HR teams facilitate growth?
When people are asked to think of business growth, their minds tend to wander to sales, revenue and the bottom line. Money and financial gain are the obvious metrics to measure when considering how a business is growing.
But, the thing we often forget is: it’s people that drive this revenue. If you don’t have engaged and happy employees who are aligned with your company’s mission and values, it’s extremely hard to grow your business. If your staff members are just clocking in for a pay check, they’re not invested in going the extra mile for your company and that can mean your growth stagnates.
Your HR team should be central to any growth strategy your business is planning in 2022. Making sure you find the right people to help actualise your company’s growth vision is the job of the HR team and that makes them indispensable when an organisation is going through a growth phase.
4 ways your HR team can facilitate your company’s growth in 2022
There isn’t one clear strategy or plan when it comes to growing a business. Every company is different after all and the problems and obstacles your organisation will face when growing could be vastly different from another company or even your competitors.
There isn’t a one-size-fits-all plan to business growth but as an HR team there are things you can do that’ll help immensely with your company’s growth strategy. These can be done by any HR team in any sector so whether you’re working in a hospitality business, a financial institution or construction company, these four tips can help you grow no matter your industry.
1. Hire the right people
It sounds so obvious when you say it out loud but hiring the right people is the number one thing an HR team needs to do to help a business grow. Finding hires that really gel with your business’s mission and values, will mean they’ll be engaged and productive workers who want to go the extra mile to see your business succeed.
The “right people” is a broad term that can be a bit wishy-washy. To make sure you’re hiring the right people, your HR team needs to sit down with the leaders of your business and really detail the skills, attitude and experiences you want your employees to have. Only by doing that can you be confident you’ll be hiring the right people for the roles in your company.
But once you know what your ideal job candidate looks like, finding the “right people” for your business becomes so much easier. Hiring the “right people” can have far-reaching, positive effects on your entire business. Finding hires like this can reduce the turnover in your business, help boost morale when new hires start and it’ll cut down the training and onboarding time required to get new starters productive.
Basically by finding people who want to work at your business, you’re guaranteeing they’ll be a great fit for your company before they walk in through the front door. This means they’ll get up to speed with the ins-and-outs of your business fast and become productive employees in double quick time. This all translates into greater growth for your company.
2. Build a strong workplace culture and use that to sell and improve your company
Hiring the right people won’t get your business far if they don’t stay at your company for very long. A bad or toxic workplace culture can turn off bright employees quickly. Conversely, a great workplace culture can turn your staff into ambassadors and advocates of your business. Your staff will become little advertising billboards that champion your business to friends and family and can actually help you find more employees for your business.
Finding the “right people” to work at your company is the first step to creating a great workplace culture but it’s only half the battle. It’s down to the HR team and the company’s leaders to decide what type of culture they want to create in the business and then they must be the drivers of it.
Creating an environment your ideal candidate wants to work in should be the driving principle behind your company culture. If you do this correctly you’ll find that your staff really enjoy coming to work and will likely work harder and longer for you.
No matter the sector or industry you’re in, a positive workplace culture will incentivise staff to stay at your business longer and be more engaged and thoughtful with their work. This will greatly help you with your growth goals and that’s why company culture should be at the heart of any growth planning.
3. Become a central figure in your businesses growth planning
If your C-suite is getting together to discuss your business’s growth plans for 2022, make sure your HR department has a seat at that table. As we’ve highlighted in the previous two points, finding the right candidates for your growth plans and building a good company culture that incentivises them to stick around is essential to creating sustained business growth.
It’s important therefore, that these considerations are taken into account when your leadership team is planning their initial growth strategy. As an HR leader, you’ll have an understanding of the job market that other business leaders might not have.
For example, if your company is planning to move into a new city or country, HR is going to be the department that knows about the area’s employment demographics and figures. This is crucial information to bring to an initial growth strategy meeting as it can help inform where and how your company grows.
Opening an office in a city that has a 1% unemployment rate will make it extremely difficult for your business to find employees. Bringing this information to these initial strategy meetings can help your business avoid costly mistakes and lets you focus on strategies that have a high chance of guaranteeing growth.
4. Make sure your teams are always learning
A positive company culture is essential for keeping staff in your business, but creating a great workplace is only one thing you can do to reduce turnover. Employees want progression, they want to be constantly learning and feeling like their careers are moving forward.
You can have the best workplace culture in the world but if your employees don’t feel they’re going anywhere, they’ll only stay with you for so long. That’s why building a clear and actionable learning and development (L&D) program should be a central pillar to any growth strategy.
You want your employees to grow with you and your business. You don’t want them to take a job with you and then leave within two years when it becomes clear to them that there are no progression prospects.
Onboarding new HR software is a good way to systematise and organise your business’s learning and development initiatives. Keeping track of how all your employees are developing can be tough but by using some software you can streamline the process and make sure everyone in your business is working towards the professional goals they want to achieve.
Being proactive in your staff’s L&D initiatives shows employees you care about their development and them as people. This not only reinforces the positive workplace culture you’ve already established but can help your staff stay engaged and happy at work. That equals more productivity and more growth.
Are you looking to grow in 2022?
Is your HR team or business looking to expand in 2022? If you’re planning a big growth phase and need some assistance on the HR front, Phase 3 is here to help. We specialise in helping HR and payroll teams improve their technology and processes. If you’d like to find out how we can help you grow in 2022 you can contact us here for more details.
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