Training Human Resources – The Long and Short of It
In the madhouse rush of making organization and its people happy, efficient and valuable, HR managers conveniently sacrifice or should we put it as “forget” to benefit themselves.
Training Human Resources as a department has more often than not assumed a lousy last spot on business priority as well as employee welfare.
It is not a blame game but a matter of putting things in perspective both for the business owners and HR professionals alike.
Even if it is a small or medium level enterprise, the business owners need to realize that they can be only as successful as their HR team, since they are the ones getting hands and brains to run the company, nurturing and keeping them together.
Putting the HR managers in top form helps to streamline people, processes and systems.
Putting the HR managers in top form helps to streamline people
Like all good things, training is a two-way journey. To enjoy the results promised by these high-end events and courses, the HR managers have to play their part well.
It requires them to put equal measures of realization, conviction, participation and application while engaging in the learning process.
Training Human Resources – Brownie Points in Store
As per CIPD 2015 report, only 22% of global workforce, especially in UK, feels organizations encourage and enable the development of HR capability to just a little or no extent.
This implies there is a huge scope for investing in the development of Human resources.
However, SMEs and entrepreneurs who are managing things on shoestring budget need solid reasons for such investment.
Here are some of them:
Long Term Gain
With appropriate training, the HR can bring desired output with best method that is out there, in least possible time and by saving you big bucks.
It is a matter of short-term expenditure for long-term benefits. Imagine the losses you may have to bear if your HR falls short in retaining the key players or messing up with employee compliances?
Foundation for Motivation
Keeping the HR folks energized and up-to-date with relevant and recent skills/knowledge keeps them motivated to make extra effort.
They make conscious effort to align their strengths with organizational needs and perpetuate the positivity down the line among others.
Develop Transferable Skills
In startups and SMEs the org structures are flat and fluid with one person assuming various roles/titles.
This requires enhancing skills not only for the current role but also those that might be useful for other positions.
Examples of such skills may include Leadership, Management, Business Technology or Coaching.
Top 5 Popular Training Topics for HR
1) Leadership and Team Management
This area has assumed importance for HR community as instances requiring them to serve as leaders and change agents become more apparent.
The perception of HR manager has changed from an administrative or entertainment manager to someone who can bring serious results with their visionary leadership and team building skills.
Businesses can benefit by training people managers in this domain as it snowballs into managing issues, like the ones listed below, where HR leadership is imperative:
- Organization Restructuring
- Changing dynamics of talent acquisition and retention
- Managing information
- Coaching for higher performance
- Discipline and Accountability for results
- Managing employee expectations
- Managing disagreements at work
2) HR or Talent Analytics
There is a way to know how much one earns on any tangible investment. There is no reason why one shouldn’t be able to calculate the ROI from human capital.
This thought process has ingrained into the way of doing business and gained momentum in recent times.
HR needs to be abreast with latest tools and software to capture meaningful employee data in order to achieve business goals quickly and efficiently.
When HR is trained to make data driven decisions, not only the business outcomes get managed better but also it paves way for bridging competency gaps and organization improvement.
3) Business Skills
Business Skills never go out of style or steam. More so for the HR professionals!
A generous doze of business skills training is required for them to manage workplace and its people like pro.
Whether it is delegation, goal setting, multitasking or adaptability and innovation, entrepreneurs have always backed courses that help their HR managers demonstrate these traits.
Apart from these soft skills, a deep dive into various business models used at organization and cross-functional training is essential to make HR speak the same language as business folks.
Exposure to commercial side of things and involvement in core business projects is being increasingly practiced for in-house development of HR
4) Legal Compliances
HR is indispensible when it comes to managing the employment law and tribunal affairs.
This fuels the need for the business owners to sponsor their HR staff for legal compliance training to save on penalties or mediate employee grievance cases.
Participation in these training events can help business minimize risk and gain confidence to run business.
HR trained in employee law and compliances can negotiate their way out of issues related to:
- Compliance reporting and updates
- Discipline and Documentation
- Harassment scenarios at work
- Hourly wages and contract management
- Workplace investigations
- Leave and other employment benefits
5) Communication and Technology
With business getting digitized, HR can’t be left far behind. There are software and apps for anything and everything in HR – be it managing leaves, staffing, compensation, E-learning or simple office administration.
HRIS and related apps have changed the ways of dealing with employees making it more real time and virtual.
Businesses make HR the first touch point to absorb organization technology so that it permeates seamlessly across departments without hiccups and gets ingrained into the company culture.
The same holds true when entrepreneurs want to introduce new ways of communicating via mobile apps or online work tools.
Steve Wynn of the world famous – Wynn Las Vegas had quoted “Human Resources isn’t a thing we do, it’s the thing that runs our business.”
There is little doubt then why wouldn’t business train its most vital wing a.k.a. Human Resources.
Mitalee.
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