A growing organization indicates not only bigger profits but also rapidly increasing job responsibilities for people working behind it. It’s not enough to recruit more people to do various tasks; it’s important to employ more HR staff to support your new hires.
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Knowing the Signs Indicating When to Invest in HR Expansion
There are signs indicating when you need more than just an HR generalist to fill gaps in your HR processes, such as salary review/disputes, understaffing, absence of a proper onboarding process, high employee turnover, and/or low employee morale, to name a few.
As you contemplate your HR goals and duties, consider these three factors to help you decide when it’s time to grow your team:
1. Company Budget
Of course, there are expenses involved when adding new people to the team. In your case, you can show that HR is not a cost center but rather an asset that continues to generate revenue for your company.
For instance, business process outsourcing (BPO) companies need more recruiters to fill their clients’ call center staffing requirements. The same approach applies to IT start-up companies that need tech recruiters to find in-demand tech talent.
Better-qualified staff means higher productivity, translating to higher revenues, suggesting that HR operations impact the company’s bottom line.
2. Staff Expertise
The HR staff’s current skill set level is essential to the present and future growth plans to maintain HR operations. For example, a company planning to expand business into other areas would need a labor relations specialist to ensure compliance with local laws. If that skill is missing from your team, hiring additional HR staff can fill in the gaps.
3. Business Growth
Business expansion demands extra HR coverage, if only to cater to the needs of a higher number of employees. Sure, you can opt to outsource your HR activities to agencies, but cutting employees’ direct access to HR services can potentially affect employee morale.
Attracting the Right HR Talent by Writing Effective Job Descriptions
Once you’ve decided to hire new people to fulfill various HR tasks, the next thing to do is create effective job descriptions that appeal to your target HR personnel:
1. Provide Company Information
Give candidates a glimpse of what it’s like to work for you by providing the following details:
- Your products or services to guide applicants on how to position their skills and experience based on your organization’s objectives;
- Your mission and vision statements that clearly convey why they should join your company; and
- Your company news and updates to inform them of whether you are expanding into new industries, branching into new locations, or launching new products or services.
2. Clarify Job Responsibilities
As organization objectives change over time, so do employees’ duties. Job responsibilities represent the bulk of job descriptions, so pay attention to how you craft them:
- List core tasks that reflect the worker’s main responsibilities. Example: Design and implement learning courses and materials to train and upskill employees.
- Be specific with the job details to give candidates a good idea of what the job entails and what skills are required. Example: Manage the full-cycle recruiting process, which includes sourcing, screening, and interviewing candidates.
- Include essential HR technical skills needed for the role. Example: In-depth knowledge of Microsoft® Office Excel, PowerPoint®, and Word.
3. Highlight Benefits
In addition to your salary offer, your company’s perks and benefits are also key factors that help jobseekers decide whether to choose you or your competitor, so emphasize the following:
- Financial rewards to complement your salary package:
- Stock options
- Bonus
- Equity options
- Learning and development opportunities:
- Sponsored training
- Industrial conferences
- Access to libraries and online training programs
- Healthcare and wellness programs for employees’ holistic development:
- Gym memberships
- Free breakfast and lunch, courtesy of in-house chefs
- Healthy snacks
- Work/life balance to accommodate different work and productivity styles:
- Work from home/remote work
- 4-day workweek
- Flex schedules
Crafting Your HR Staffing Plan
Writing the job scope and requirements is just the beginning of your HR staffing process. As an HR manager, you need to devise a plan to recruit, develop, and retain your staff as the organization grows:
- Sourcing and recruiting—Don’t limit job postings to job boards and paid job ads. Use social recruiting to spread the word on your HR vacancies. Engage the whole company by asking employees to share your company’s job openings with their LinkedIn network and other online network groups.
- Training—As part of career advancement, train everyone on the team to know and perform all HR work. Set up shadow sessions and buddy programs to facilitate the transfer of knowledge.
- Retention—More than the salary and benefits, a positive workplace can keep workers engaged and loyal to the organization.
Conclusion
There is no better approach to expanding your HR department than making sure you’ve analyzed your department goals, crafted every HR job description, and wrapped it up with a sound HR staffing plan that best meets the organization’s needs.
Gem Siocon is a digital marketer and freelance recruitment writer at www.recruitcopy.com