HR Haunts and Horrors: Unmasking Workplace Mysteries

What keeps you up at night? I bet it isn’t ghouls and goblins… it’s HR nightmares? Yes, we all have them. Whether it be a Corporate Crypt Keeper, the Office Phantom, or simply ‘Ghostbusting that elusive perfect employee’, our businesses can become our version of Halloween.

Now is the perfect time to craft your ghoulishly good HR plan for the coming year. But what should your 2024 HR proton pack include? Your essentials are:

1. Measuring your team satisfaction/engagement

Do you know how engaged your team is? Do you know what an engaged employee looks like? This article, What Does an Engaged Employee Look Like explains it in detail.    How and when to measure engagement is the key. Measuring it before or after a significant change in the business helps understand what to do next. It also helps highlight what could be a roadblock or what could be leveraged to make it a success. 

There are many options to measure engagement (of course, the one I use is the best 😊. But it’s also important to recognise that engagement is a collective voice and employee retention is an individual voice.  Assess the collective voice using a business-wide survey and direct conversations to assess individual employee experiences. Another tip: your tool should always data points around demographics (age, gender identity, longevity, departments etc.) so you can take action.

2. Remuneration framework

Now, that term might sound very corporate and not applicable to small to medium businesses, but when Hays reports that 49% of people with an uncompetitive salary look elsewhere for employment opportunities, you have to listen. The problem experienced by SME’s today is they only find out what a competitive salary is when their resigning employee explains what they are being offered elsewhere. 

Salary is no longer a negotiation.  It’s a hostage situation, and the employer has no bargaining power. Having a proactive/updated, thought-out, benchmarked salary framework that is communicated to staff will at least reduce the surprises.

3. Leadership

Being a great leader is not new. Nor is it optional. Search ‘impact of leadership on workplace experience‘, and there are 1.59 trillion results. Bad leadership is like a dagger to the heart of culture. If your leaders, including you, aren’t displaying leadership behaviours, you can not expect your employee engagement and business growth to increase. Key behaviours to demonstrate and measure are:

• Leaders being self-motivated
• High level of planning and being organised
• Effective communication
• Team leadership
• Business acumen and management skills

4. Ignoring poor performance

Not once in the last 20 years of working in businesses have I heard, ‘Oh, I’m so glad I waited to address my employee’s poor performance. They just improved overnight’. I get it.  Addressing poor performance involves tough conversations. You might say the wrong thing, and they could go to Fair Work. But it will never get better unless you take action to fix it. 

Each scenario is different, but you can follow some simple steps that Fair Work outlines in their guide. Also, having a trusted HR advisor to coach you through the process and help you to ‘weave your magic’.

5. Employer branding

Finding the right people is insomnia-inducing at the moment. Sometimes, it isn’t even the right people, just any people. Yes, the labour market is tight, but remember, it’s not about quantity, it’s quality. You only need one great candidate to apply. Check out my blog post about attracting the right candidate, but I’ve found that recently, employer branding is the single best way to find that stellar performer.

It’s not a secret recipe. It’s the same concept as business branding, except the product is employment. Quick wins to improve your employer brand are:

• Highlight why someone would want to work with you (types of work, client base, unique benefits you offer). Answer the question, ‘what’s in it for me?’
• Talk about the team on your About Us page on your website, and have their photos and stories.
• Whatever story you have on your website, continue to grow it on your socials. Yes, prospective employees will stalk you, so give them the information they need where they are looking.

So, as we unmask the workplace mysteries and equip ourselves with our 2024 HR proton packs to battle HR haunts and horrors, remember: these ghoulishly good essentials are the keys to making your business thrive and shine like a jack-o’-lantern in the dark Halloween night of the business world! 🎃👻