HR Case Study with RIT-AIR^®

Typically a client will come to us with the following:

Issues

• Business undergoing growth
• Taking new people on board without structures in place to support them
• Lack of accountability and role definition
• Lack of shared values and understanding
• Communication issues
• Not sure where to ‘put’ certain people
• Leadership skills need strengthening
• Generational mix in the business - Gen Y issues

When a business experiences growth, keeping up with the changes while supporting, motivating and engaging current and new staff requires solid structures and foundation. Often we see a lack of accountability and/or lack of mutual understanding about performance expectations between managers and their staff in new and developing businesess.

When a small business starts out, everyone does a bit of everything - there is little clarification and definition between which roles perform which tasks and who has accountability for the various outcomes. As you experience growth, this becomes more and more cumbersome - we see communication issues arising, and employees not performing at their best due to uncertainty around their roles and what is expected of them.

From a leadership point of view, many managers do not have adequate training in what it takes to be an effective leader and manager of their staff. Effective leadership is the key to culture and retention - employees don't leave a business, they leave a boss. To assist with developing an open and enjoyable culture, and to retain key staff, it is important for managers to be given some assistance and guidance in this area. Many managers are excellent from a technical point of view, but do not have (nor have ever been given) training as to how to cope with the complexities of managing others. This is particularly evident with managing Generation Y, whose expectations are completely different from other generations previously (primarily loyalty to friends, not the company). 

Solutions

We examine the organisation and make sure we have a clear understanding of the business as a whole before we make recommendations. Typically for the issues above we would do the following:

• Interviews to determine expectations of roles
• JODs® - a type of outcome-focussed position description that defines roles, KPIs and targets
• Definition of culture and values of business
• Performance Appraisals in place (using our exclusive online system to remove the paperwork and aministrative burden)
• Behavioural profiling using the McQuaig system – look at the personality and behavioural preferences of existing staff, how these interact within the teams, and define the ideal behavioural style for new staff entering the mix
• Compliance – HR documentation (put in place formal policies on issues such as sexual harassment, bullying, OH&S, dress code, use of phones/internet and other company equipment etc.)
• Review and recommend on recruitment and other HR policies and practices

Depending on the size of business, we would work between 1 – 18 months on the implementation of such a program, with the aim of helping you to become self sufficent with your HR systems and structure so that you can easily and confidently implement best practice HR processes as you move forward and continue to grow. We also provide ongoing support as many organisations appreciate having us as an independent point of reference (and a neutral third party for advice on all staff matters) once we have finished implementing the program.

For more information about our human resources solutions, please phone (03) 9077 4870 and speak to one of our consultants.