Five HR Best Practices: Small and Mid-Sized Businesses

As an HR practitioner leading the function in a small or mid-sized business, you want the assurance that your department is reflecting your commitment to quality and professionalism. That can be hard to do on limited budgets and with few staff members dedicated to HR. Creating an HR department that implements best practices also can be hard if you’re stuck in the dark ages of manual systems and frustrating spreadsheets. As you work to modernize your HR function, you’ll soon see that an affordable, cloud-based HR management system is a vital tool in taking your department to new levels of efficiency and effectiveness. When you talk with the boss about implementing HR technology, you’ll want to explain how modernizing your function will also enable you to adopt some of the best practices that ramp up HR’s performance in small and mid-sized companies worldwide. Here are five HR best practices for SMBs … and HR technology can help you introduce them to your HR department:

1. Streamline your workflows. An online HR management system is perhaps the most affordable and powerful tool to help your department achieve new levels of efficiency when it comes to handling the administrative work that remains a major part of HR’s mission. The smaller your company is, the more transforming this benefit will be. In businesses where HR is a one- or two-person department, the capability of working faster and doing more can be an especially valuable contribution.

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2. Build development opportunities. The reduction in time and effort that an electronic HR management system makes possible can free HR professionals to work on development for managers and employees, alike. In addition to the added value that new competencies contribute to the business, opportunities to grow knowledge and skills are appealing draws for companies seeking the best job candidates, and they are powerful engagement and retention tools as well. SMBs can’t always pay top dollar for skilled workers, but development programs can offer affordable ways to compete with larger employers.

3. Improve employee touch points. BambooHR’s online HR management system provides the features HR departments in SMBs need to improve interactions with employees. The system lets HR tailor employee self-service related to benefits, payroll, training, and more. Customizable communications also help HR departments reach out with timely reminders and messages to support relationship-building with all of your company’s workers.

4. Measure and track HR’s work. When your HR department leverages the power of an online HR management system, measuring and documenting results becomes much easier. You can design reports that recap HR’s activities, but you also have the flexibility (with a BambooHR system) to view benefits-related data, payroll data, time utilization, employee skills data, and other factors that contribute directly to your company’s ability to achieve its business goals.

5. Ensure consistency. As SMBs grow, nobody knows better than HR that the need for setting procedures — and ensuring employee compliance with policies — becomes more pressing. Work processes must be standardized, and the company’s treatment of its employees must be consistent and fair. An online HR management system from BambooHR enables SMBs’ HR pros to post policies, procedures, employee handbooks, work processes, benefits features, training requirements, development eligibility criteria, and other information. Even when policies aren’t popular, consistency in their communication and enforcement helps companies avoid problems. Your HR department can take a giant first step toward adopting these five best practices today by contacting BambooHR to talk about replacing your outdated spreadsheets with cloud-based HR technology. In an age when SMBs need every resource at their disposal if they are to compete and succeed, a high-performance HR can be a game-changer.

Here are five HR best practices for SMBs. HR technology can help you introduce them in your HR department.