In the ever-evolving landscape of business, where success is tied to the efficiency and vitality of one of your most valuable assets – your team – HR plays a pivotal role. Businesses, regardless of their size, rely on their teams to drive growth, yet knowing what HR systems, policies and processes to attract, motivate, and retain them can be challenging. You don’t know what you don’t know, right?
Enter the HR audit — a simple and effective way to reveal what you’re doing well and what’s needed to achieve your business goals.
HR audits are indispensable in building business momentum. From ensuring legal compliance to unlocking the full potential of your team. Let’s delve into some real-world client scenarios where businesses turned challenges into opportunities.
Compliance
The minute you employ someone, you must comply with local, state, and federal employee-related laws and regulations. A HR audit can identify potential risks and liabilities, such as;
- Inadequate record-keeping
- Discrimination claims
- Unfair work practices
- Workplace safety issues
Addressing these risks early can prevent costly problems and headaches.
While working with an Occupational Therapy Practice, the owner believed she was compliant, however, an audit revealed gaps in key performance management processes, associated training and a code of conduct. Without the code of conduct it made it difficult to performance manage one of her therapists, not to mention the potential risk of not having training in place for discrimination and harassment.
Efficiency Improvement
HR audits often reveal workflow inefficiencies. Streamlining these processes can save you valuable time and resources, allowing you to focus on more strategic tasks. For instance, a law firm audit exposed inefficient and unproductive performance and salary review processes. Implementing practical and relatively simple changes resulted in saving the three directors over 54 hours of meetings per year, and that’s just from optimising one process.
Develop Your Top Talent
Do you have the right tools to assess your team’s training and development needs? This is crucial for retaining and nurturing your people while fostering growth within your structure and team. When working with a law firm, we uncovered the need to grow the skills and redefine the job tasks for their administration team. By providing access to online training, along with new job descriptions and clear goals for the two receptionists, we witnessed transformative results. One of them is well on her way to becoming a Practice Manager. This shift has not only given the receptionists a clearer sense of purpose and a defined career pathway but has also enabled one of the directors to let go of many administrative and time-consuming tasks. Now, she can enjoy a stress-free holiday without worrying about her business – a small yet significant achievement!
Employee Satisfaction
The owners of a small Heating and Cooling business found themselves frustrated with their team’s apparent lack of motivation. We uncovered they had never conducted an employee engagement survey because they believed that with only 8 staff members, they knew their team well enough to understand their thoughts and motivations. However, through an employee engagement survey and interviews, we gained valuable insights into what truly motivated the team. Armed with this knowledge, we developed an incentive scheme for their salesperson by addressing his concerns and learning what motivates him.
Cost Control
Identifying areas where HR-related costs can be reduced or managed more effectively can have an impact on your bottom line. It was only after a thorough HR Audit that a very tired and frustrated owner of a commercial cleaning business decided to use an online OH&S training platform to reduce the time and cost spent on safety training. This freed up approximately four hours of his time each week and now he can redirect that time towards his sales efforts.
Let’s Summarise
A HR Audit can be a useful eye-opener regardless of your industry or business size. At the very least, it allows you to understand your strengths and identify gaps, and can help you work out a practical action plan as you grow your business.
If you are interested in discussing how an HR audit can help your business, get in touch, we’d love to help!
