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Is keeping up with your employees keeping you up at night?

It’s 1:00 a.m. and you’ve been tossing and turning in bed for hours. Your new business is really taking off, but you are getting bogged down with the logistics of dealing with the day-to-day management of your employees. One came to you today asking for more money and another is asking for time off to care for a sick parent. Then, there’s Jason. You hired him at the recommendation of a friend and now you’re not sure he is a good fit for your business.

As a result of all the tossing, turning and pacing the bedroom, your spouse throws a pillow in your direction and tells you to move to the guestroom for the night.

Does this story sound familiar?

It happens all the time! As a business grows, it also experiences growing pains. But with a new day comes a resolve to make the business environment better for the owner and the team.

First off, in order to be more effective with your employees, you must take the necessary step of going through a human resources audit to assess what you really need. A professional human resources employee or human resources consultant can lay the groundwork by learning more about the nature and goals of your business and assessing and identifying your specific needs as it relates to your employees.

Examples of items outlined in an audit may include:

1. Regulatory—Does your company’s human resources policies and procedures comply with all federal, state and local regulations?
2. Legal—Are your human resource policies and procedures likely to prevent you from being sued - - successfully?
3. Productivity—Is your firm making the best use of your human capital?  Do you have the right number (quantity) and knowledgeable/experienced (quality) employees in your work force in order to bring ever increasing sales, customer service levels and profitability to your firm?
4. Morale—Do you have a work force that truly loves working for your company?  How do you know?  The HR audit will help answer that question by providing data in such areas as: employee turnover, absenteeism, tardiness, employee complaints and other typical indicators of overall employee morale.

Once the audit is complete, your company will have a “roadmap” to help improve the performance of your firm in the 4 areas listed above. 

So who should conduct the human resources audit?  Well this will depend on many factors such as:  size of your company, industry your business is in, whether or not you have a professional human resources employee in your firm and other factors.

Typically the answer should be:  The human resources professional in your firm, an outsourced human resources professional or sometimes even an HR attorney.

How long will it take to “fix” the HR problems in my firm?  How much will this cost?

These are certainly not questions that have a quick answer.  It will depend on factors such as: 

• How many employees are in your company?
• How many facilities do these employees work in?
• How well did your firm do in the audit? 

But really, the answer to these two questions is like a Master Card commercial:  PRICELESS.  Conducting an audit and correcting policies and procedures based on the outcome of the audit is a short term cost in terms of time and money. 

Don’t miss out on one more night of sleep. The investment in an affordable human resources audit is critical to your business’ future success. Your spouse or significant other will thank you and you’ll have the confidence you need to build a business that will make you and your entire team proud.  

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