I have a small company that turns a good profit. It has a number of employees, and an outside firm does their payroll and handles all the administrative side of the staff: contracts, payslips, and registering and deregistering them with Social Security.
As a business owner, I try to keep my staff motivated and happy, but sometimes, without anyone meaning to, friction arises and productivity suffers between some colleagues. That’s why I’d like to learn more about human resources in business, and I’ve decided to take a course on this vital and necessary subject.
This line of thinking reflects a need felt by many organizations, especially small and medium-sized businesses. Perhaps it’s your case too, and you’d like to know what a basic or introductory HR training course might cover.
The aim of human resources in a company
The complex work of human resources is based on:
- Improving working conditions to raise the company’s productivity.
- Promoting equality and motivation among employees.
- Setting objective, measurable goals in order to achieve more.
- Fostering a good working atmosphere.
- Knowing employees’ strengths and weaknesses.
- Organizing work according to each profile and job.
What an HR course for small businesses should cover
There’s a great deal of HR knowledge out there that can help you build a company whose employees are more motivated and keen to make the business they work for bigger and stronger.
The key areas to look for in a course are:
Communication techniques: keeping employees informed about the company’s plans, its goals and how the business is performing motivates them and gets them involved. They can see whether their efforts are enough for the company to do well, and to what extent they can help improve its performance, so they come to feel it as their own.
Negotiation: employees make demands and so does the employer. Both are reluctant to give in to the other’s requests, and the sensible thing is to reach shared agreements from which both sides benefit.
Motivation and conflict resolution: knowing how to find the root of a problem means knowing how to solve conflicts, and resolving them keeps staff satisfied and motivated.
Human resources management: knowing your staff means anticipating their needs and demands. This skill helps you find complementary training that speeds up production processes or improves their professional skills, as well as foreseeing conflicts and demands.
Professional profiles and job roles: this means knowing each employee’s strengths and what each job requires. It makes motivating staff easier, because you can design tasks and processes that enrich their daily work. It also helps you manage moving people from one job to another, matching their professional skills to the work being done.
Featured image: peagreengirl, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
