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  • Three HR Tech Trends To Implement   

    As the HR technology landscape continues to gain momentum, companies across the country are utilizing the surge of new solutions to more efficiently manage their employees. From learning management systems to applicant tracking – all these exciting offerings make it easier for owners to streamline their employee experience, and, in turn, allow them to focus on the daily tasks of running your business.  

    Check out the top three trends according to our HR experts:

    Trend #1: Applicant Tracking Systems 

    An applicant tracking system (ATS) will transform your hiring process in no time. Here, your company can show what jobs you have open, along with seeing which ones candidates are most interested in. This platform is intuitive enough to show how long it took to get them in the door and accept the job – which is crucial, as the workforce continues to tighten. Moreover, an ATS offers customizable and configurable features, including pre-hire assessments and sourcing of passive candidates. Plus, with integrations on career sites, job boards, and social media, an ATS can get your posting out quickly and effectively.  

    Lastly, consider how an ATS can help you thin out your candidate pool by setting minimum requirements, such as years of experience or education. With the time saved and quality hires gained, the return on investment of an ATS is more apparent than ever.  

    Trend #2: Performance Management Systems 

    A performance management system is vital to developing and improving performance at an organizational, departmental, and individual level. Whether it’s creating notes for a one-on-one meeting, setting objectives and goals, or guiding evaluations, implementing a performance management system allows for transparency and accountability on all accounts.  

    The most important aspect of using a performance management system is how your company is closing the loop with the information learned. Management must rely back on the information gleaned to make informed decisions on compensation such as increases or bonuses, as well as career trajectory and company goals. Just about anything related to human capital management can and should come from your performance management system.  

    The return on investment (ROI) of your performance management system can be calculated through a variety of means – consider tracking the increase of workforce productivity, the cost of reducing your attrition, or simply the time saved. Effective performance management drives business benefits.  

    Trend #3: Learning Management Systems  

    A learning management system (LMS) provides the framework for an organization’s learning and development. The right LMS can help an organization create, manage, share, and track learning programs. Investing in the educational development of your staff helps keep them engaged, which, in turn, helps you retain quality talent – knowing that every time a business replaces a salaried employee it costs them six to nine months’ salary. 

    As a plethora of companies make the leap over to paperless, an LMS can lend a hand in those efforts. Paper can be a big hassle when you need to edit information in a small amount of time. eLearning helps your company’s green initiatives by not reprinting material every time a small change is made. Moreover, quizzes and other learning activities no longer require being printed either. However, there are print options still along the way, such as printing a certificate of completion when an employee completes a training. Perhaps your company isn’t quite paperless but is still working remotely, an LMS provides the classroom experience without actually needing the classroom. 

    According to an article from Cornerstone, training is best understood when it is customized to an employee. Personalized information is one of the most important aspects to consider when wanting everyone to fully understand the information they are being taught. Each department has job-specific knowledge they need their employees to learn, which LMS makes very appealing.  

    As you may know, we are on the verge of what some experts deem “the great employee resignation.” The time is now to show your employees that you are invested in their education and future. By offering continued education through an LMS, you can offer your employees tailored content to help develop them professionally.  

    Our Message: 

    When deciding whether you want to add HR Platforms to your business, it is important to fully understand all the aspects included. We recommend doing your research on which one matches your company’s budget and functions, as this information above was just an overview of a few great ones we recommend. To learn more about how we can help you grow your business and to take advantage of our HR technology, contact us here.  

  • When it comes to the observance of holidays in the workplace, it can be tough to balance productivity, compliance and fun. Just like the ghost of holiday past returned to haunt Ebenezer Scrooge, there are some workplace festivities that – in the form of HR headaches – could come back to haunt you. Here are some helpful tips that protect you from liabilities, while still allowing you and your employees to enjoy the holiday season: 

    Time Off Accommodations

    This area of human resources can bring out the inner-Scrooge in every business owner during the holidays. With more people off, less can get accomplished, meaning lost revenue opportunities for you. While federal law does not require you to pay staff before and after a holiday, you can boost employee morale by making the best attempts to accommodate religious observances, beliefs and practices as long as they do not cause undue hardship. If you need to remain open during the holidays, consider how many employees you need to operate and offer incentives to employees to work certain days. Offer catered lunches, pay time-and-half or create a rotating schedule to allow employees to select which days they would prefer to work. Additionally, it is a good idea to implement a holiday time-off policy detailing how employees should request time-off and how it will be awarded (seniority, first-come, first serve, etc.). 

    Decorations

    As a private employer, you can decide if and how you want to decorate your space for any holiday throughout the year. You can decorate using more secular displays such as snowflakes or other winter images.  You can also encourage individual employees to contribute to decorating the office or their working space to ensure everyone’s religious beliefs and traditions are represented. To prevent any major conflicts, publish rules about the type of displays which are acceptable and those that are not for safety reasons. Remind employees to be mindful of others’ and discourage scented displays or blinking lights which may be a distraction.  

    Bonuses 

    If you give your employees bonuses or other monetary gifts at the end of the year, you need to be careful as they can be considered compensation or gifts.  If the bonuses are considered compensation, they must be included in the regular rate of pay for overtime purposes. Money given as a gift on a special occasion does not have to be included as is it not based on worked hours, employee efficiency or other measurement of productivity.

    The holidays can present many frustrating challenges for business owners, but if you follow these tips, you don’t have to turn into a Scrooge to make it through this busy time of year.

  • According to the Association for Talent Development’s 2014 State of the Industry Report, organizations spend an average of $1,208 per employee on training and development. For companies with fewer than 500 workers, that number is even higher, coming in at $1,888 per employee.

    But time is money. According to that same study, companies are spending an average of 31.5 hours per year training employees. That’s time you aren’t billing to an account or turning prospects into clients.

    Learn how GMS can make human resurce functions like employee training more efficient.

    Training Doesn’t Have To Be Draining

    There are many reasons why companies fail their training process. They have complicated or incomplete training materials. They don’t foster enough participation with trainees. They don’t bring in different trainers to keep things fresh. They don’t set clearly defined expectations for new hires. The list goes on.

    No matter the reason, lack of time is perhaps the most common reason why training programs fail. If you try to do it all alone, you simply don’t have the time you need to build a strong training program.

    Which is exactly how a Professional Employer Organization can help. PEOs tackle the details of employee training, including:

    • Determine training needs based on company and industry needs
    • Develop and execute wide range of HR training via in person training and webinars
    • Track and monitor employee progress through customized training program
    • Recommend training if/when HR issues arise

    This not only improves your onboarding and training processes, it frees up your time to focus on other important business functions. 

    Next Steps

    Bringing on new employees or improving your existing staff doesn’t have to be painful, inefficient, and costly. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help.

  • Wow, that’s a lot of letters. What does this all mean?

    Over the last several years, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been contending that their reach expands beyond unionized workers. On March 18th, the NLRB General Counsel, Richard Griffin, released a 30-page report providing guidance to attorneys and HR professionals on what he believes is not a legal rule for an employee handbook under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).  

    In short, Mr. Griffin’s report proposes major changes under which the NLRB believes it can apply its rules.

    NLRB loosk to expand NLRA and what it might mean

    But you’re not a union shop, so who cares, right?

    If this report gains any traction, you should definitely care. By offering guidance to the legality of rules under the NLRA, it can expand its reach because all employers are governed under the NLRA.

    In this 30-page report , the General Counsel gives real-life examples of “good” and “bad” policies. Among those areas addressed are:

    • Confidentiality policies

    • Conduct toward management 

    • Conduct toward co-workers

    • Conduct toward third parties 

    • Use of company logos, copyrights, and trademarks

    • Restrictions on photography and recording

    • Miscellaneous unlawful policies

    What you should do next

    At the beginning of this piece, I wrote that this report was created for those in the legal profession and HR professionals to help them advise their clients/employers. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you should get in touch with your attorney. Today.

    If you’re still not sure where to begin, give us a call at 330-659-0101. Our HR specialists are there to not only react to new rules as they come across, but to help you be better prepared before it becomes an issue for you.

  • If you own a small, five-person company, it might be tempting to think that you don’t need to invest any time or money into human resource functions like a big business. That’s a bad idea.

    Every company needs HR, regardless of size. Just like how you don’t build a house without a proper foundation, a small business – or any business – needs to create a solid human resource foundation to succeed.

    Why Small Companies Can Benefit from HR Management

    A common objection that a Professional Employer Organization (PEO) hears is that an owner thinks that their business is too small to invest money in HR management. Some businesses may have an office manager with HR experience, but it is difficult for one person to match all of the help a PEO can provide.

    Certain HR laws may come into play at different employee milestones, but there are still basic HR processes that need to be in place whether a company has one employee or 100 employees. A PEO can ensure that your business has those processes ready. If there is a workers’ compensation claim, a PEO can handle it. If a former employee files an unemployment claim, a PEO can manage it. No company is truly too small for critical HR functions, and you don’t want to get stuck dealing with HR laws that you never thought could or would affect you.

    Investing in the Future with HR Management

    Another major reason why it’s critical to invest in HR is that your business isn’t going to stay small forever. A five-employee company should eventually want to turn into a 10-employee company, and then a 20-employee company, and so on. 

    A PEO allows you to shift your focus to core business functions rather than HR  processes. This allows you to focus on driving revenue and growing your business instead of payroll management, benefits administration, and other time-consuming tasks. Also, a PEO can do all of this for a set fee, saving you from investing in a full-time HR representative.

    A Small Business HR Partner

    PEOs can be a huge help to businesses, large and small. According to the National Association of Professional Employers Organizations, small business that use a PEO…

    • Grow 7 to 9 percent faster
    • Have 10 to 14 percent lower employee turnover
    • Are 50 percent less likely to go out of business

    Investing in your business’ HR processes is a big step toward a more successful future. Contact us today to talk to one of our experts about how Group Management Services can build a strong HR foundation for your small business.

  • Human resources are one of the most important components of any small business. However, the responsibilities often fall to the owner or an executive, as many small businesses don’t have the capacity for a designated HR department or full-time employee. Often, managing these HR functions in-house creates many challenges. 

    Small businesses find it helpful to outsource human resource management.

    Small Business HR Challenges

    When you devote so much time to growing your business and improving your products and services, how are you supposed to find the resources to manage HR? From recruitment and retention to payroll and benefits, it’s important that HR doesn’t fall by the wayside in a small business. Deficiencies in any of these areas could result in:

    • Non-compliance fines
    • Lack of talented employees
    • Inefficiencies that slow down your production cycle

    Below, we identified some of the most common HR challenges for small businesses and how you can overcome them.

    Hiring process

    Hiring new employees is a major time and financial commitment for a small business. When job ads and interviews are improperly handled, the recruitment process can quickly become a time-consuming headache. 

    For one, it takes an average of 23 days to find the right candidate, according to Glassdoor, taking time away from other important projects. For more technical positions, it can take a lot longer. On top of that, poor job descriptions can attract non-qualified applicants, eating away even more time to manually sift through each resume.

    A hurried interview process or failing to ask the right questions can then result in bad hires, which can cost nearly $15,000 according to CareerBuilder. While many small businesses rely on referrals when it comes to hiring, interviews need to be consistent and conducted in a way that attracts quality talent and provides a clear path toward making a job offer.

    Employee training and safety

    Once employees are hired, having HR resources can be a great asset during training to prevent costly errors and even injuries from occurring. However, many small businesses simply don’t have the time to properly train new hires, which could affect workplace safety.

    According to the National Safety Council, a worker is injured on the job every 7 seconds, with 25 percent of these injuries caused by contact with objects and equipment. Proper training can help prevent workplace injuries like sprains, strains, cuts, lacerations, and punctures as well as promote morale and retention.

    Employee handbook

    Along with poor training, new employees may look to the employee handbook to gain a better understanding of the work environment and job expectations. When was the last time you updated your handbook? An outdated employee handbook can cause miscommunication and even legal issues for a small business. Employee handbooks should be updated at least annually to reflect the ever-changing employment laws and regulations.

    Payroll

    For small businesses, managing payroll and filing taxes can be a time-consuming and challenging task. Small and mid-sized companies spend an average of $2,000 per employee each year to handle payroll, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers. Proper bookkeeping and tax filing may be a hassle, but they play an integral role in the success of your business when it comes to avoiding compliance issues. The IRS found that 40 percent of small businesses incur an average of $845 in penalties each year, which can be a huge financial burden.

    Employee time tracking

    Depending on where you live, you’ll need to comply with local, state, and federal laws regarding vacation, paid leave, breaks, and overtime for your employees. Without a solid time tracking system in place, it can be difficult to ensure your employees are being paid fairly. Utilizing an online platform can help save time and energy for both small business owners and their employees.

    Employee benefits

    In order to attract and retain top talent, it’s important for small businesses to include quality benefits in their employees’ compensation packages. Employees want comprehensive benefits that include everything from health insurance to retirement plans to supplemental insurance. However, many small businesses find that it can be very expensive and time-consuming to purchase and manage these benefits on their own, compared to the buying power of group benefits.

    Employee compliance

    Small businesses must adhere to federal regulations, and failure to comply is common and costly. Perhaps the most common compliance issue for small businesses is employee misclassification. According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), up to 30 percent of audited businesses had misclassified employees. Many misclassify workers as contractors in error, so it’s important to know the difference. While the consequences vary depending on whether the DOL and IRS deem the misclassification intentional or unintentional, it can be a costly mistake. 

    Other laws include the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), Equal Pay Act, and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), to name a few. It’s important to stay educated on these federal regulations in order to stay compliant.

    Conflict resolution

    When growing a business, there is a potential for conflict in the workplace, and ignoring it can cost time and money. A study by professional training and coaching company CPP, Inc. found that 85 percent of employees experience conflict in the workplace. Workplace conflict wastes nearly three hours per week, costing billions in paid hours. Not having an HR resource to properly handle conflict resolution will only take up more time and money in addition to dampening employee morale and retention rates.

    Employee retention

    When HR management issues aren’t handled properly, it can be difficult for small businesses to retain quality employees. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), retention is a growing problem for many, with the average turnover rate sitting at an unhealthy 18 percent. Running the gamut from bad hires to insufficient benefits to conflict issues, employees are less likely to stay with companies that don’t take initiative when it comes to HR management.

    Your HR Solution

    Between recruiting and retaining employees to managing employee performance, there are many challenges small businesses face when it comes to the responsibilities of HR management. Outsourcing HR through a professional employer organization (PEO) like Group Management Services can help small businesses save time and money, while allowing you to focus on growing your business. 

    GMS provides comprehensive HR services, including payroll administration, risk management, employee benefits, and more. Additionally, GMS can perform HR audits to help your business improve HR functions in a fraction of the time. Contact GMS today to see how we can help you cover these challenges in human resource management, so you can focus on your core business.

  • Personality tests can be an effective tool in employee recruitment, training, and development. As your business grows and becomes more diverse, a one-size-fits-all approach to employee management won’t work well on a team made up of different personality types. Company leaders will need to have a better understanding of what makes employees tick and how to encourage everyone to play nice in the workplace.

    Managing different personality types in the workplace can present its challenges. As a result, you’ll need to be flexible with your employee management style. Using Deloitte’s Business Chemistry, here’s how to manage employees with these four different personalities.

     Managing different personalities in the workplace.

    How to Manage the “Pioneer”

    Pioneers are the wheels set in motion. You never know when or where their next big idea will come from, but you can be sure they’ll want to give it a try. Business Chemistry describes pioneers as:

    • Outgoing
    • Spontaneous
    • Risk-takers
    • Adaptable
    • Imaginative

    Pioneers are the social butterflies and adventurous spirits in the workplace. When managing this type of employee, it’s important to give them the creative freedom to explore new ideas. They don’t like being confined by rules or structure and may have a hard time focusing on the smaller details of a project, so don’t try to micromanage them.

    Lean on your pioneers to think out-of-the-box and come up with creative new ideas, perhaps in a group brainstorming session, but then shift the project details and execution to your drivers and guardians.

     

    How to Manage the “Driver”

    If pioneers are the wheels, then drivers are the fuel that keeps it going. Ambitious and efficient, drivers are motivated by results and will always rise to meet a challenge. Drivers are described as:

    • Logical
    • Focused
    • Competitive
    • Quantitative
    • Deeply curious

    Drivers are laser-focused and work quickly, so they need to be continuously fed new challenges or they risk getting bored or frustrated by delays or long processes. When you come to them with new assignments, they’ll appreciate clearly defined plans and processes and will work tirelessly to meet and exceed your expectations and goals.

    Because of their workaholic tendencies, drivers may also struggle with work-life balance, as they can easily be consumed by the tasks at hand. Reinforce good habits, like taking lunch breaks, not responding to emails after hours, and delegating tasks when their plate is full.

     

    How to Manage the “Integrator”

    Integrators are best at bringing everyone together. If pioneers are the wheels, drivers are the fuel, then integrators are the ones who makes sure everyone gets a seat in the car. They see the value in workplace culture and understand how it can affect employee happiness and performance. The Integrator is:

    • Diplomatic
    • Empathetic
    • Nonconfrontational
    • Team player
    • Intrinsically motivated

    As intrinsically-motivated employees, integrators thrive when they can really get behind your cause. As a business owner, be sure to clearly define and communicate your company mission. 

    Similar to pioneers, it’s best not to micromanage your integrators. It’s important to show these employees that you trust and respect them, whether it’s allowing them to work remotely or believing in their idea. Finally, when assigning projects, don’t isolate your integrators. They work best in group settings, where they can bounce ideas off one another and play to each other’s strengths.

     

    How to Manage the “Guardian”

    Guardians are the employees who make sure you reach your destination on time and in one piece. They value stability and order and have great attention to detail. According to Business Chemistry, Guardians are:

    • Reserved
    • Detail-oriented
    • Practical
    • Structured
    • Loyal

    Guardians are practical and structured, which means they can easily become impatient with seemingly wacky ideas or meetings that get off topic, but you may not notice.

    Guardians are quiet and reserved, so they may not always speak up in meetings and can be easily forgotten. They need time to process, digest, and formulate a well-thought-out response. When managing this type of employee, it’s best to follow up with them the next day to ask for their thoughts or opinions. Because they’re fiercely loyal to their employers, you know your company’s best interests will be at the heart of all their decisions.

     

    Employee Management Assistance

    While no single workplace personality is “the best,” managing these different workplace personalities can be challenging for business owners and managers. Need assistance? Outsourcing human resources to a professional employer organization (PEO) like Group Management Services (GMS) can help with employee management. From employee recruitment and retention to performance management, GMS can guide you through any issues you’re faced with, while you keep full control of your employees.

    In addition to human resources, GMS offers a full suite of HR services, including payroll, risk management, employee benefits, and more. Contact GMS today to request a consultation.