Human resources are the fundamental resource of any company. The company may have an exceptional product or excellent service, but it is the people who win the customer's loyalty and make them buy again.
Many spectacular businesses fail because the businessman does not know how to invest in his human resources. They have low-skilled personnel, with very low levels of motivation and without adequate training.
It is very clear that a motivated, well-trained staff, focused on results and located in their strengths, will offer more performance and bring more profits to the company.
In commercial businesses, the payrolls with their social charges included can represent up to 10% of sales, in companies that manufacture or transform a product, including restaurants and hotels, the payroll with their social charges included may represent up to 25%, sometimes more. And in service companies, the cost can exceed 50%.
How do we know if we have a truly competent, disciplined, capable and responsible team for the desired results? It's simple: you should take performance measurements or evaluations on a regular basis.
Isn't it true that when you buy a vehicle you take it every few kilometers for inspection? Isn't it true that you should go at least once a year to take a medical test to find out what your health is? Isn't it true that to find out what the financial situation and the results of your business are, you should sit down with your accountant every month to analyze the financial statements?
The same happens with the staff of your company. You must conduct periodic evaluations and determine if the staff is achieving the results you expected. This activity is what we call “Staff Evaluations” or “Performance Measurements”.
I have written several articles that are related to this topic, some have been criticized; of course, not by business owners, but by "human resources experts." In the end I will recommend that you read some.
If you have a small or medium-sized company, it may not yet be justified to have a professional in the human resources area. Someday, when the number of staff is greater you must have it. When you have a medium-sized company, you may have what we call "a human resources manager", who keeps track of attendance, tabulates the hours and calculates the weekly or biweekly payroll so that the Accountant or Treasurer will pay it later. This person also keeps the files of the workers, fills in the personnel actions for each movement and calculates the labor settlements when an employee stops working for the company.
In companies with more than 50 workers, the "head of payroll and human resources" will no longer be enough. The medium-sized company may have two people: "A Planner" who will be in charge of controlling and calculating the payroll and a "Head of Human Resources" who performs more specialized tasks, from the selection, recruitment and induction of personnel, to carrying out the entire procedure. of performance measurements, attend labor disputes, and so on.
I must tell you that, as a consultant, right now I attend a company with 180 workers and others with 380 workers that still do not have a specialized Human Resources Department. In the largest, the person in charge does have a degree in Human Resources, he has two assistants; but it is still in charge of calculating the payrolls of the three stores that the company has.
All of the above that I have told you in this article about how to manage your human resources and payroll area is very important. But now the most important of today follows.
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I am interested in you doing several fundamental things in your company. In upcoming articles, we'll take a closer look at more sophisticated, but practical, measurement tools. Always remember that I am more interested in practice than theory. Do the following:
• For each position that you require, you must be clear about your mission within the company, you must be able to express in a few words what is the reason for that position and what are the specific results that the company expects the person who occupies that position to produce. When the person is hired, he must also be able to explain these aspects as well. Has it happened to you that you talk to an employee and tell him "I'm not satisfied with your work" and he says: "But, if I'm giving all my effort, I want the company, I'm on time, I'm late and I try hard In what I do". It is because we have failed, as entrepreneurs in this first fundamental point: each member of your work team must know their mission and the expected results.
• If you are one of my clients, you know that I am reluctant to write large procedure manuals, I have seen hundreds of them beautifully bound and divinely “kept” in the libraries of many companies. But it is important that you write a document that shows the following on the first page:
- The job description.
Example: General Accountant.
- The Mission of the position in two or three sentences.
Example: "The mission of the General Accountant is to provide the employer with timely and reliable information for decision making and managerial control"
- The competencies, skills or knowledge that the person who will occupy the position must have.
Example: “The Human Resources Manager must be a person with a degree in Human Resources, with more than three years of experience in the position, leadership capacity, mature, empathetic, organized, disciplined, methodical, capable and committed to the expected results of your position "
- The precise results that are expected from your position, you can detail them one by one and, preferably, they are measurable.
Example: "The Store Administrator must achieve a growth in sales of at least 10% with respect to the same month of the previous period, he must ensure that the contribution margin of his store remains above 40%, which the hand of work does not exceed 15% and that the fixed costs do not exceed the sum of two thousand dollars a month, etcetera, etcetera.
- The company must generate information and deliver it periodically to its staff so that they know the results they are obtaining. Much of this information can be generated by themselves and other must be provided by the company.
- I recommend that middle managers hold meetings with their staff, so that each one can present the results of their work, express the difficulties or obstacles they have to perform better and defend the results of their management.
- Likewise, I suggest the owner of the company, businessman or General Manager meet with their middle managers, one by one, to do exactly the same. Each boss or manager must present their own Results Report and also propose improvements that increase the performance of him as a middle manager and of the unit in charge.
- These performance measurements and personnel evaluations must be documented. In other words, the result of the assessment and the commitments of both parties must be in writing.
There are many other details that I could write to you on this subject, but I want to leave it here so that you can leave me your comments and questions. Then we can delve into more technical aspects of this very broad topic.
