Does a Company Really Need a Human Resources Department?

This is from a person who has been working in HR for over 8 years and the answer is Yes and No.

Can you get it any “clearer”, you may tell me…

Well, the answer is simple.

If we are talking about the HR as a distinct department, about HR as a separate office with a separate team, the answer is NO.

If we are talking about HR as a series of functions, the answer is absolutely YES. Even if we don’t have a person designated for this department only and even if the functions may be split between different people doing other different tasks too or even outsourced to a third party company or consultant, a company no matter how small can’t survive without HR.

Not being able to survive without HR may sound critical and it really is if we consider the various list of tasks connected to HR, tasks that need to be done, no doubt about it. These are roughly listed:

-          Recruiting new employees should we have new positions or leavers;

-          Organizing trainings for employees – internal or external;

-          Promoting the company on the local labor market;

-          Creating all the huge amount of employee related paperwork: contracts, certificates, contract changes, contract terminations, clearance forms, various statistics and reports;

-          Calculating the employees’ salaries and additional benefits.

The above are only basics HR tasks which happen in all companies no matter how small, but if we consider a bigger company even more critical HR tasks are added to the list:

-          Succession planning;

-          Competency analysis and developing training plans to improve required competencies;

-          Employee performance evaluation;

-          Communication – internal (towards employees) and external (towards state institutions or media);

-          Employee satisfaction surveys and action plans;

-          Salary and payroll analysis, salary surveys, alignment to the market;

-          Employee motivation;

-          Internal audit;

-          HR indicators (attrition, sickness leave, hires, leavers, regretted leavers, training hours, productivity) analysis and improvement plans;

-          Client presentations;

-          Coordination of health and safety trainings;

-          Creation of company policies;

-          Risk analysis in the area of people management;

-          And many other smaller daily tasks and requests from employees and management…

To sum up, HR is a mediator between the employees, one vital resource of the company, and management. No company can survive without a human resources function, no matter if this is performed by a dedicated team or split between employees dedicated to other functions.

What are HR people looking to identify from the candidate during an interview?

Question suggested by my friend Gianina Froicu

To start with, I should define the phrase "list of competencies" and type of competencies.
For each position there are two types of competencies - technical/business competencies and soft skills.

Technical/Business competencies are tested mostly by technical members of the team (senior consultants and analysts, technical managers, any person from the team able to decide if a candidate has the right knowledge to be a programmer, database expert, tester, HR specialist or even welder or cook). All knowledge making you a professional/expert in a certain area are technical competencies. Even for human resources - what they know and their experience in terms of recruitment, payroll, law and so on involve the technical or business side of the job.

The other side is made up of the soft skills.
Soft skills are the individual traits, connected somehow to the candidate's personality and social experience. Some can be developed and improved in time and some you are born with. Some examples are: presentation skills, decision making, strategic thinking, proactivity, time management, organizing and prioritizing skills, resilience to stress, leadership skills, social skills, team work and many more.

These are the skills that HR tries to identify during an interview through targetted questions. A candidate can be asked directly if he/she is organized and asked to give examples, can be given an exercise (for example to prioritize a list of tasks according to their importance and urgency) or can be asked tricky questions like "Where do you leave your keys when you are at home?". According to the answer you see if the candidate leaves his things all over the place and then complains about not finding them or if they have a special place for their keys that they use daily. Of course only one question is not enough to test a candidate. HR may ask more or may combine different testing techniques in individual or group interviews to select the best candidates.

I have my first job interview tomorrow. What's going to happen?

First of all, if you have your job interview scheduled already, this means that they see potential in your CV and want to explore more. This means that they consider you one of the potential candidates for the job and you have a good chance of getting it. This is good news, so don't panic.

What's going to happen:

- first of all DON'T be late. It's VERY important to make a good first impression. Nobody appreciates having their time wasted. Better go early - 15-20 minutes earlier even is fine. Much better than late. If you don't know how to get there and how long it takes, do an exercise today. Go find the place and time your distance from home to the company headquarters;

- someone from the company is going to invite you in, offer you something to drink; if you feel that you need water or even coffee, it's ok to accept it and drink it during the interview; it's not a test - they want to be nice and make you feel comfortable. A real recruiter doesn't create panic and intimidate the candidate but tries to get the best out of him/her. So let's hope you get one of the nice ones;

- they are going to offer you a seat;

- they are going to start asking you questions. Again, don't panic. Reply as you can and ask questions of your own if you have any. It's ok to do that doing the interview. Concentrate and reply as you feel like doing. Don't invent answers or reply what you think they might want to hear. Even if they reject you in the end, it means that maybe you wouldn't have been happy there or the job wasn't for you. And don't give up no matter what searching a new job if you don't get this one. There's always something for everybody out there.

- they are going to ask you in the end if you have further questions. Go ahead and ask if you have any more questions. Just don't keep them for 30 minutes more. Try to keep it short - 2-3 questions that are most important to you should be enough.

- they will thank you for the interview and tell you what happens next - how you will get the feedback and if there are further steps should you pass this one;

- they may keep you at the end for a little more to give you individual tests (language, IT, etc.) depending on the position. However, this is not mandatory for all positions;

- you can go home and relax.

See :) it wasn't that difficult. I will come back in my next posts with details about each step of the way.

What's "succession planning"? Why is it necessary?

Succession planning is a strategic HR term encorporating a large list of actions necessary to be initiated in all companies. Every responsible manager should worry about succession planning. Plainly explained it means that each manager should select a successor to take his position should he be promoted on a different position or should he leave the company.

Succession planning is normally initiated by HR who meets with all managers (in individual meetings)and together they go through the following steps:

1. The manager assesses his/her job and main tasks in a mature and responsible manner;
2. The manager appoints one person from his/her team to be the successor. The successor most of the time desn't know it. It's advisable to announce the decision to the successor only if we are talking about a very mature person. If not, the successor may end up following his manager around and watching his every step hoping that the position becomes vacant.
3. HR and the manager decide together upon a series of trainings and tasks that the successor needs to be involved in. Normally it is a medium to long term plan. The training doesn't happen in 2 weeks. It's a long process that can take even years.
4. The successor is gradually introduced to new tasks, shadowing his manager from time to time and participating in carefully planned training sessions.

More than one successor can be appointed and their evolution can be monitored over time to see which one is the best to be promoted in the end. Also, HR uses to split successors into categories depending on the amount of training and the time needed to be ready for the job. Several successors may be included in different categories - some ready in a few weeks, some in years.

I want to leave my company. What is "notice period" and why is it necessary?

What is "notice period"?The notice period consists in a standard number of days that the employee still needs to work for the company after announcing his/her decision to quit the job.

Where can I find my notice period?
Read your labor contract. It should mention the notice period. If you have lost it or haven't received it, ask your manager or human resources.

Is it mandatory?
Yes, unless you negotiate with your manager. Notice period can be cancelled or reduced.

Can they keep me more than the standard number of days I have in my contract?
No. Resignation is not a request but an informing action passed to your employer. After the notice period has passed you no longer have any obligations and may go home.

Can they say they haven't received my resignation today and extend the period?
Yes. That's why you need to make sure your hand it in in writing. Make sure you register it officially and preferably have your manager's signature. Keep a copy so you know when the notice period ends.


Do I get paid for the notice period?
Yes, you have the same rights as any other employee.

What happens If I decide to leave and don't come for work, even if I have notice period?
You can get unauthorised absence in your timesheet, HR may start a disciplinary action and your contract may end on disciplinary grounds. This can affect you if you go to an interview and the recruiter decides to ask for references from your previous employer.

How long is the notice period?
It depends from country to country. It's normally mentioned in local labor law and in your contract. It normally depends on the country and on the position. I will tell you the case of Romania where I work - it's 20 working days for a regular employee (which is a full month more or less) and 45 working days for managers (which is about 2.5 months). Of course, the period can be discussed and you may end up with less if you agree with your manager.

Why are they keeping me in the company? Why is it necessary?
Because the company needs to find a replacement for you. If they let you leave just like that, the rest of the team will have more work to do or some of the work will not get done at all. Also, they will most probably keep you for the entire period to make sure that they hire someone for your position and that the new colleague has time to learn from you about your job. So expect to train someone on the job during your last days.

Human Resources Mysteries: Why Do Employees Come to HR When They Have a Silly Question?

I will start with the silly question definition - it's a question or request that has only vague connection to HR, which is NOT in the scope of HR but with which people have no idea where to go to or refuse to go to because they hope HR will solve it quicker.

Here are some silly questions and requests that I have personally received:
- Why does the coffee have chlorine taste?
- Why don't we change the water provider? This one's headquarters is 400 km away. It should be more efficient to get a local one.
- Someone should remove the icicles outside. They are a hazard to the employees.
- Someone should clear the snow for us to be able to park;
- You should build a larger parking space for employees;
- You should buy some benches and umbrellas for outside to create a nice spot for the employees to rest during break;
- There's no more toilet paper;
- Can you do anything about the noise in the open space?
- Someone has stolen my food from the fridge;
- The toilet brush from the ladies bathroom downstairs is missing;
- I want to change my email address to sarah.mitchell...All my clients know me by Sarah (this from an employee NOT called Sarah) - the name I used is not real, but the situation is;
- When will the company buy more fridges for us?
- The dishwasher is broken and the sink is full of dirty dishes. Who should fix this issue?
- There are no more parking spots;
- You should create a database of all cars in the company just to know who owns which car;
- You should install cameras in the kitchen. I am tired of my food being stolen (this I received at least 10 times);
- We should recycle plastic cups; can HR do something about it?
- I noticed some tiles falling off the kitchen wall. Can you do something about it?
and many many more...

Everybody has the silly impression that HR is responsible with everything that is connected with employee happiness - which is NOT true. Most of the items above are in the scope of the administration of the building, maintenance or someone else depending on the company.

So why do employees come to HR or all these? I can see a few reasons:
1. Because we are the people they meet at the beginning when they have Induction training and we tell them a lot of information. That's how they get the idea that we know everything and that we are responsible for everything;
2. Because we let them to. HR are most of the times nice, try to help employees and employees take advantage. If HR would be more firm and send them away, making them feel guilty each time they come with stupid items, they wouldn't do it again.
3. Because we have to put up with all this. HR is instructed to be nice to employees, to take care of their problems. Most of the times our managers don't allow HR to have an office (sometimes HR works in an open space with the employees), don't allow us to have a schedule for employees (we can't say we are available for you between 12 and 2 pm everyday - NO, we must be available anytime and they may interrupt us from important work anytime) and because HR courses brainwash us and tell us that HR must be in the service of the employees since they pay for our salaries.

I think that it depends on every HR professional to make his/her life better and avoid all these situations which may wreck your nerves sometimes. Send the employees nicely but firmly to the correct responsible or to their manager the first time they come with a silly question. Don't be so nice the second time.

But what do you do when a manager comes to you with a silly question? Tough... Send them nicely to the correct responsible and hope it's going to be the last time...

How often and how should a manager and an employee communicate?

First of all, talking about the types of communication - two main ones can be identified - spontaneous communication and regular scheduled communication. Spontaneous communication as well as regular can be informal (most of the times) and formal.

Informal spontaneous communication is the communication that takes place every day withing the office. You say hello, you ask for a piece of paper, you ask for a signature, you talk a bit about your family, about your dog, you go for a coffee, nothing special, just regular day to day talk which occurs with no planning and no predetermined purpose. This type of communication is useful to get to know people better, to understand their likes and dislikes, their family matters. Since you spend at least 8 hours at work you need to know your manager and you as a manager need to know the employee beyond a job description. People are not machines and need to socialize and communicate in order to be able to spend productive time together.

Formal spontaneous communication occurs normally when something related to the business or to the employee's job needs to be transmitted and wasn't planned. This means that the manager communicates some new results, new tasks, something has happened and the employee needs to find out - either good or bad. This type of communication builds authority. As I mentioned it is not planned so it can also occur any time.

Informal regular communication is the type that appears during planned team buildings or evenings out. They are planned events taking place normally outside the office allowing people to learn more about each other and building a strong team. It's important to organize such type of communication for people to become a team. They are not just friends (relationship improved by spontaneous informal communication), but they are a team. It's useful during these activities to organize group tasks like games and sports matches in order for people to work together but without the constraints of the office. How often should this happen? As often as possible - once a month, once in 3 months, but not less often than once a year because new members of the team join in the meantime and need to be introduced to the team.

Formal regular communication is the most important for the business. This should occur in two ways: individual and in a team. The manager should take the time to organize regular meetings in a formal environment where employees can share ideas, can participate in decision making, can share feedback, can ask for advice or bring up negative issues concerning their own individual work or the team. Individual meetings should occur not less often than once in 2 weeks (preferably once a week) because the employee has a lot of tasks and he may need support with some and he can't wait for more than 2 weeks. Group meetings can occur a little less often, but not less than once a month. Normally team results are prepared at the end of the month so the beginning of each month is a good time to organize a team meeting.

What is performance review and why is it necessary?

Performance review is a very powerful tool and should be used in all companies for all employees. It gives the manager an idea about the way the employee is seing his/her job and him as a manager and the employee an idea about how he/she is performing. Performance review is a powerful motivation tool also.

From the employee's perspective the following actions take place:
1. He receives some objectives/tasks to follow during a certain period of time - most often a year. This is important because the employee has a clear view of his job. He knows what is expected of him and focuses his actions around these objectives. Meeting the objectives and even exceeding them can end up in a salary increase or bonus.
2. He has the opportunity to evaluate himself responsibly. Most of the times, the review starts with a self assessment. The employee is asked to send the manager a self evaluation explaining his point of view upon the completion of the objectives.
3. He has the possibility to receive feedback and improve his performance.
4. He has the possibility to ask for advice and to tell the manager about his ideas and maybe request training for some areas where he needs or wants improvement.

From the manager's perspective the following actions take place:
1. He gets the possibility to check how the employee sees his own activity and see how responsible he is when he prepares his self evaluation.
2. He has the possibility to get the employees feedback upon his activity as a manager and upon the team's performance.
3. He has the possibility to receive new ideas about how the team should deal with issues in order to improve performance.

Now, just a few words about the 360 degrees review. You may have heard about it and you're wondering what this is. Well, it's one of the most effective ways of review. It's called 360 degree because both employee and manager are reviewed from all angles. The employee does self review, reviews his manager while the manager does self review and reviews the employee. This is the most detailed and useful way of receiving feedback from all parties involved. Sometimes an addition to this method is done: asking the members of the team to evaluate themselves, each other and the manager while the manager reviews himself, the team as a whole and each member of the team.

This may sound complicated - actually there are a lot of questionnaires and forms involved, but it's useful since they all get to receive and offer feedback.

Recruitment and Selection: Are You a Recruiter?

Here are some questions and tasks you can give to candidates at the interview if you are selecting a person for the human resources department to perform the function of recruiter:

1.       Please write below what recruiting and selection means to you.

2.       Can be recruiting considered a motivation factor?

3.       What are the main tasks involved in the job of a recruiter?

4.       What recruiting channels do you know?

5.       Please describe in details the recruiting process for the following project:

You need to hire 10 German and English speakers (German fluent, English medium) and 5 English speakers (English fluent) for a new client on the following positions:

1 team leader – English speaker

2 senior agents – 1 German, 1 English

1 administrative support – German

11 agents – 8 German, 3 English

           What are the steps you take, the channels you use and the time frames you consider suitable.

6.       Please describe in details the recruiting process for the following project:

You have a team leader position that is filled in by somebody in the team - promotion. How do you back fill the open position remaining in the team after the promotion? 

7.       Please describe in details the recruiting process for the following project:

You need to hire 3 fluent Italian speakers (with medium English) and Linux/UNIX skills.

8.   You are interviewing a candidate that says he has team leader potential but no real team leader experience. What questions would you ask that person in order to see their real potential for a TL position?

9.   One of your colleagues from sales asks you the following question: we would like to see if Iyour city has potential for hiring 5 fluent Portuguese speakers; if yes, what would be the time frames and the salaries that the candidates might accept. What do you do in order to answer this question?

10.   You need to hire 5 great sales agents. What questions would you ask at the interview?

11.   You need to assess if a candidate has good attention to details skills. How do you do that?

I will come back with more...

Insight on Labor Law

For all foreign managers willing to work for multinationals based in Romania, this presentation of labor law will be useful. It includes all important changes that occurred in July 2011 in the Romanian labor code:

www.comialarm-resurseumane.go.ro/HR/Romanian_Labour_Law_Regulations_July_2011.ppt 

Human Resources Mysteries: Should You Outsource Your Payroll?

First of all, one short description of outsourcing. It's a relatively new term and from my experience most candidates that I see for an interview have heard of it but don't know what it means or don't know how to explain it clearly.

Outsourcing means giving one of your internal services to an external provider. What can you give? Accounting, HR, IT and many more. What do I mean by "giving"? Signing a contract with an external provider who with his internal means will provide a service that we as a company no longer do internally.

What advantages does outsourcing have? Well, the service is provided by an already-trained team, the provider has all the software needed internally and they are responsible for licenses and legal requirements. Moreover, outsourcing can be a huge cost saver if the provider team is located in a low cost country like India, Romania, Bulgaria and so on.

So, should you outsource your payroll?

No, if you are a small company with 5 employees. Payroll for you can be easily done in an Excel file or even in Open Office Calc (free spreadsheet software) by someone handling HR or accounting. There's no point in paying additional money to an external provider.

Yes, if you are a larger company - 50, 100 employees or even more. There's not a clear line to be drawn between numbers. You don't outsource when you have exactly 50 employees. It's just your decision. Outsourcing the payroll can be beneficial for a larger company because it saves you the headache. The provider has a proper software, a proper team and the proper relationship with the authorities, all of this making payroll simple for you.

Human Resources Mysteries: Why is HR Seen as a Useless and Inefficient Department?

This depends on how dedicated HR employees really are. If they are motivated and love their job, they will find a way to show people they are not useless and inefficient. If they are not motivated and don't really love their job, they normally avoid interacting too much with people and that's why their work is not understood. 

As I told you before, HR is not the best paid career ever, budgets are low, volume of work is huge; sometimes HR is seen as a parasite by management and that's why HR people are last when salaries, trainings and benefits are discussed. All this can get an HR employee really demotivated.

Human Resources Mysteries: What Does an HR Manager Do on a Daily Basis?

Strategic planning and control. 
Prepares the recruitment plan, budgets for training and salaries. An HR manager sometimes gets involved in specialist work if the company is small and doesn't have enough specialists. An HR manager should be a former specialist able to support the specialists when they don't know how to act in a certain situation. Sometimes the HR manager needs to prepare presentations to be delivered to the client, prepare recruitment costs estimations, prepare employee satisfaction surveys and action plans to improve employee satisfaction, coordinates the performance reviews. Also, an HR manager's role is to offer support to the other managers concerning HR matters. So he/she more or less needs to be aware of all things that go on in HR and in the company HR-wise.

Human Resources Mysteries: Do People in HR Travel?

Most of the times no. Only if you are on a higher position coordinating people in more countries or if yo have colleagues in another location and you need to go there for training or to support them. However, since costs need to be cut as much as possible, HR uses conference call and IT equipment to communicate remotely rather than travel.

Human Resources Mysteries: Why are HR People Stressed and Angry Sometimes?

Being a support department (department which doesn't bring profit to the company) most of the times, HR department has less people than needed. The budgets are low, volume of work is huge (especially if you live in a country with high bureaucracy and tons of legal paperwork to prepare), fines for not preparing all the paperwork are high...

An HR person most of the times can't handle the volume of work and gets stressed and annoyed when an employee comes with a silly request like...I lost my badge AGAIN!!!or I don't like the picture that I gave you last month to put on my badge and I want it changed! Get the idea?

Do I need a Certain Degree to Work in HR?

It depends on the county you are in. I am in Romania and I got in HR after graduating Computer Science and a master's degree in Business and communication. I got an entry level position while still a student and now after several years on specialist positions, I am HR manager. In the US I think you need a certain degree to get to a certain level in HR. You can ask this on LinkedIn - HR groups.

SPHR certification helps a lot - so try to pursue that. However, getting it depends on the number of years of experience that you have in HR - the more, the easier it is to get.

Human Resources Mysteries: How Do HR Really Help People?

Very good question.

    HR can give advice on procedures and labor law when employees are in a certain situation like: they want to quit their job, they want a raise, they want to leave on maternity leave, they want to attend a certain training, they want to go on vacation or they are sick and need to stay home.

    HR gets involved in employee conflicts and disciplinary actions as mediator.

    HR explains unclear matters to employees like how was the salary calculated, what do I need to do to benefit of training costs for a certification subsidizing, what benefits do I have from the medical provider, how to apply for a promotion, etc.

    HR prepares paperwork for bank loans that employees need for the bank file.

    HR can offer useful feedback after a promotion session to rejected employees.

    HR can recommend external trainings that are not organized by the company and that might interest the employees.

    HR sends periodical newsletters to employees with useful information about the company, open positions, rules and regulations to follow.

and many more...

Human Resources Mysteries: What is the Purpose of HR in a Company?

Very common question.
1. HR deals with recruiting and selection of employees for new positions or for positions left open after someone has left the company;
2. HR monitors training needs within the organization, prepares training plans, registers people to trainings, conducts trainings, assesses people for skills to see what trainings they need to develop to get promoted or to perform better;
3. HR prepares payroll (calculates salaries) and additional benefits of employees, monitoring all these at the same time;
4. HR prepares salary increase proposals and calculates scenarios to check if all these fit the given budget;
5. HR coordinates the performance evaluation process of all employees;
6. HR prepares satisfaction surveys within a company;
7. HR prepares reports containing various indicators that monitor the company's status like value of attrition (employees leaving the company), sickness rate, training hours/employee, employee satisfaction, etc;
8. HR creates work procedures for all employees to follow in order to have a standardized flow of information in the company;
9. HR prepares all employment documents like contracts, contract changes, job descriptions, etc.
10. HR monitors medical checks and employee health.

and many more...

HR Job Tips: How to Get in HR With No Experience?

1. Try an internship in HR first. A lot of multinational companies need students to help with paperwork or with simple tasks that the specialists don't have time to handle. They offer training and you will learn a lot if you are really interested. 

2. Try courses in HR - instructor led courses in class are better, but online courses go too.
 
3. Register to HR groups on social networks (LinkedIn for example). You fill find there people who can give you lots of advice and also HR jobs for entry, middle or senior level.

4. Get an entry-level job in a multinational company. This will get you closer to their internal job board. A lot of multinational companies prefer to promote from the inside. Applying to a position advertised internally may help you get the job you hope for.

Good luck,
Geo