New HR eBook from TriNet. Excerpts inside, plus get your copy

Human resources (HR) has complicated implications and nuances, especially for those who are not HR professionals. To help navigate the “hire to retire” journey, this resource is designed to familiarize the reader with the typical steps of the employee life cycle, offering insights and best practices for ongoing, long-term success.

Get insights to create processes and expectations for your organization and help to build positive experiences for employees. Topics covered include attracting and selecting qualified talent, fostering a positive work environment, providing robust training and development opportunities, managing performance, incentives and rewards, supporting employee well-being, and facilitating a smooth transition into retirement.

This issue contains excerpts and other related info to get an idea of everything this amazing book includes.

This may come as no surprise to you, but compensation plays a vital role in attracting, motivating and retaining top talent within organizations.

Compensation goes beyond salary or hourly wages and includes benefits and perks. From the employee perspective, it represents what the company thinks they’re currently “worth.” The employer perspective may be different: regardless of how much an employer values an employee, compensation must also represent what the organization’s current budget and growth plans will permit.

Compensation benchmarking can help you properly gauge market expectations, decide what’s reasonable and feasible to you, establish your near- and longer-term compensation strategy and build your compensation plan. It’s a time-worthy effort that’ll illuminate the path ahead and start you off on the right foot.

• ✓ Conduct market analysis. It’s important to learn and understand  compensation trends and benchmarks in relevant industries and geographic areas. This will be more complex for employers with worksites and employees in multiple jurisdictions and localities.

• ✓ Complete the job evaluation. After getting a grasp on broader trends, you’ll want to evaluate your job roles and benchmark them against industry standards to determine appropriate salary and hourly rate ranges. Consider factors such as job responsibilities, certification and industry expertise, required skills and experience, shift desirability and market demand to ensure equitable compensation for similar roles. 

Employee relations transcend the scope of the employer-employee relationship as legally defined for organizational structure and compliance purposes. More dynamic and “personal” in nature, employee relations is about fostering and maintaining positive relations between management and reports as well as between employees. It typically involves promoting open communication, resolving conflicts, addressing employee grievances and ensuring fair treatment and equitable opportunities for all.

If your employees are like ours, these things matter to them:

• A positive, supportive work environment
• Attentive and effective onboarding, orientation and training
• Ongoing opportunities for professional development and career advancement
• Clarity, fairness and transparency in company policies
• A company purpose and culture that aligns with their values
• Ease, efficiency and reliability in the handling of payroll and other HR-related processes

Employee relations is a big responsibility. And it’s been entrusted to you. What will you do with it? Here’s what to consider:

• ✓ Consider what your organization values. What do you want to cultivate and why? Think about the values of trust, loyalty, respect, dignity and diplomacy; employee engagement and morale; personal and professional integrity; as well as the ongoing pursuit of knowledge, creativity, and personal and professional growth and development. What values, virtues and other attributes would best support your organization’s goals and people?

• ✓ Consider what employees value. What matters to your employees?

• ✓ Influence the workplace. How do you want to help influence and shape the workplace, the company culture and the short and long-term experience throughout the employee lifecycle from hire to retire?

• ✓ Take action. How can you begin acting and aligning on those answers this week? How can you shape your policies and practices to align with a culture needed for your organization’s success. Set targets or goals for this effort. 

Bob Starr
Vice President, Human Resources

Zap Surgical Systems, Inc.

Get a signed copy of the book and meet the author this week only at our NYC Pitch Competition!