Help & support
- HR systems can overhaul your business with smoother-running procedures.
- Written policies around recurring business operations can help improve workplace culture for staff and owners.
- An organisational chart gives employees an at-a-glance guide to reporting lines, accountabilities and escalation points.
Q: What can business owners do today to help with HR?
A: Build structure into your HR systems. That might mean getting some outside help or writing company policies for common occurrences in your business.
It can be easy to ignore HR problems in business, especially when you’re busy with the day-to-day but letting issues escalate can be seriously detrimental to your businesses profitability and your own mental health, as Kyle Skipworth found out.
Kyle owns Power Solutions Tasmania, an electrical contracting business. “I’ve been in business for about 10 years and have increased in size every year. It went from just me to about 20 staff, plus contractors,” he says. “Business itself was great but about two years ago I was ready to shut it all down. The culture was terrible and I had a lot of people problems.”
Instead of closing up shop, Kyle sought out the help of a HR manager to transform his business.
Your HR system checklist
Once Kyle had dedicated management for HR in his business, layering in systems became much more achievable. “I’d built this business on stilts with poor concrete foundations and anytime the wind blew, things would get pretty shaky. So I brought in an HR manager to clean up the business.” He already had systems around payroll and superannuation but here are the other elements the HR manager provided.
- Recruiting processes: “My hiring was all based on someone being a good bloke,” says Kyle. “But everyone’s metric of what’s a good bloke is different.” By putting structure around the hiring process, Kyle moved to hiring candidates that were suited to the job and the company. “We have a new breed of employee here now,” he says. “Plus these days, we’ve got processes in place and accountable site managers so I don’t need to be at every job site all the time.”
- Employee management systems: The business improved its employment contracts so staff now know exactly what is expected in terms of hours, overtime and leave – it also clarified salaries and the award rate. “That was the first thing we put in place,” says Kyle. “The benefit was everyone had clarity on their roles and knew where they stood.”
- Written company policies: Power Solutions Tasmania now has written policies on everything from time sheets and vehicle usage to drug and alcohol use. “We went through and wrote policies for any common occurrences in the business that kept coming up,” says Kyle. “We’ve really concentrated on that avoidable work – those questions that come up again and again – and it has freed up so much time for me.”
- Staff wellbeing resources: Kyle implemented a more comprehensive safety-management system and started focusing more on mental health awareness as well. “We’re continually working on this area of the business. Now I have more bandwidth as a manager I’m a lot more proactive in this area – I can keep tabs on all the staff better and anticipate issues.”
- Staff development: He and the broader team actively look out for staff strengths. The business now takes the pulse of the business with regular anonymous staff surveys and invites completion of voluntary personality assessments to understand how each person likes to be managed. “I used to manage everyone the same until we did our first personality assessment,” says Kyle. “Now I know people respond differently – some like to talk through mistakes, others like a direct approach.”
One small change with a huge impact
Out of all the changes Kyle made to his HR systems, there was one small detail that made a particularly big difference. “The most impactful change we made was creating an organisational chart. It helps people understand what hat they wear in the business and, importantly, what hat I wear,” he says. “The default for everything used to be ‘ring Kyle’ but now they know their reporting lines and escalation points. I really think this one change has freed up my time to focus on running and growing the business.