13 Essential Human Resource Tips For Running A Small Business  

Congratulations! If you’re reading this, we’re assuming that you’ve started a small business or want to start one.

If this is you, you need to know how to handle the people in your business. Everything that has to do with the people in your business falls under human resources.

Caring for your people is important for your business’ growth. Keep reading to learn our top 13 human resource tips. They may save your small business.

1. Be Picky With Your People

You may feel like your small business may not be big enough to be picky about its personnel. You’re not Apple, right?

While it may be true that you’re not Apple, you are a business. You have to have the right personnel with the best qualities. Otherwise, you’ll never be Apple.

If you’re only worried about short-term employment, you’re thinking wrong. You should be thinking long-term.

You should never hire an employee with the thought that they will be gone in a short period of time.

Never settle for an employee either. Even if you’re desperate for help, you should wait for the right team member. Don’t hire someone because you’re out of options.

If you’re not sure what qualities to look for, you should look toward hiring good communicators. This is one of the top qualities to look for in an employee.

2. Train New Staff Quickly

You’ve gone through all of this work hiring new staff. Don’t lose them before they start.

Once they accept your offer of employment, you should make sure to onboard them quickly. However, you should be careful to train them well.

Employees may become frustrated if they receive poor training. However, they can also become frustrated if they don’t start training soon enough after accepting their offer.

If your company is very small, you should train the first few employees yourself. However, you should be sure to have human resource personnel as your company grows.

Your human resource personnel should understand how to onboard people and answer their questions. If you’re worried about properly trained human resource workers, you should learn more about training your human resources staff.

3. Treat Your Employees Right

Your employees should trust that you’re compensating them fairly for the work they’re doing. Even if you’re a small company, you should consider the happiness of your employees. Part of that happiness is tied to their pay and their benefits.

Your pay should be fair based on what you expect from your employees. Look at the salary averages for their jobs in your area. Consider their job roles and additional expectations outside of their shifts.

If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to benefits, ask your employees what they want. If they’re parents, they may want childcare. If they’re older, they may want retirement plans.

4. Keep Everyone Safe

It shouldn’t be too much for employees to feel safe working for your company. Whether your employees are doing hard manual labor or not, you have to make employee safety a top priority.

Have your human resource personnel put together an employee handbook. This should outline the potential risks that your employees may face and how to avoid those risks.

If your employees are physical laborers, you should outline any hazards having to do with falling off ladders or slipping in puddles. If you have employees in your office, you should talk about potential problems with the building’s flooring or other hazards.

Even if your employees work from home, you should talk about keeping their information safe. This includes their logins, passwords, assignments, and other work items.

You should also be sure to remedy any safety problems. If there’s a creaky floorboard in the meeting room, you should tell your employees about it. Then, you should get someone to fix it.

Safety is important for keeping your employees comfortable at work.

5. Make Your Rules Clear

Whether its those safety rules we talked about or general procedures, you should make your rules clear. No one likes unclear policies or procedures.

You should make all of your company’s rules clear. You should also lay out any consequences for not following those rules.

There should not be any questions about your rules and procedures. If there are any questions, you should keep revising the document.

6. Measure Performance

You should make sure to keep up with the performance of your employees over their course of time with your company. However, you should understand that your employees will never be perfect and they won’t always exceed your expectations.

If you find that an employee isn’t meeting the expectations that you laid out, you should confront them. Do not fire them. Talk to them and find out if there is a confusion or a need.

If you find that an employee is constantly exceeding your expectations, you may want to consider promoting them. However, you can also offer them a vacation if you believe that they are overworking themselves.

7. Streamline Your Communication

If we haven’t made it clear yet, we wanted to dedicate an entire section to it. You need to clearly communicate.

Human resources not communicating properly could completely ruin your entire business. Yes, it’s that serious.

Your employees need to have a clear idea of what’s going on within the company even if it does not involve their specific position. Your employees will appreciate being kept in the loop.

Clear communication is key for your company to succeed and your employees to stay satisfied.

8. Keep Your Employees Happy

Everything that we’ve covered so far will go towards keeping your office satisfaction rate high. However, you should address individual employee happiness. 

For small businesses, this is much easier.

Every employee matters and every employee should be treated as such. Be sure to personalize your relationship with your employees and earn their trust.

As a human resources manager, you should hold the trust of every employee. This is the only way that your employees will share grievances with you. You want them to be able to do this.

The only way to truly keep your employees happy is to listen to the things they like and the things that they dislike. You should act accordingly.

9. Follow Your Rules

No one likes a higher-up who doesn’t follow their own rules or the rules of those above them. Even if you’re the boss, you’re not above your own company policies.

If your employees have to follow rules, you should have to follow them as well. They will only respect you more if you act as their coworker rather than their dictator.

10. Resolve Conflicts

As a human resources manager, you should be able to handle conflicts and their outcomes. If you’re a small business, you may think that conflict won’t happen too often.

However, small businesses can arise conflicts much more than you think. Because everyone works so closely together, conflict can arise easily.

You should be able to serve as an impartial third-party in any conflict that comes up. You should also be okay with making conclusions after an argument. These conclusions could mean nothing or it could be firing someone.

If these conflicts aren’t resolved, the company will suffer.

11. Be Efficient With The Money

People expect their pay if they’re working for you. They prefer that pay sooner rather than later.

If you take too long to give out their pay, employees may become frustrated and impatient. They won’t be motivated to work, and your company may have to pay for the lack of productivity.

12. Promote Diversity

You should make sure that your company is diverse and fair. This doesn’t mean you have to have quotas for every department, but you should keep your mind open.

You shouldn’t exclude anyone for any reason other than them not being the best candidate for the job.

You should also be fair with any issues that may come up. You should never assume fault. You should never give one employee an unfair advantage or hold over another employee.

This is not only ethical and lawful, but it is also good for company morale and employee satisfaction. Your employees will feel more comfortable working for you if they feel that you are fair.

13. Be Okay With Termination

Firing people is arguably the worst part of the job. Unfortunately, it has to happen sometimes.

As a human resources manager, you have to be okay with terminating people. No one wanted to be the bad guy and you don’t have to be.

There are several tips for firing people out there, but we have the best tip of all: make the termination about them. This does not mean that you should sit there and tell them everything they did wrong.

Help them see how they have helped the company and show them that the change can be an opportunity for them to branch themselves out.

Putting These Human Resource Tips to Work

Now that we’ve covered the top 13 human resource tips that you should think about for your small business, you should put them to work.

You will see a difference in your business, your productivity, and your employees. These differences could save your company. We wish you luck with your small business.

If you want to see more hr tips and tricks, feel free to check out the rest of our blog.

© New To HR