If you’re a small business owner, you spend a lot of your time wearing many hats. One of them is the human resources (HR) hat that requires you to recruit, hire, train, evaluate, compensate, and engage with employees – all while you are managing everything else. With so many moving components, how do you achieve HR excellence in a small business? This presentation covers the five best practices that small business owners should execute to find, hire, and engage superstar employees

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Finding, Hiring and Engaging Superstar
Employees for Your Small Business
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2. •The workforce is changing
•Technology is changing
•Expectations are changing
Meet the speakers…
Andres Thomas
Customer Success
Kabbage, Inc.
Moderator
Helgi Hermannsson
CEO & Co-Founder
Sling
•What is HR management?
•Hire for job performance
•How to provide and get feedback
Asta Bjarnadottir, PhD
Partner & HR Consultant
Capacent

3. Helgi Hermannsson
CEO & Co-Founder
Sling

4. The workforce is changing
More than one-third of the U.S. workforce is
between the ages of 18 and 34

5. Technology is changing
75% of mobile phone subscribers in the U.S.
now own smartphones

6. Communication at the workplace is becoming
even more important
Expectations are changing

7. Research shows
Lack of communication is interpreted as lack
of respect

8. Reality
Managers are lacking tools to get
information to non-desk employees

9. Results
§ Low levels of employee engagement
§ High employee turnover
§ Inferior customer experience

10. Solution
Take advantage of technology to create a
more connected organization

11. Sling
Sling is a free communication and shift
scheduling software for non-desk industries

12. Sling – www.getsling.com

13. Asta Bjarnadottir, PhD
Partner & HR Consultant
Capacent

14. Best HR practices
1. Elevating the standards of whom you hire
2. Emphasizing (first-cycle) training
3. Making feedback your way of life and
management style
4. Linking pay to performance
5. Over-communicating with your staff

15. What is HR management for
anyway?
Costs
Results today
+ =Better people
management
Output / Income
Quality
Results in the future

16. The basic people processes
- Defining the job
- Recruiting candidates
- Selecting among them
- Contracting
Reception (the first day
newcomer training)
- Training and development
- Performance measures and feedback
- Pay management, other rewards and benefits
- Information flow up and down the organization
chart
Departure (voluntary, involuntary, retirement)

17. Best practice
in people
management
• What usually works
• Based on research

18. Best practice 1: High threshold
for entry
Each hire matters a lot more
proportionately in a small firm
• Look closely at the job
• Should you make a change?
• What requirements are there?
• GET MORE APPLICANTS!
• Evaluate applicants carefully

19. Hire for job performance!
Knowledge Knowing Facts, rules, goals, self-knowledge…
Skill Being able
to do
Cognitive skills, decision-making,
interpersonal skills, self-management...
Motivation Choosing
to do
Choosing a direction, choosing a level of
energy, choosing how long to do it...
Job performance has only three direct determinants:
Performance = ƒ [ knowledge * skill * motivation]

20. Best practice 2: Invest in as much
training as you possibly can
In a small company you may not have a lot of in-house
training, but training can give you a distinct advantage
Prioritize training the newcomers
• Ask more senior people to mentor them
• Use outside training
Train frontline managers
• Use internal promotions

21. Selling a stint at your company
“the Alliance way“
The old style
• Lifetime employment: “Become like me in 25 years”
• “We are like one big family here”
A better way
• Make 2-4 year alliance agreements
• Clearly defined goals and tasks (OJT)
• Employee gets: Growth and increased market value
• Employer gets: Tasks completed and objectives met

22. Best practice 3: Provide regular
performance feedback
Lack of feedback is a key demotivator for
many workers
– Feeling underappreciated
– Confusion about expectations
– Reading too much into the wrong
signals

23. A simple way to provide
(and get) feedback
Employee Manager
Keep doing?
Start doing?
Stop doing?
Ideas on goals for next period
Always allow for discussion of past, present and future

24. Best practice 4: Connecting
employee outcomes to performance
• It is estimated that the best people produce
2-14 times (depending on the job) more
than the average person
• Often easier in a small firm to create the
“line of sight“
• Everyone matters more
• But small firms are often terrible about
managing pay

25. Get really good at managing pay
Some do‘s
• Positive reinforcement
• Explain your decisions
• Be aware of comparison group
• Rehearse!
• Use flexible pay to minimize
your fixed costs
• Incentive systems tied to key
outcomes (can often increase the
right behaviors by 15-40%)
• Spot bonuses
Amy Gallo, 2014
Some dont’s:
• Talking money only
once a year
• Combining money
talk with a
performance
review

26. Why transparency about pay?
Dave Smith, 2014

27. Best practice 5: Lots of
communication
• Best communication: face-to-face.
Often easier in small firms
• The two goals of communication:
1. Getting the message across
2. Building trust
• Tell everyone as much as you safely can
• Tell about your thoughts, show them you
trust them
• Listen carefully to staff as often as possible

28. Use technology that they like

29. Why do people leave?
Survey of HR managers
– Opportunity to
further career
– Better pay
– Personal reasons
– Poor management
– Poor relationships at
work
Survey of employees
who had left
–Lack of appreciation
–More responsibility
at another job
–Better pay
–Lack of recognition
–Poor relationship
with boss

30. Andres Thomas
Customer Success
Kabbage, Inc.

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