Training In Human Resources
Workplace Health & Safety
Accidents happen, and when they do, your staff needs to be able to deal with it. From the accident report, to the claim process, to staying compliant with workplace health and safety regulations, your staff must know how to handle these situations properly, because mistakes can be costly. Ensure that you follow corporate policy when training on workplace health and safety, so as to remain as consistent as possible. You don’t need everyone to become experts on health and safety, but you may want to bring in outside experts for a coaching and legal update session.
Compensation
Everyone’s favorite part of work is payday! Well, we hope not, but an important part of the work environment is ensuring that payroll is as accurate as possible is an essential part of keeping your employees happy. Make sure that staff are trained on the current software that you are using and know how to answer inquires from employee’s about their salary level or rate of pay. Push the envelope further by training your staff on strategic talent retention and attraction strategies; inform them on how to develop quantitative, formal salary and market rate assessments.
Deductions
There are a number of federal forms that cover deductions for businesses of all sizes, so in order to provide well-rounded training, you will need to ensure that all of your HR professionals have a good grasp of what deductions apply to which employees and know where to access the information should they forget. Your HR staff should be able to mentor employees about the differences – make sure that they not only know the information, but can frame it in their own words and teach others.
Benefits Administration
Training your staff is important for business continuity in the event that you are away from the office or held up in a meeting. Make sure that you have logins for each HR member and that they know how to add and remove dependents, change benefit levels, or cancel benefits if necessary. Ensure that their is an efficient chain of command and POC developed involved with any outside benefits service providers.
Recruitment
Whether you use modern recruiting software or do things the old fashioned way, you need to make sure that your HR staff knows what the recruitment strategy is and what proper protocol is for things like background checking, references, screening and interviews. Everyone should be involved with the talent acquisition process – even employees outside of HR. Besides ensuring that everyone has some basic knowledge about recruitment processing, be sure that they can state and explain your company’s employer value proposition and key points of differentiation.
Staff Development (Train The Trainer)
Take some work off of your plate and train your HR staff in how to deliver presentations in HR related issues, so that they can become the trainer! A good way to do this is “homework” sessions for your staff. Have one staff member each week develop a quick presentation to present to the entire HR team on a particular topic. These topics can, and perhaps should, be outside of the employee’s comfort area – make them research and practice learning new material.
Performance
Make sure that your staff knows how to conduct a 360 evaluation at performance time and how to provide constructive feedback. Since performance is a vital aspect of overall company results, have each of your HR staff members keep up to date with modern assessment and talent measurement standards.
Termination
The best way to train staff in terminations is to allow them to sit in on a few. They will get a good idea of what information to provide, what to withhold and what is provided to an employee upon termination as well as what material the employee must turn in prior to departure.
Discrimination
Your staff will need to know how to deal with complaints about discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment or employee/employer conflicts. Ensure that your employee’s know how to handle these situations in a professional way. This is an area that involves such legal risk that you may wish to have one particular specialist – however, ensure that each member of your staff has a strong competency and knowledge in this area.
Leave
Staff need to know how to answer questions on employee leave and vacation policies. They should know how to let an employee know how much personal leave they have available, or how many sick days they have used. To take this training to the next level, encourage innovation – ask HR staff members to research and develop employee incentive programs, sabbatical programs, flexible work schedules, and other creative time structures designed to increase employee engagement and performance.