Introduction
Best practices include all the procedures perceived as most effective in achieving certain outcomes. This paper analyzes some best practices in human resources (HR) and Change Management (CM) that enhance organizational effectiveness. Specifically, HR best practices discussed include selective hiring, training and development, competency-based compensation, building effective teams, influencing organizational culture, and employee security. Best practices in CM include assessing risk tolerance, risk assessment, simplicity, flexibility, gradual implementation, and reliance on familiarity.
Best Practices in HR
Selective Hiring
Selective hiring is the process of picking the most suitable employees from a pool of applicants. It offers a company a competitive advantage for having the best talent pool in its industry (Poindexter & Craig, 2022). An example of selective hiring is when Google hires the most qualified software engineers straight from universities and becomes the first employer to teach them essential work ethics and culture. Poindexter and Craig (2022) found that 13% of employers are hiring and retaining the best talent in their industries through selective hiring. It directly contributes to organizational effectiveness (OE) by ensuring that the workforce component aligns with the company’s objectives.
Training and Development
training employees continually and developing their skills to fit into the company’s objectives is a best practice. As technological advances and disruption drastically change the work environment, organizations must equip their workforce with skills to adapt to the new requirements quickly. For example, when Covid-19 struck and companies were forced to let employees work from home, only those that introduced the concept to employees were able to immediately step up. Companies that had rigidly stuck to traditional 9-5 routines were in disarray (Dubey & Tripathi, 2020). Preparing the workforce for skills training and development contributes to OE by ensuring that every vacancy is filled by qualified staff and that changes in the work environment can be handled in the shortest time possible.
Competency-Based Compensation
Fair compensation and benefits based on employee competency is a key HR best practice because the best talent requires above-average care. HR should develop a package that matches every job level but also provides higher compensation than the average market range (Cooper et al., 2019). For example, a company may offer a high base pay but fail to provide benefits such as days off and insurance coverage, forcing employees to consider moving to a competitor with better benefits. OE is achieved when employees feel they are fairly compensated for their work because it boosts their morale, job satisfaction, and commitment.
Building an Effective Performance Team
HR must create effective performance teams across the company. The best practice involves supporting effective teamwork through involvement in team creation and development. HR professionals can use Belbin’s team roles inventory to determine which employees fit into specific teams and their best responsibilities in the group (Rahmani et al., 2021). Other tools teamwork tools for HR include goal-setting and communicating software and feedback and project management tools. For example, a company’s intranet allows team members to hold quick virtual discussions on an ongoing project from the comfort of the work desks. This best practice contributes to OE because effective teams produce better results than individuals in idea generation and project completion.
Influencing Organizational Culture through Hiring
Although organizational culture is mainly influenced by the executive, HR can actively participate in influencing it through hiring, compensation, and training. For example, HR considers personality and personal values in the interviewing process and incorporates assessment tools that reveal the desired attributes. OE is enhanced by organizational culture if such culture cultivates idea-sharing, teamwork, positive competition, innovativeness, and growth (Singh, 2019). As a best practice, HR must influence workers to adopt a culture that improves these outcomes.
Employee Security
Employee security is the best practice of providing workers with the assurance of continued employment. According to Cooper et al. (2019), HR can achieve employment security by implementing a social relational approach to people management. For example, signing employment contracts designating recruits as permanent employees and enrolling employees into a development program creates job security. OE is enhanced when employees feel that their jobs are secure, leading to lower turnover and increased job commitment.
Best Practices in Change Management
Assessing Risk Tolerance
Assessing a company’s risk tolerance is a best practice in change management because the tolerance differs from one organization to another. Therefore, a change manager cannot begin the change process before establishing the organization’s risk tolerance and its impact on the planned changes. For example, compliance with legal requirements such as the SOX indicates the tolerance level of the business. Understanding risk tolerance will improve how delicate processes are managed and ensure that affected workflows and necessary approvals are handled in time (Stouten et al., 2018). Such a properly planned implementation contributes to OE by reducing the chances of failure during a changeover.
Risk Assessment
While most companies perform a risk assessment for change management, this best practice involves smart assessment driven by data analytics. According to Stouten et al. (2018), data-driven risk assessment ensures that previous mistakes are not repeated and problems are detected immediately after they arise. For example, monitoring performance data during a change process reveals the areas adversely affected by the change. Additionally, reports and feedback from previously failed change attempts helps future planners to avoid similar pitfalls. Risk assessment improves OE by enhancing the change management process to reduce resource wastage and prevent failures.
Simplicity
Simplicity is a best practice in change management processes because complexity is one of the causes of resistance. Simpler processes can be achieved through automated tasks, easy-to-use tech tools, and the breaking down of complex tasks. For example, communication of impending changes should be direct, precise, and simple to ensure every stakeholder understands their roles and responsibilities (Stouten et al., 2018). When change is simple, OE is enhanced because the change process is seamless and faces minimal resistance from the workforce.
Progressive and Gradual Change Implementation
Implementing the change step by step in a gradual progressive approach is a best CM practice. At every step, there is clear communication, a breakdown of tasks and expectations, and responsibility sharing. Stouten et al. (2018) found that a single overhaul of a system throws employees into confusion by expecting them to learn new systems or procedures in a short time. For example, at every step workers have time to learn new skills and improve their confidence in a new system. Gradual change implementation enhances OE by ensuring that the transition to a new business process is successful. Otherwise, resources used for the change are wasted, employees are discouraged, and future change implementation is more difficult.
Flexibility
Flexibility allows change managers to incorporate feedback into the implementation process. This best practice is vital in achieving immeasurable success in the change management process because users and other stakeholders take ownership of the project (Cooper et al., 2019). For example, allowing users to use some system features and provide feedback is critical. In this manner, they are all carried over from one step to the next until the change is successfully implemented. OE is improved by the success in managing change to continually enhance a company’s business processes.
Reliance on Familiarity
Best practices in change management must involve using existing knowledge as a foundation for new systems and procedures. The communication must begin with something familiar to the users to prevent the fear of the unknown (Stouten et al., 2018). When employees feel that they are accustomed to part of the new project, they could be excited to learn more about the changes and start the journey positively. Otherwise, they could be withdrawn in fear of the impending unknown changes and resist the process. For example, introducing similar functions that the new system performs as the old one makes employees excited about the change. This way change is successfully implemented to enhance the company’s OE for the workforce and all stakeholders.
Conclusion
Best practices can be used as guidelines to ensure effective business processes are used in HR and CM. The twelve best practices discussed in this paper are critical in improving OE because they ensure the smooth running of business processes. The HR best practices are supported by the HR department and focus on the people while the CM best practices emphasize processes and procedures that ensure change is successfully implemented.
References
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Poindexter, W. & Craig, J. (2022). Survey: What attracts top talent? Harvard Business Review. Web.
Rahmani, F., Scott-Young, C., Tadayon, A., & van der Walt, J. D. (2021). Team composition in relational contracting (RC) in large infrastructure projects: A Belbin’s team roles model approach. Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, 29(5), 2027-2046. Web.
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