Generally speaking, human resource (HR) departments are responsible for recruiting, hiring, onboarding, and sometimes training your new employees. These are all crucial duties. But what happens to HR’s involvement with employees once they’ve settled into their new job roles?
How does HR support employees thereafter?
Staff who feel supported and nurtured in the workplace are 70% less likely to experience burnout. Supporting your staff should be a top priority.
In this article, we delve into the world of human resources and give you the best practices for supporting both new and existing staff along their employment journey.
The following seven methods are our top recommendations for improving the employee experience in your organization.
What is a human resources department?
An HR department is the division of a company that is responsible for managing personnel-related matters.
They are the ones in charge of the recruitment, hiring, and onboarding of staff. They’re involved in administering employee benefits and managing conflicts between staff members. HR departments are also usually the ones responsible for terminating employment when necessary.
There is a fair amount of responsibility to handle, but is that the extent of their repertoire?
For HR to support employees, they need the right support themselves. This is where the right software plays a big role. HR departments that use software like Aluminati’s network have access to the company’s alumni database and enterprise social network. This helps with various HR processes, including:
- Providing them with a greater talent pool of eligible candidates to recruit.
- Matching alumni mentors with new employees to share knowledge with.
- Offering a centralized digital library to share resources with employees.
- A digital dashboard and chat features help HR communicate with staff effectively.
How can HR support employees? Here are the top 7 ways
Just as nurturing plants can boost their growth, supporting your employees helps their personal and professional development. Show them support with these seven top methods.
1. Employee development and training
Your HR department is a wealth of knowledge for your employees to tap into. They guide employees through the entire onboarding process, but their guidance doesn’t end there. They host training programs and workshops, recruit training providers, and even help with career development and applications for employee assistance programs.
HR teams that use the Aluminati network find this much easier. Our platform can be used for alumni network management, talent management, and as a private social network within the company. As a highly flexible and customizable platform, you can adapt it to suit your unique business needs.
By tapping into the resources of their alumni network, they can match mentors to mentees and help employees develop new skills, faster.
2. Employee well-being and health
The well-being of your employees is crucial for satisfaction in their work roles, and vice versa. That’s why your HR department should focus on ways to enhance employee well-being and health in the workplace.
These methods should target both physical and mental health. To show your employees you care about their physical health, organize employee wellness programs and regular health screenings.
For mental health, consider offering your employees counseling and other mental health resources. A digital library (like the one you can create on the Aluminate platform) is the ideal repository for wellness articles and guides. Employees can access and read these whenever they need to.
World Mental Health Day is an excellent starting point for prioritizing your employees’ mental wellness. This is held on October 10th each year and is recognized internationally. Several companies and organizations participate in this day, hosting activities in their workplaces.
Your HR department will find it easy to inform employees about these activities with the messaging and chat features on our enterprise social network software.
3. Transparent communication
For true employee support and engagement, your communication needs to be transparent. An HR department is the ideal place to start, with open communication about new company policies and changes within the organization.
Use the digital dashboard on our talent management software to communicate accordingly.
4. Career growth and advancement
Your HR department bears the responsibility for talent acquisition, training programs, and performance management. They also have a legal obligation to uphold the specific labor laws of their country of residence. Must they support employees’ career goals too? Yes, 100%.
The Aluminati platform has all the tools for supporting both HR’s job requirements and employees’ career growth and advancement goals.
You may find the perfect candidate for a leadership role amongst your existing employees. With employee data and employee performance metrics all stored in one central database, it’s quick and easy to find the right fit for the job.
5. Work-life balance initiatives
Your HR department plays a crucial role in administering employee benefits. Are financial benefits the only ones offered? If so, you are doing your employees a disservice. Other benefits can make a huge impact on employee satisfaction.
Many employees struggle to strike a healthy balance between home and family life on the one hand, and work duties on the other. When the work-life balance is out of sync, they can’t perform at their best, at work or home.
How can HR help employees achieve this balance? Where possible, establish remote work arrangements, or a hybrid work model that allows employees to work from home on alternate days. If this is not possible, send out wellness vouchers.
Our software is ideally suited to this. You can use it effectively as an enterprise social network for communications between HR and staff, as well as amongst coworkers. Don’t overlook the power of community.
Use the platform to create virtual groups for employees to encourage and support each other. For work-related topics, you could make a knowledge-sharing hub where employees can share valuable insights and industry trends. You could also make groups for interests outside of work, like a book club or a fitness group.
6. Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)
In this new data-driven era, there is substantial emphasis on meeting specific quotas. However, for an HR department to be more supportive of disadvantaged groups, it needs to be more proactive.
Encouraging diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the workplace is always a positive, but it needs to extend beyond filling quotas. The best ways to foster diversity and inclusivity are through diverse hiring policies, offering equal employment opportunities, and addressing discrimination in the workplace.
It’s a lot easier to fulfill this vital role and support employee relations with the right tools. A social network is an excellent tool for raising these issues in the workplace. It can also be used to bring employees together, furthering inclusion.
7. Employee engagement activities
Organizing team bonding exercises is an excellent way to increase employee morale. This is also an effective way to strengthen team unity.
Go the extra mile and add some fun, virtual activities that speak to your employees’ interests. This too, will have a positive impact on their morale.
Keep track of which activities employees enjoy the most, and which provides the most “investment” for your organization. The Aluminate dashboard makes this easy.
Show your employees outstanding support with Aluminati’s Network
Your HR department plays a pivotal role in the organization. They handle recruitment, onboarding, training, workplace disputes (and so much more).
Support them on all these fronts with Aluminate for Enterprise. Our software is versatile, scalable, and highly efficient. It’s ideal for everything from talent management and alumni network management to an enterprise social network.
Illuminate the employee experience. Request your Aluminati demo today!
