Human Resource Consulting – Four Items to Consider

Tim Schuster: Welcome to our podcast for Generations in Family Business Past, Present, and Future. Our host for this podcast are myself, Tim Schuster, and I'm a senior manager in the Center for Individual and Organizational Performance or CIOP. Along with me, as always, is my good friend.
Matt Kerzner: Hey Tim, this is Matt Kerzner. I'm the director in CIOP. How are you today?

TS: I'm doing well, man. How are you doing?
MK: I'm doing great. I'm surviving.
TS: That's all you can ask for, especially in these changing times. I want to talk briefly about our new group that we started here, CIOP, right? There are six areas that this group covers. Today I want to discuss with you, Matt, one of the areas that you're running up, actually, which is our strategic HR consulting. Would you mind telling our listeners a little bit about it?
MK: Absolutely, Tim. So, a big piece of what we do to help organizations is when they're looking for that cultural fit for that C-suite position, we help bring in a methodology that really gets into who is the right fit? How to conduct the interview search? How do you use behavior based interviewing skillsets? Then, how do you retain that talent once you bring that in? So, we have a really robust process that really can help an organization find the best talent they possibly can.
TS:That's fantastic. Now, let's talk about this. Let's talk about the performance management aspect of this.
MK:Sure. So, when we work with organizations, some organizations have a formal feedback process, some actually don't have anything at all, or what they call an informal process where they'll just give feedback to employees. Employees really want to get feedback, not just a couple of times a year, or that formal process. So, we actually set some educational experiences for organizations, and then can really customize their performance management system that could really help leadership and management set an expectation, learn how to monitor actions, get out of the office, and get on the floor, and see what people are doing. Then, be able to give feedback for improvement or give feedback for recognition and rewarding people for going above and beyond their job. So, really customizing a performance management tool for an organization that's really a fit for them, so that's another thing that we can offer here.
TS:Yeah, absolutely. That's important to make sure you retain talent, right? So, going into the next subject, right. Career development, let's talk about that.
MK:Yeah. In today's environment, it's really important for people to have several skill sets to offer the organization, as well as employees want to grow and develop. So, we help and we have helped organizations put together the plan for the entire organization at all different levels; Leadership, middle management, supervisors, and line staff, and really put together what I like to call that career path, that path of progression for individuals. What is the timeframe for an employee to really grow? I don't like using the latter approach where it's just straight up. I like to call it driving the back roads. So, if you can see my hand moving, it's like going in the zigzag motion. So, people can get different experiences, so that could be a well-rounded person to grow within the organization. We really can help put that path of progression together, put some goals for individuals to work with their supervisors, to really grow and develop.
TS: Matt, that makes a lot of sense. I look at this too, from a career perspective, that latter approach I think is really very dated at this point. I'm really glad you had pointed that out. It's not a straightforward path. It really is a windy road. With that in mind, right, so let's talk about the policies and procedures. So, what can we do there?
MK:Yeah. With policies and procedures, one of the things that we could offer first of all, is to go into an organization and kind of analyze what you currently have. Right? I like to think about employee handbooks. I think of policies and procedures on what's expected of employees, right? Setting that expectation is very important. So, ,we can do a quick assessment of what people currently have and then put a plan together for future state. When it comes to policies and procedures, I like to start with the basics, or charts, job descriptions. Is there a job analysis? Do people truly understand the rules and responsibilities and how do they work in the environment? What are the work rules that they have to abide by? So, it's really important for us to introduce some HR best practices to help design and implement policies and procedures that are really customizable for their organization.
TS:That's absolutely fantastic. We love doing this right, Matt. We like to link this back to the strategic growth packets. It's a fan favorite. So, let's do that. Let's link this all back to the strategic roadmap.
MK:Sure. A couple of things that we didn't mention that I think is really important is when you're dealing with human resources, you have to also deal with both internal resources, right, internal environmental influences. That could be where your organization is located geographically, right? Your actual work bench. What I mean by that is the people that work for you, right, all different levels. How much skills do they actually bring to the organization? These are all internal influences that could impact human resources. The external environment is the government could be dealing with third party like unions. So, one of the things that we also offer is industrial relations coaching, and guidance. It could help with the third party involvement that goes on within the organizations.