HR matters – now more than ever!

Talking about HR Matters and why HR matters – now more than ever!

The foundation of any organisation’s success is built on people. Whether the company is big, small, a start-up or a global company, a profit or a non profit organisation – people management is core to every company’s success. It’s all about employees: recruit & retain. So far – so good. Finding the right candidates and retaining your talents is now more important than it ever was. Your employees determine if your company will be successful or not. This hasn’t changed over the years. But how can the business be persuaded that HR is core and really matters?

First of all, HR employees should know the business. Not only the HR business but the business of the company as such or at least the business of their respective departments. They have to know, for example, what the costs are, who the competitors are, what the business model is and after all, how money is actually earned. Can you answer all of these (basic) questions for your business?

Secondly, HR employees should start thinking like profit centres do. HR should always think about how things can be improved and what service their client could ask for before they actually even come up with it. This is how the business behaves with their own customers and HR should get the same customer-related mindset.

Thirdly, let social media and big data become one of your core activities to brand your company and after all to increase your recruitment success. Social media is not only Facebook, LinkedIn and Glasdoor – it is much more. The impact social media is having in today’s society is constantly increasing and the impact it’s having on people’s decisions is playing a crucial role. Many candidates observe actively or passively companies via their social media presence and decide if it’s a good fit for them or not.

Social media gives companies the chance to brand their name via diverse platforms going from simple pictures (Instagram) to HD-videos (vimeo, youtube,…), developing recruitment-related mobile apps or building an employee-driven blog, to name just a few possibilities. Big data can help to evaluate which social media channel is most effective for your company. The use and analysis of big data can also help to detect talented people and to provide better services and products to your internal customers.

One last point HR should absolutely focus on: What is the experience your current employees live and what do they think and say about the company’s culture? According to a survey from Nielsen Global Online Consumer (25.000 participants) ten from ten participants trust recommendations from personal friends and virtual strangers over any other source.

Especially for such a small country like Luxembourg, recommendations from employees are highly important.

As an employer you do not only have to persuade candidates to enter into your company, but most of the time the candidates need also to be convinced to start (or at least continue) living in another country than their home country.

To say it in other words: You can employ thousands of brilliant talents and spend thousands of Euros in improving your brand but candidates will judge your company on the employees they meet.

Do you agree or disagree with my point of view? I invite you to share your comments with me and to show me why HR matters from your perspective. You can drop me an email or use the comments function below.

In case you would like to share with other HR colleagues your latest HR projects, your thoughts on a specific HR topic or your success stories, please send me the text, either in French, German or English and it will be published on this blog – of course, free of charge.

Thank you for reading my blog, sharing your thoughts and commenting my posts.

And don’t forget: HR matters!