New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Working with employees can always be challenging, but it is especially challenging in uncertain times and in a shifting context.  An HR consulting firm has recently drawn up what it believes to be the top ten trends for 2009 in terms of managing employees:

#10: Prevalence of Support Teams.  Historically, "strategic advisors" consisted of accountants, CPAs, and lawyers; however, top-performing companies today are turning to self-created advisory boards consisting of industry leaders, partners, and customers.   
 
#9: Outsourcing Adoption is Increasing.  Today, companies with 25 to 2000 employees outsource HR 14%, IT 26%, and 40% of all small businesses outsource some or all of accounting and finance.
 
#8: Run Human Resources like a Profit Center.  By shifting HR's focus from payroll and administration to organizational development and implementation of Human Capital best practices organizations become top performers.
 
#7: Focus Performance Reviews on Forward-Looking Goals, training, and career development.  Use performance reviews as motivational tool and not for discipline.
 
#6: Flexible Scheduling. 68 percent of firms utilize some type of alternative scheduling.  With the advent of conferencing and collaboration tools plus rising gas and transportation costs companies are embracing 9/80 and other flexible work schedules.
 
#5: Transparency. While stories of corporate greed plague the economy; many organizations have opted for more transparent reporting which drives accountability, engagement, communication, and connectiveness. 
 
#4: Improve Employee Productivity with training and tools. Download Employee Productivity Best Practices for Entrepreneurs.
 
#3: Invest in employee development and retention.   The average professional employee turnover costs an organization $50,000.00!   Read more about “Employee Management Best Practices.”
 
#2: Shift from reactive staffing mindset to proactive Workforce Planning. Workforce planning improves quality-of-hire and reduces recruiting costs.
 
#1: Create Workforce Scorecards.  Daily accountability is a real problem that can be mitigated with effective management and measurement techniques.

Source: Achilles Group