How to Build a Successful Human Resource Strategies
For company development, people, goods, money, and information are important resources. While these are all important elements, look to "people" for the long-term growth of your organization.
But how do you proceed with internal human resource development? What are the effective methods? This article will provide you with successful tips and examples including case studies.
If you are looking for something worthy for HR development, read to the end.
Identify the purpose
When conducting human resource development, it is important to clarify its purpose. Without a goal to aim for, any attempt at the development will end in half-hearted results.
Here are some examples of the objectives.
Improve productivity in the field
The goal of HR development is to improve employee awareness and skills. Although following manuals and performing their duties in a casual manner cannot be avoidable, when it comes to overall productivity, it is an effective way to encourage employees to work actively on their own initiative.
In recent years, the number of the working population has been decreasing and is expected to continue to decline due to the low birthrate and aging society. Even in this negative situation among companies, you can maintain productivity by maximizing the potential of employees’ skills.
Improve of the company's business performance
Human resource development is expected to improve the company's business performance. By providing employees with the necessary training, you will see the gradual change of the way they approach their work and their behavior in each field.
The more the ways of thinking and acting change in the better way, the more active their day-to-day work will be.
The accumulation of these efforts will improve on-site productivity, which in turn will lead to an increase in the company's business performance.
Achieve management strategies
The ultimate goal is to achieve the strategic management.
When making efforts to develop human resources, you will find out which skills and operations are lacking for company goals. In order to compensate for these shortcomings, continue to promote the development following the strategies and nurture employees’ engagement.
However, keep in mind that it takes a considerable amount of time to complete a series of flows; training, acquisition of the knowledge and skills, reflection in business performance, and achievement of management strategies. Keep a long-term perspective and proceed with your plan at an early stage.
Back to ContentsTips for training new and young hries
Let's take a look at long-term management. The key factor is how to nurture the future leaders of your organization. From this perspective, it is essential to establish know-how on how to train new and young employees.
Below are four tips for training new and young employees.
Just learn the task?
When training new and young employees, you should not only help them learn the tasks at hand, but also train them to see the whole picture and to be able to carry out their work.
For high employee engagement, encourage them to understand the entire workflow from the time they join your company, assuming that they will stay for years.
Lack of knowledge and experiences make it difficult for them to understand the significance of the work they are facing.
Some may feel challenged and be unmotivated for this difficulty.
In light of that, it is important to provide the significance of each day-to-day task from the early stage, which will lead to higher engagement of the work.
Assign an appropriate trainer
In-house training requires appropriate indication for each employee. Likewise the content, improvement of individual performance depends on the trainer.
Because values and ways of thinking differ from each employee, creating a trainer and trainees’ relationship is crucial. In the case of instructing new and young employees, there may be instances as follows; "As for this trainee, this trainer seems to be a better match and seems to grow faster compared to him or her."
Selecting a trainer who matches the individual's disposition will make a big difference in trainees’ self improvement as well, which can prevent turnover. Pay attention to creating good relationships between them, and optimize the opportunities for higher engagement.
Are your success stories appropriate?
For some new and young trainees, sharing trainer’s experiences will inspire them. How you have improved your skills or acquired knowledge with your mindset, what you have experienced through your job, etc…success stories have the power to motivate especially new employees.
If trainees respect the trainer, such stories will sound attractive and may be important information for them.
However, it is not advisable to convey that kind of story in an intrusive manner since social conditions, industry trends, and internal initiatives change year by year. In many cases, the current situation is different from when they were successful, and it will not always be helpful. In some cases, it may be perceived even as mere boasting.
When talking about success stories, be as abstract as possible and make it easy to apply them to a variety of situations.
Everybody is a beginner
No employee can do everything from the start. This is one of the important things to keep in mind for those in leadership positions.
In most cases, new graduates and inexperienced young employees in particular do not have the knowledge and skills to start quickly and efficiently.
Avoid assuming that new hires have few experiences, and demanding the same work and the same quality as employees who have been with the company for years. It is important to take a long-term perspective and train your employees step by step.
Back to ContentsKeys for training mid-career employees
Along with efforts to train new and young hires by giving them experience, pay attention to mid-career employees since solid education to the middle class will strengthen the management base more.
Below are three keys for developping HR of mid-career employees.
Place direct reports
When placing a mid-career employee in a certain position, try to place the direct reports with whom he or she has developed a relationship in the same department.
While there are various methods for training mid-career employees, by teaming up with members who they already know, it is expected for them to develop leadership to communicate things straightforwardly and responsiveness depending on the situation.
Even though placing the direct reports is the shortcut to develop teamwork, there are also advantages to team up with members whom they hardly know each other. Working with new people is challenging in that they need to create things from scratch. However, you may possibly see an increase in their communication skills and creativity.
Whether they work with new people or not, giving instructions is required for mid-career employees. For the future growth of your organization, let them gain various kinds of experiences in achieving business goals.
Job rotation
Another effective method for developing mid-career employees is job rotation. it refers to reassignments aimed at developing new skills.
This reassignment is implemented based on a predetermined HR development plan. It is expected to have the effect of gaining an overall picture of the company through various tasks, and of bringing about new changes through skill development.
This is implemented in a variety of ways, from a short term of 3-6 months to a long one of 3-5 years, and it allows them to understand the entire business and thus the entire flow of the company.
Since mid-career employees have more experiences than new hires, job rotation provides them opportunities to make new discoveries.
In addition, it is also effective to develop networking with other departments because when working in a team in the future, employees will be able to start working smoothly without creating relationships from scratch.
Experience positions of responsibility
One of the most effective methods for developing mid-career employees is to experience positions of responsibility. For instance, you can assign them to start a new store or a new business.
These kinds of experiences are expected to improve their management skills, on-site coordinator skills, communication skills with superiors, subordinates, business partners, and more.
Before providing responsible positions, ask their future aspirations and career goals to avoid mismatching between the company's vision and theirs. Business entrusted will possibly keep them busy in the long term, and you need to ascertain if he or she is the right person to assign it.
Grasp the situation and encourage them to achieve their goals.
For female employees, you should take their childbirth and childcare into consideration. If they are concerned about them, make efforts to create an environment in which they can balance their work and private lives.
Back to ContentsAvoid mismatching in HR development
Wrong methods for HR development can lead to cases where employees are not developed as expected, or are not suited to the company's culture.
Therefore, it is important to understand in advance how to avoid mismatching in human resource development. The following explain three points to be aware of during training.
Clear goals by management
An important initiative to avoid HR development mismatching is for management to clarify what the company is aiming at.
Without clear goals indicated by the organization, it is difficult to know what exactly should be promoted in the field.
Some employees may set goals by themselves, however, high results will not be expected for the company as a whole if they are away from the company vision.
Proper goal setting is helpful not only for workers but for those who are in charge of the HR division. When HR development is not going well, it can be a compass to find which elements need to be improved.
What kind of efforts and skills will be needed to accomplish the goal? How do you develop your skills?
Inquisitive mind is always necessary.
As a result, this initiative will lead to the same direction among employees as well.
Effective individual goal setting
Are only company goals necessary? The answer is NO. Along with them, it is also important to have each employee set specific objectives and goals. They will be a clear indicator of how they should approach their work and grow on a day-to-day basis.
For instance, they will be able to take the knowledge they gain as their own, not only in your regular work, but also when attending internal and external training.
Conversely, unclear objectives and goals may become a trigger of lack of focus and some may not even remember the content very much.
Periodic evaluations
In order for HR development to be effective, regular evaluations are required to be conducted in the appropriate way.
Without appropriate evaluation, employees' motivation cannot be maintained, and they will have difficulties to find the purpose of the job.
When conducting evaluations, establish a structure whereby supervisors regularly check with their subordinates, or senior staff with junior staff, to see if they are achieving their human resource development goals in advance.
It is also important to provide feedback and advice on work performance as needed.
Five means of developing HR
There are several means to develop human resources who will be an asset to the company and improve its performance. Since the method of development differs depending on the condition and growth level of the employee, multiple means of development should be used effectively.
We describe five human resource development methods, including OJT and Off-JT below.
1. On the Job Training (OJT)
OJT is a training method in which new employees or those with little work experience are engaged in practical work while developing work-related skills and knowledge. It has been introduced in various companies, and is expected for their engagement.
When introducing a program, prepare a systematic one to make new employees smoothly engage in the business and to let them have opportunities to improve their working abilities.
Even though OJT is a common method used in HR development, some people in training are left alone or specialize in miscellaneous tasks depending on the workplace. It is important to plan efforts in advance as there is no point in implementing the program without proper learning through the practical work.
2. Off the Job Training (Off-JT)
Off-JT refers to group training in which the target group gathers at one venue to attend lectures and group work together.
This method is often implemented for uniform acquisition of knowledge and practical skills when it targets a large number of people. The advantage of this method is that the quality of the learning is assured by a predetermined program, and the necessary information is conveyed all at once.
You will have lots of tasks regarding dates, locations, lecturers and more. Organize a team in advance and make efforts to proceed each plan effectively.
For more effective learning, it is recommended to apply what is learned in Off-JT to OJT.
3. Self-development
Self-development has an important role to encourage active learning by employees.
Although it is a training method used alongside OJT and Off-JT, the critical difference is that the company does not force the employee to learn, but rather they take voluntary initiatives.
What the company should do is to support them to deepen their learning through self-development.
To encourage their self-development, there are some ideas such as invitations to seminars and introductions to books to read.
Financial or any other support from a company would promote further self-development.
4. MBO (Management by Objectives)
MBO is a measure in which each employee sets goals and is evaluated based on how well he or she achieves those goals. Since the goals are set by the employees themselves, they are expected to make independent efforts and use their own ingenuity to achieve them.
When introducing the measure, take into consideration to support their achievement as a company.
Also, do not forget to train supervisors or people in charge as well in order to judge whether the goal setting is appropriate or not.
For making goal setting meaningful, take a bird's-eye view of your company, and connect the dots between each division's goal and individuals' as well as between division and company's.
5. E-learning
E-learning is one of the efficient training methods to acquire knowledge by digital devices such as smartphones or computers.
Various companies are providing many kinds of services, and the number of companies introducing such systems has been increasing.
The reason to implement e-learning for HR development lies in the fact that the features meet learners' needs. Since everything can be worked online, they can learn wherever they are, or whenever they are. As for trainers, they do not need to conduct training nor gather trainees in one place.
If you are interested in e-learning for HR development, compare several services and select the one that matches your purpose and budget. When introducing the service, pick several companies that offer the service and then select the one that best suits your company's objectives and budget.
Back to ContentsCase studies
More and more companies have been adopting our LMS (Learning Management System), learningBOX, for HR development.
Following are the companies which chose learningBOX as a method to solve their challenges.
VENTUNO Co.,Ltd.
Ventuno Co., Ltd. has the management philosophy, "Living beautifully together." Main products are healthy foods and cosmetics that utilize the slimy ingredients found in mozuku seaweed and kelp.
The company has two locations, the head office and a call center, and faced the problems of the time and cost management associated with conducting training together.
The introduction of learningBOX has contributed to save travel time and cost, and enhanced the employees’ learning experiences and engagement. Despite the pandemic, Ventuno Co., Ltd. could conduct in-house training and has successfully kept developing the learning environment for employees.
Japan Academy of Learning Disabilities
Japan LD Society is an academic research organization that studies LD (Learning Disabilities), ADHD (Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder) and ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) and promotes support utilizing their content.
The society had been making efforts to increase members. At the same time, there were concerns that some of the existing members were unfamiliar with IT itself.
By introducing learningBOX, they came to conduct seminars without restriction of location.
Talking about the operation, learningBOX is easy to use even for beginners, and that dispeled anxiety. Moreover, the introduction of the system led to the increase of participants for seminars and of the acquisition for professional licenses as a result.
Wellness Co. Ltd.
Wellness Co. Ltd. is a company that supports the condominium management industry in strengthening management capabilities and human resource development.
They have been promoting initiatives to improve the level of human resources by utilizing their proprietary system, among others.
Wellness Co. Ltd. had been exploring how they could provide learning opportunities through the e-learning system for senior citizens. Moreover, it was their wish to create feature-rich content to encourage them. Since learningBOX is user-friendly, introducing e-learning enhances their learning experiences utilizing their smartphones.
They have also been able to provide uniform learning opportunities to their agents in all regions of the country.
The company incorporated learningBOX into its web application and made it possible to take management training regardless of time or location.
Summary
For the increase of the company value, developing human resources cannot be looked away. Although there are various kinds of methods, coincide with your organizational objectives and develop the strategies for your future vision.
If you want to introduce e-learning, which is very effective in acquiring knowledge, you can use our e-learning system, " learningBOXPlease consider "The System of the Year". Our systems are not only rich in functionality, but also provide easy management of students, ensuring a smooth system implementation.
If you want to improve your employees’ skill through HR strategies, try our Free Plan to see how it works.
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