To develop your human resources, ask yourself these questions.
Planning the income strategy for a profit center or department is fairly simple: It's merely a matter of considering fundamental factors such as increased premiums, commission percentages, account-development procedures, and new business projections.
More difficult is to plan strategy for human resources. That requires knowing how many employees there should be, and what types of skills they'll need for the agency to service a customer base effectively while pursuing growth aggressively.
Every position in the agency should be considered a stepping stone to another, more responsible position. No staff member should feel as if he or she is in a dead-end job. People need opportunities to grow in their personal and professional lives, and only management can provide them avenues for the latter.
The following are basic questions to ask when planning human resources development.
1. What is the organizational strategy? e.g., large variety of products and services, total quality service, prominence in the community
2. How will we measure the quality of our work? e.g., customer survey responses and focus groups, customer retention, profit margin per customer or per profit center
3. How will we differentiate our service(s) from our competitors'? e.g., quicker turnaround on transaction requests, pleasant office environment, personal quarterly (or monthly) attention
4. What modifications in organizational structure are necessary to achieve these goals? e.g., self-directed teams, reduction in middle management to encourage empowered workers
5. What are the specific performance goals and objectives for each job position? e.g., sales: 100% to plan on a monthly basis, 60% of (defined) market share service: < 2% customer complaints, 90% retention, < 50% overall loss ratios administration: zero system downtime, zero accounts receivable in excess of 30 days management: employee longevity 5 years or better
6. What are the performance standards for ensuring goal attainment? e.g., sales: ____ new business appointments each week service: 90% utilization of automated database administration: Weekly training sessions on system capabilities management: 10% net profit
7. How are staff members informed and kept aware of goals? e.g., weekly published sales results, monthly personal interviews, daily departmental or team meetings
8. Which tools are provided for staff members to attain stated goals?
____Telephone
____Voice mail
____Fax
____Automated date base
____File cabinets and storage
____Work unit (desk and chair)
____Copier
____Printer(s)
____Management direction
____Support staff
____Documented procedures
____Team leadership
____Reward and recognition
____Written job guidelines
____New business leads
9. How effective are the tools provided? (Evaluate each item identified in No. 8; for instance, 'Could probably use one more outgoing telephone line.')
10. What skills are necessary for existing staff to accomplish stated goals (a)? and how are we ensuring their skills are effective (b)? e.g., (a) displays empathy; (b) sensitivity training (a) communicates effectively; (b) grammatical evaluations of conversation and written documents (a) demonstrates diplomacy; (b) management and peer group observation and customer feedback
11. How are we encouraging positive attitudes among staff members? e.g., daily coaching sessions, weekly in-house training, mentor relationships
12. How are we ensuring that staff members understand the importance of their work and the suitability of their performance to the overall scheme of the operation? e.g., 'smile' reports (refer to No. 11)
13. How are we helping employees to maintain the physical strength, emotional stability, and education necessary for meeting goals? e.g., cost sharing of fitness club membership, ergonomically designed work space, time to reflect on and discuss successes and failures, opportunities for learning new information time to practice new skills
14. What are the repercussions of failure? e.g., ignore the individual verbal reprimand, arrival at a common definition of solution, 30 days to improve no salary increase or bonus
15. Define success. e.g., increased authority, professional (industry) recognition, more income, greater trust in individual decision-making
16. How often do people get feedback about their performance, and what kind of feedback is it? e.g.
____ twice daily
____ daily
____ weekly
____ monthly
____ quarterly
____ semi-annual
____ annual
____ verbal
____ written
____ financial
____ public
____ formal
____ informal
____ private
The examples provided for each of these 16 issues are not intended to be 'correct answers.' They are offered only to stimulate your thinking. Remember, you are in a human resource planning phase and may discover additional issues that require your attention to bring about the most rewarding (and profitable) relationships with your staff.