Developing Yourself As An Effective HR Practitioner

I am doing this HR course to further my career at work. I am supervisor.

I am involved in HR in my job, as we do not have an HR department. I work with my Manager at present to help conduct annual appraisals, disciplinary procedures and inductions. I have also been involved with redundancies.

We are a medium sized company, which has expanded since I joined in 2000 but as we are growing we feel the need to have 1 person to take on the HR role so that all staff have someone official that they can go to with any problems that they may have.

HRPM: this is an easy to use table containing behaviours, professional areas and bands of competence. It allows users to assess their capability in the HR role they have chosen – whether it is general or specialist.

The two core professional areas are insights, strategies & solutions and leading HR.

As an example of insights in my role at work there are quite a few members of staff who are nearing retirement age and will retire within around two years of each other so we will be losing all the experience and knowledge that they bring to their roles within the business whether that be manufacturing cables or within our quality assurance department, So I have suggested that we employ younger people who we can train working closely with these people so that their knowledge can be passed on. This has been proven to work as we have two members of staff who joined us around 6 years ago straight from school and are some of our best operators as we have trained them in the way we work.

The core of the map is about developing an understanding of the organisation that the user is working in, clerk of the works, contracts manager, and
architect.

Performance and reward – this allows individuals within a work place to use their own skills, behaviours and experience by using a reward scheme such as bonuses.

Learning and Development: Build individual and organisational capability and knowledge to meet current requirements – in many industries it is necessary to train an re-train employees as companies become more diverse to keep up with competitors for example, at my place of work we are starting to build completely different types of cable harnesses to what we would have been building one year ago so there is a lot of re-training required for all shop floor staff.

Band 1 of the HRPM is most essential in the company I work for, as it is customer orientated.

When I am doing the HR role full time my main customers will be shop floor staff although I will be working for others such as Engineers, Our Receptionist and the Managing Director.

There are 8 behaviours on the HRPM.

Curious:
This person is open minded and focused on the future of the business they are in, inquisitive and is always thinking of ways to add to their organisation, focused on the future of the business they are in and is always thinking of ways to add value to their organisation.

Decisive Thinker:
This person takes in data and information and is a fast learner. They use the information they receive in a structured way to identify options and make recommendations.

Skilled Influencer:
This person can influence stakeholders to gain commitment and support within the company/industry they work within.

Personally Credible:
This person uses professionalism to bring value to the whole company they work in including stakeholders and peers.

Collaborative:
This person works very well with other people within and outside of work.

Driven To Deliver:
This person is determined and resourceful and uses these skills to deliver the best results for their company.

Courage To Challenge:
This person will speak up for what they believe in even if confontated with resistance and unfamiliar circumstances.

Role Model:
This person always leads by example, has integrity and independence and balances personal organisational and legal matters very well.

Activity 2

In my HR role, I have 4 main customers. These are shop floor staff which includes inductions for new members off staff, Engineers and Our Receptionist. Shop floor staff: I sit in on (and will conduct) appraisals. We have a written assessment, which the shop floor staff must fill out before attending the appraisal. This includes questions about personal development. In the appraisal we discuss the types of work they would like to do in the future, any pay/skills upgrades they may be getting and when they can expect to get them by. We also discuss any problems they may be having although we always encourage them to come to us (our manager, the other shop floor supervisor or myself) with any problems as they come up rather than waiting for the appraisal.

The shop floor manager currently conducts the appraisals and I sit in on them and take notes then type up all the outcomes of the appraisal with a copy to be given to the employee. I conduct Return To Work interviews for employees who have had any unauthorised absence(s). This is conducted using a form with set questions asked and recorded by my-self about the nature of the absence. The Employee and myself then sign it and it is then scanned into their personnel file. I have sat in on and taken the minutes for redundancy meetings. I have had a limited role in these. As well as taking minutes, I am there for moral support, as I know all of our employees personally due to My job as a supervisor and the number of years I have worked there.

Engineers:

When I am a full time HR practitioner, I will be able to support the engineers with any problems they may have with other members of staff such as conflicts about the way the engineers plan jobs and the way they are actually built on the shop floor. This can be an issue for both the engineers and shop floor staff as the engineers quote the times for each job but they are not always accurate so this means that the shop floor staff may appear to not build cables in the allocated time.

New Employees:

I will be conducting all inductions for new Employees – This includes a walk around the factory introducing them to key members of staff such as our other supervisor, first aid, fire marshals and the other members of staff who they will be working closest with. I will also show them the fire exits, evacuation points and show them the fireboard with everybody’s names on. I will tell them when the fire alarm is tested and register them on out hand scanner, which clocks everyone in and out of the building and is also used for payroll. I will show them where the toilets are and what times their breaks and lunch breaks are. New Employees have to read our health and safety handbook thoroughly.

Conflicting Needs:

I prioritise these by consulting with my manager and shop floor staff so that I am able to decide what to deal with first. For example, I would deal with a conflict between two or more employees by speaking to them separately away from their normal work environment and if appropriate, I would get them together to talk about the problem. This would take priority over an appraisal or other day-to-day activity.

Communication:

I use email to communicate at work. The advantage of this is that everything that is said between Myself and the person I am communicating with is in writing and can be referred back to if necessary. The disadvantage of this is that if it is something urgent, the person I am communicating with may not see the email straight away, as many members of staff are not desk bound. Verbal communication: this has the advantage of getting the message across immediately and being able to get an instant reaction both verbally and assessing through their body language. The disadvantage of this is that you would not be able to accurately refer back to the conversation at a later date, as verbal conversations are not always accurately remembered.

Printed memo:

I use these to communicate anything I need to tell the whole shop floor as they do not have access to email in their workplace. The advantage of this is that I can carefully think about and word the memo exactly how I want it to be put across. It is also good because it is in writing and can be referred back to at a later date. The disadvantage is that I cant always get an instant reaction to it as everyone gets it at the same time so will not necessarily inform me of any feedback unless I ask them.

An example of all the above methods of communication is that when we unfortunately had to make redundancies some time ago, there was a memo given to every member of staff from their manager to let them know that everyone was at risk of being made redundant. My Manager and I then had to liase with our legal specialists via telephone and by e-mail. We then sat with each individual and let him or her know if they were being made redundant or not. We felt that sitting down with everyone individually, they would be able to speak about any concerns they had whether they were being made redundant or not.