Keep them happy and your business will blossom.

Human Resources and job design is one of the ten critical decision areas of operation management. Human Resources play a major role in the success of any operations management of a company. Human resources supply an organization with its employees and take care of administrative issues such as payroll, on-job training, rewards and other vital matters. It forms the fundamental basis for any operations management system.

Based on the company’s requirements, job descriptions should be tailored and accordingly the selection process starts. HR fills the positions with effective workers who are professional, efficient and have the right work skills. Each employee should be aware of his job description and what is expected of him. Some companies do not have a clear job description, no communication of expectations and responsibilities and therefore, employees have little understanding of their job role and feel confused and disorganized. A strong communication path should exist between the management level and its employees.

For a successful business, great emphasize should be placed on HR because they form the base for any organization. Employees are a company’s first customers. They should be treated with fairness and rewarded as they go up the career ladder. A career path for each employee should be drawn and clearly communicated. Dissatisfied employees could generate bad business practices and dissatisfied customers. Keep them happy and your business will blossom.

I have included below a link for an interview with Steve Jobs. This interview was presented and discussed in one of our work meetings and wanted to share with you. He states two main factors for the success of any organization. One is hiring people who have passion for what they do. Steve Jobs mentioned that people who have passion and love their job would never tire from hard work. To reach success, a lot of hard work and long stressful hours is required. People who don’t have passion for their jobs lack the enthusiasm to work for long hours to accomplish the company goals.

Another success factor is hiring the right talent for the right job. Many times you find the wrong person in the wrong job which results in job errors and customer dissatisfaction. Some companies opt for cheap labor to fill positions instead of paying more for qualified workers, not realizing that in the long run their investment would pay off. Invest in your human resources to achieve success in the long run.

I end this article with a tribute to a great mentor who inspired nations, Steve Jobs. Steve Job’s Interview link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuNQgln6TL0

16 thoughts on “Keep them happy and your business will blossom.

  1. Interesting video and post. I appreciate Steve Jobs view point – In my experience, the job description is a tool to develop requisitions to attract new recruits, as well as helping formally defining job responsibilities (for various purposes). However, I think there is quite a bit more to the ‘rock star’ hire than HR writing a job description and filling the job. Developing a very stringent and rigorous interview process that gauges experience, behavior, culture, innovation, personality and creativity is not easy. You have to involve various resources (the candidates peers, reportees, managers, collegues) and coordinate inteviews to ensure everyone is asking the right questions. Case in point – I spend at least 4 to 8 hours a week performing interviews for potential candidates for my company. Setting the bar high is easy in concept, difficult in execution.

  2. I do agree that HR is very important to a company’s overall success. For a company to be successful, they need fill their open positions with the right people for that position in a timely manor. HR should be involved in the recruiting process and hiring but I think they need to make sure they do not be to controlling of the process. From my experience I have witness HR become to controlling in the hiring process. I have seen HR not pass on qualified resumes to the hiring manager and pass on resumes and applicants that should not be passed on. I feel that HR role in hiring process should be they screen the resumes for basic job requirements (education, certification, etc) and then pass it onto the hiring manager to review and decide if the applicant has the qualifications needed for the position. If the hiring manager decides they want an applicant then HR should do the appropriate checks on the applicant. In most companies, there are too many positions for the HR representative to know what is needed for each position.

  3. Great post and agree with the comments. The company I now work for, my job description wasn’t formally scripted out for the longest time- 3 interviews and several prodding questions about my duties resulted in a lot of round-about talk and no concrete answers. “Sales and Marketing” is the title, but that is very far from what I actually do for the company- related, but maybe 20% of total workload. I had honestly felt like I had made a mistake coming to the company. Since then, our new HR personnel have clearly discussed with our Japanese HQ and what is expected of my position, as well as several new employees. The result is readily visible and our productivity in our own specific .

    While Nathan’s response highlights the detrimental effects of what HR can do to a company, I’ve seen what experienced HR can do when screening resumes and offering insight to newly-made senior engineers taking positions of responsibility by joining interviews in the managers’ stead. My response assumes that the HR has recieved a clear description of the type of person the department is looking for, and has had a hand in creating the job description presented to recruiters and hiring agencies.

  4. I’ll start this by saying I realize that this post is pretty specific to HR and the hiring process, but this post caught my eye from a project management perspective. The title of the post “Keep them happy and your business will blossom” and the 2nd paragraph that discusses the need for the clear communication of expectations and responsibilities fit in perfectly with projects I’ve worked on. In fact, I’m currently working on a project that is approaching completion, and a concern I have is the effective training of associates to make sure the new system that is being implemented is fully utilized. This project stretches across multiple departments and locations, and it has not been possible to have every possible affected associate involved in the project. Therefore, it will be critical that our training is effective and that the project team members that represent each functional area are truly champions and help explain these expectations beyond just the formalized training. So, as important as it is to make sure each associate understands their job clearly to reduce confusion or disorganization, it is just as important for a project team to clearly outline how these expectations and responsibilities will change upon the completion of a project. From my experience, if this is not done, it is likely that the project will not get buy-in, and the project will not likely provide the impact that was expected or needed because employees will just maintain the status quo.

  5. I strongly agree with this post. I believe that in order for customers to be happy, the employees must be happy as well. It is like a domino effect. If employees are treated fairly and are appreciated for what they do, then in return they will be more glad to treat customers with the utmost respect and courtiousness. A business is only as strong as its employees. Meaning that employees play a great role in the long run of the business. HR should treat employees fairly as well as hire the right employees for the right position. For example at my job, my manager is constantly checking in with us to see if we have any questions or concerns. This makes me and my fellow employees feel like we are of some great value and asset to the company.

  6. It’s great to see how organizations are starting to place more and more value on HR. Twenty years ago it was seen as more of a necessary expense than as a source of value to the organization. I found the part about the job description especially interesting. I have been promoted 4 times at my current company and had never been provided a job description. After my fourth promotion, which put me in my first managerial role, I became extremely frustrated, and my work was suffering because I didn’t know my respnsibilities and my limits, and had no sense of direction. I also had troubles managing my employees because I had no formal job descriptions for their positions either so I could what they should be doing. I ended up having to go to HR and ask them to write formal job descriptions for myself and everyone else in the department. Just goes to show that anyone, even good, hardworking employees can struggle at their job with a lack of direction.

  7. I would agree that HR plays an important role. At my company now, it’s a small one, so it doesn’t exactaly have an “HR” department, but I can tell that the relatively new owner is making changes so that the company becomes more prosperous. The former manager let his employees come in and out as they pleased, if they wanted a day off they got it, if they came in late it was no big deal. Because of that, there are now a lot of repercussions. The new owner/manager is not meeting sales goals and it is because of the lack of structure in the business as a whole. Goals were never communicated, so the employees never felt the need to expand. The company grows through direct sales, so in order to get these sales, the owner has decided to be more proactive instead of reactive. I have noticed now that he is much more goal oriented and he expresses this to his employees and now there is a completely different feel at the office. Goals are being met and employee’s have an actual schedule and know what is expected of them. I think that if the owner becomes to overbearing in his HR initiatives, he will push his employees away, but for now I defiantly see positive changes.

  8. I dont agree with the HR becuase oday it is all about networking. HR is for like lower end eployment mainly. People get their foot in their door but 80% jobs are from networking and refferal. The better jobs are harder to find becuase companies dont see people staying with thier company to long. In this economy people are highly motivated by money to pay bills and take of their family increaing higher turn over rates.

  9. You are absolutely correct that HR is one of the 10 critical decision areas of operations management. Also, you are correct that HR is fundamental for any company’s operations management system, but then so are all the ten critical decision areas. The reputation HR has in a company, is not one of prestige or authority but of illusion and unimportance. I do believe that HR is quite important for any operations management system. I would like to point out that the decision making for any company when hiring new talent is from the manager or leader of a specific department. Getting to the actual interview, where you will have to showcase yourself to the interviewers does involve HR but its the department manager that actually makes the final decision on which employee they want working with them. HR does help to pool out the people who are most qualified to choose from, which is extraordinarily helpful. After reading Walter Isaacson’s book on Steve Jobs, it was clear how hard it was to please Mr. Jobs. Jobs would repeatedly call people “bozos” if they were not to his liking. I don’t think that is going to make people happy , maybe fearful of moving up the career ladder. Everyone wants talented people to work for them, sometimes those talented employees see moving up the ladder, to have a lot of gaps in the stairs. This is the one of the main reasons why in the interview they ask the question, “where do you see yourself in 5 years?” They ask this because if you say to them, “at the head of the company or some sort of executive,” but what if they don’t want to start promoting till after 10 years? Slow growth for employees in a company is almost the number one determinant of hard work. Everyone knows what job they are applying for and I applaud Steve Jobs for being more authoritarian in his managerial style. If you can’t impress and are fearful of your leader you wont want to move up and your work will suffer. Steve Jobs’s made you think rationally because he created your desire for marginal change.

  10. I completely agree with this post too. If your employees are not happy then the customers will not be happy either. In order for someone to be successful at their job they need to have the knowledge and passion, as the article mentioned. It is up to HR to make sure they are hiring people who fit all of these qualifications. In my past experiences, I have found it to be very reassuring when the company has a strong HR department because you then will be surrounded by people who are driven like you. If the employees are not happy where they are at then the business will not run as smoothly and not be to its fullest potential.

  11. I agreed with the post. HR plays a very vital role in any company. Much of what they do entails finding, training and maintaining a staff to fill the necessary positions that they have available. Being in Hotel Management I know first hand how important people are to an organizations structure. In my field most of the services are intangible and having the right mix of people who can deliver that service aspect is key. HR has their work cut out for them when it comes to the screening and the continuing development of that employee.

  12. I agree with your post that HR is very important in the success of a company. If employees are not given positive reinforcement and not treated well it will effect their motivation in their work and then will effect their work performance which will cause the company to diminish also. I believe that HR is the base of the company because the top management relies on HR to run the company efficiently and hire the best employees they can.

  13. This post is relevant because it came across many important keys to what really prospers a successful company. “Employees are the first customers”-narimann502 but, it all begins with a strong Human Resources department, who help pick out those great employees that can be a potential asset to that company and/or workplace. At the end of the day, it all leads to employee’s happiness, which in time will become of a greater advantage for that company. If your employees are unhappy, it will not only affect their ability to work but their company as a whole. Which is why it is important in having a great HR department that can help chose well off candidates that can really help blossom a company. Dissatisfied employees could generate bad business practices and dissatisfied customers.-narimann502. This is very true, happiness affects many things especially in the workplace.

  14. Excellent post. I completely agree that there is a direct correlation with employee satisfaction and work ethic. Since I work in retail I have seen this first hand. We have higher than industry average turnover rates from what I think is related to employee relations. My company has since cut holiday bonuses for all employees and have changed our paid sick day policy. Often I hear, “I hate this place.” or, “Why do I even work here?” My company has realized the dissatisfaction among their employees and has conducted a survey to try to analyze why there is such dissatisfaction. After the survey only 35% of employees were satisfied working for this particular company. The first step is realizing the problem and then correcting it. Hopefully I’ll see some positive results.

  15. Good job! I found your post to be really interesting and relevant. There is for sure a correlation between employee satisfaction and work ethic. I think we have all experienced this before in an internship or job. The happier the workers the better for everyone relating to having a positive work place and good outcomes.

  16. As an HR major I find this post very relevant and think it’s a topic often not spoken about. A team or organization is only as strong as their weakest player, which is why it is important to have good workers on board. It is also important to have an effective workplace, where employees want to work. From payroll, benefits to recognition and incentives, all of these aspects drive back to the HR department. Furthermore, it is more often then not the HR department that does the majority of the recruitment, selection and placement of individuals into the company. Even the most talented or smartest individual may hurt the company if he or she does not fit with the company’s culture or is placed poorly within the organizational force. Countless other factors such as low morale or no motivation equally hurt a company. These are all the focus of a HR department. If an HR department selects the best fit individuals and promotes an atmosphere of development, retention and motivation, then a company has leveraged itself over any other company whom may lack in these areas.

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