What is personnel management?
Personnel management, which is also called human resource management, is the organisation and co-ordination of employees.
It covers the lifespan of an employee’s time with a company, often starting before a new employee is hired and continuing through their career, as well as when they exit the business.
Personnel management can occur from the perspective of the organisation, such as ensuring it has the appropriate staff required to meet its operations, or from the perspective of the employee, such as ensuring they have the equipment and support required to fulfil their role.
It can manage immediate needs, such as ensuring appropriate staffing requirements are in place for the following day’s shift, or be a more long-term, strategic approach, such as considering the number and type of staff required to meet business growth plans or expansions into new products and services.
Personnel management is not ad hoc. When in place, it may respond to urgent needs and emergencies swiftly, but overall it is a planned and measured approach that has been carefully considered.
What are the most common personnel management processes?
Business owners and leaders may like to consider the life cycle of an employee when considering which personnel management processes they may like to implement.
At each level, they can consider the individual requirements from an employee’s and their business’s perspective.
Recruitment
Personnel management takes a range of forms in the hiring process.
At its basic level, it considers current and immediate needs – for example, identifying an extra set of hands is required to help out on a building site or to replace an employee who is retiring.
Therefore, the desired qualifications and experience that applicants should hold may easily be identified to write into the job advertisement.
However, with personnel management, other factors may be considered. For example, will it be best to hire an apprentice who can be employed at a lower salary rate, and their skills developed over time? Or is an experienced applicant required to hit the ground running and meet project deadlines?
Is a like-for-like replacement ideal, or will an employee with a different set of skills and experiences be better for the role to suit the business’s plans for the future?
Personnel management may have already identified the ideal candidate to advertise for – for example, the organisation has a long-term strategy in place to hire apprentices to facilitate promotional opportunities for existing staff.
Personnel management may also look at the available supply of workers – for example, in times of skill shortage, it may be best to recruit an apprentice and start training them instead of spending months in vain trying to secure a senior, experienced worker.
From the employee’s perspective, personnel management during recruitment may be administration-focused.
It may involve onboarding tasks such as providing banking details to receive their salary and receiving support to learn how to use specialilsed software and equipment.
However, it may also include meeting with their manager to determine key performance indicators, to learn about long-term goals for the role and to outline their individual career goals they would like to achieve during their time at the company.
Employment
After an employee is onboarded, personnel management often becomes routine but there is scope for many broader processes that can help the employee and the business.
Typically at this point, personnel management can lie in the fundamentals of work such as recording attendance, ensuring employees use annual leave entitlements and staff complete mandatory training such as work health and safety compliance programs.
However, introducing a range of other personnel management processes can be beneficial.
Employers may want to look at enhancing fundamentals such as enabling employees to salary-sacrifice pay into their superannuation if they wish to, offering flexible work arrangements that help the employee better achieve work/life balance, or providing study leave or paying the course fees for an employee to upskill in a work-related area.
Employers may want to offer initiatives that enhance the physical and mental wellbeing of staff so they can better deal with workplace stress or personal crises, such as providing access to fitness facilities or the opportunity to attend counselling sessions.
Employers may want to consider what keeps their staff satisfied and engaged in their roles, and therefore be more likely to be productive as well as stay at the company long term.
Professional development and performance also is a personnel management tool that is often underused.
The skills and experiences that employees have gained can be continually assessed during their time at a company, and if any gaps emerge between what staff hold and the organisation needs, steps can be taken to address it.
Employees also can be given licence to raise the skills and experiences they would like to gain in the role to progress their careers.
Resignation or termination
Personnel management when an employee exits the business is one of the easiest processes to implement, yet it can be the most underused.
That is often because the relationship has unfortunately soured to the point where neither party is keen to help each other in future, or employers mistakenly see there is no value to be gained from someone who is voluntarily leaving or is being forced out the door.
Exit interviews are a great way for employers and leaders to glean insight into what works and what doesn’t at their organisation. For example, employees are often happy to state why they are leaving for another role, that can provide learnings to the employer to try to prevent others from doing the same in future.
Even if employees are involuntarily leaving, they may still have important points to make about their role that can be taken on board.
Personnel management also can include instigating a formal handover process to ensure whoever takes over the role temporarily or permanently understands the requirements. It facilitates a smooth transition for the organisation.
However, from an administration point of view, it is important to ensure some tasks are completed appropriately and promptly, such as ensuring final salary payments include outstanding long service leave entitlements. It provides for a clean break between the two parties, and may even prevent inadvertently becoming embroiled in legal proceedings at a later date.
How can personnel management be beneficial to a business?
It may seem like personnel management is hard work for employers but putting in the effort can lead to benefits for the organisation.
These include:
- Retention of staff and decreased turnover , as employees see they are valued at the organisation. This ensures organisations keep good workers and reduce costs associated with recruitment.
- Improved staff morale, as they enjoy their work and the benefits it offers them, which increases productivity.
- A skilled workforce that not only has the ability to perform at the highest level now but can continue to evolve to meet future business needs.
- A streamlined, organised administration process that is easy to use, transparent and possibly automated for employers and employees.
- Minimised disruption and time inefficiencies that can arise from having to deal with problems ad hoc.
All these benefits can help boost business profits.
Who should undertake personnel management?
Often this role falls to the business owner or managers as part of their day-to-day duties, particularly in small businesses. However, it may pay to engage a human resource professional, at least part time, to assist with these tasks.
Human resource consultants can also be employed ad hoc to provide some of these services. For example, they can complete the performance review process at the end of the financial year on behalf of managers, or analyse employee satisfaction surveys and make recommendations for long-term engagement strategies.
There is also software that can help automate many personnel management tasks, particularly administration tasks such as payroll, that not only helps employers stay on budget and pay their staff on time but can help with organising future resourcing needs.
Advanced personnel management processes can quickly transform a business from being one that simply responds to daily challenges and operates adequately to one that is more profitable, innovates and embraces change, and flourishes into the future.
Not all changes need to be made at once but it is a project that employers may want to give some time and effort to implementing.
