When we think of spring, we think of the bright, crisp mornings; the flowers blossoming; slowly the weather gets a little better from the winter months. Allowing for the odd freak March snow, of course.
Many of us associate a deep clean with spring, namely the spring clean. Of course, the vast majority keep on top of cleaning throughout the year, but this goes a bit deeper than that – it’s a chance to move the sofa to the other corner of the room, or re-organise your storage.
A spring clean can help put a ‘spring’ in your step, as you move forward with a renewed focus and optimism about the months ahead. Isn’t it amazing what a deeper clean or tidy up can achieve?
You may be surprised to hear that it’s possible to perform a spring clean of your business too.
This isn’t to be taken literally – of course, you can tidy up your desk and organise documents that have been sitting loosely in your drawers for months. As an outsourced HR service provider, our spring clean is focusing on human resources-related processes and procedures, in order to ensure your business is on track for success in what marks the start of a new financial year for many.
Here, we present our 5 top tips on spring cleaning your business through HR.
1. Review your Policies
Is everything up-to-date? Are things still relevant? Take time to look through the policies in place, particularly those relating to people matters. Make sure the employee handbook is in accordance with the current focus of the business – does it clearly communicate your values, belief and mission? Don’t leave it to chance. It’s so important that your policies are relevant, robust and your handbook is ready to bring your whole team on the exciting mission you’re continuing on.
2. Revisit your rewards and recognition structure
In today’s workforce, it’s so important that employees feel rewarded and recognised for great work. Rewards don’t all have to be financial in nature – it can be anything from a shout out, to days off, and employee lunches. There are so many ways to reward and motivate employees. Remember that a motivated employee is likely to achieve more, give their all to your business and reduce instances of presenteeism in your organisation. You could even create fun competitions and a leaderboard, to gamify your rewards.
3. Audits, Audits, Audits!
It’s not something that we like to think about, but they have to be done and sometimes they can drift to the back of your mind and then POOF! They’ve crept up on you, and you weren’t ready for them at all. Just by spending half a day or so making sure you’ve got all the dates under control can make all the difference – things like health insurance renewal can always seem to come quickly just round the corner and you may be wasting money unnecessarily! Also, if you’re accredited or regulated, you really don’t want to be slipping up and being caught unaware by a surprise inspection.
4. Apprenticeships and internships
If you’re lucky enough to have an apprentice or an intern on board, this could be a good opportunity to have a chat with them about how they’re performing and have a more indepth catch up than the ‘usual’ weekly or monthly meeting. You’re on a journey together – your organisation is looking to achieve goals and objectives, and your junior team member is a vital part of that. Do they feel engaged and are they being challenged to develop and grow? Do they need more support with the academic side of things?
If you don’t have an apprentice or intern, why not think about recruiting? It’s a great chance to bring in some fresh eyes, who may well bring some brilliant ideas and be hungry to learn, growing alongside your business.
5. Look at your holiday schedules
Employees might go on holiday at any time during the year, but around the summer months is the most popular time for them to get away, especially those with families. Make sure you re-iterate getting holiday requests in as soon as possible, and make notes for who in different departments will be missing at what times, as you don’t want to be un-organised, turning up one day to discover one of your departments is almost completely missing!
Go forth, with a spring in your step
By following our spring cleaning tips for human resources, hopefully you’ll be in a great position to hit the ground running in the year ahead.
Of course, make sure you’re doing a bit of actual cleaning in the office too! Did somebody say team building day???
