Today's Guest

The key to employee engagement and great business culture is clear communications. Laura Tolhoek, CEO and Founder of Essential HR, knows that when a business faces HR problems, there is no room for ambiguity. Laura shares her insights on how small businesses can attract top talent and build loyalty with their employees.

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Episode Summary

As a small business owner myself, I understand the vast number of hats we all wear every day. When I started my business, Essential HR, I knew I could help companies solve their HR problems. But finance, marketing, and sales were new to me so I had to learn as I went along. In my experience, you usually learn those other skills in the moment verse a methodical research-based process. 

When it comes to hiring the right people for your business good people are hard to find but also for job seekers a good company is hard to find. So your goal should be to position yourself as an employer someone would want to work with and that starts back at square one. When you are looking to hire someone do you know what you are looking for and are you able to communicate that clearly to the people you hope to hire? It is a two-way street between you and a potential employee so make sure you are putting your best foot forward. 

One of the first projects we tackle when we begin to work with clients is their policies. As business owners, we have so many ideas in our heads about how we want the business to run. However, oftentimes we think we’ve communicated those ideas many times but more often we haven’t communicated those ideas clearly. At the end of the day, great HR is all about clear communications. Over the past year business of all sizes have had to learn to adapt their practices for the new normal post COVID. We see a lot of job seekers looking for companies that have taken reasonable precautions to make the work environment safer. 

Understanding what discrimination or harassment in the workplace is and what it’s not is a key concept business owners need to grasp. You can absolutely hold people accountable but you shouldn’t be yelling or threatening them when you do it. Often a good way to think about it is how would you want an employer to treat your kids or spouse in that situation. 

When it comes to HR technology or systems the first thing I recommend is a time and attendance system. Stop keeping manual spreadsheets or other documents and find one of the many apps out there to take this task off your hands. The next area I look at is performance management tools to help you track goal setting and development. The goal of any system is that it is a benefit to the business but not a hurdle to get getting work done. It needs to work with your current business practices and communication culture. 

Resources Shared

• Essential HR
  

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