Building an HR Department from Scratch: What Should I Ask Employees First?

Hi, I was recently given the task to create an HR Department in an educational organization. I am thinking that the first thing I would do is send the employees a questionnaire on "what they want from the HR Department." Keep in mind, there is currently no HR department in place. Can anyone provide me with such a questionnaire?

Thanks.

Hi, Challenging Task, the first step is good but time-consuming, and I would like to tell you a fact frankly: no one takes questionnaires seriously; they just fill them out to show off. In fact, sometimes it seems that the scope of being realistic is lower. As per human nature, if someone gets a chance to write, they exaggerate themselves. It's true.

The Best Way Forward

The best way to go is for a common platform where interested people will share their ideas.

Next Steps

- Research other educational organizations that have HR departments.
- Evaluate all the facts.
- Frame the functions of the HR department depending on the facts and requirements.

The best way to proceed is with a SWOT analysis.

I hope you find these points helpful. Please let me know if I am wrong somewhere.

Do you work for the organization, or are you a student undertaking a project? See [Human Resources: King's College London](http://www.kcl.ac.uk/about/structure/admin/pertra/) to know what other institutions do. Found at [Google](http://www.google.co.uk/#sclient=psy&hl=en&q=hR+dept+in+a+college& amp;aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&f p=3aab4f875d701388).

It would have been useful if you had mentioned where the establishment is located. Have a nice day.

Regards,
Simhan A retired academic in the UK

If it is the management that has taken the initiative to establish an HR department in the institution, I don't know how much it will serve your purpose to ask the staff what they seek from an HR department. It would be better to keep the briefing and targets set by the management in mind for now and slowly start helping staff become aware of why the department exists and how it can be of help to them.

Thank you all for your answers. To answer your question, nashbramhall, the school is located in Doha, Qatar. It's an international school (pre-school, elementary, and high school) with a staff of 400, including teachers and administrative staff. They do not have an HR Department, and I was hired as an HR Manager. I have great experience in HR; however, I have little experience in the Education field. This brings me back to my question: what is the difference? In the past 10 years of my HR experience, I have worked in the Oil and Gas and Consulting fields.

Thanks.

Key Considerations for Forming a Department

Sending questionnaires would rarely help to form a department. For forming a department, you need to take care of multi-faceted problems that the company faces. The key considerations include:

1. The culture of the company
2. Nature of work of the employees - blue-collar to white-collar ratio
3. Extrinsic factors like trends in the market. During peak seasons, you may hire more part-time faculties, so you need to manage them too.
4. Competitors' approach

The best way possibly is to hire to remove pain. Create a realistic structure as you face problems rather than implement an imaginary structure based on your preconceived notions or others' biased opinions.

I am also in the same situation—setting up an HR department for an engineering company. I have planned to first identify pain areas and resolve them while simultaneously working on setting up various functions in HR in a phased manner.

Though I am young, I have a strong understanding and vast experience in managing educational institutions. I have managed 11 educational institutions (including a medical/engineering college, an ICSE school, and a 500-bed teaching hospital) under the name Khaja Education Society (KES) in Gulbarga, India. KES has 1400 employees. You are fortunate because I am currently in Doha, Qatar, working for an engineering maintenance company with 1500 employees.

Queries for Successful Implementation

Please do your best to answer these queries so that we can come to a conclusion on the best course of action for successful implementation:

1. Have you studied your organization and compared it with your organization's vision and mission?
2. How many years old is your educational institution?
3. Number of staff, including teaching and non-teaching.
4. Salary structure – good, average, or below average?
5. Are employee benefits in line with employee expectations?
6. Performance appraisal standards.
7. Quality of your staff in terms of their qualifications, experience, attitude, and more.
8. Work culture – Students' behavior should align with staff behavior. Analyze the teaching staff (passion, aggressiveness, behavior, attitude) as 85% of the issues stem from them.
9. Relationship between management and staff.

Sometimes, the best insights come from students who can provide a clear picture of the staff. After completing this analysis, you can meet with staff category-wise and discuss their expectations rather than framing them as issues.

Feel free to call me anytime.

With profound regards.