Seeking Advice on Elevating HR Practices for a Large Manufacturing Company

Hi,

I am working as an HR executive in an organization with 3,400 employees spread across five manufacturing units and the head office. Despite the extensive operations, we currently lack robust HR practices beyond basic payroll, recruitment, leave management, and certain statutory functions that are insufficient for a successful organization.

Now that my management is interested in implementing new HR practices, I would appreciate your suggestions for improvement to help my organization become the best employer. We are also in the process of developing an Induction Manual and Training Program. Please provide your suggestions, feedback, and any formats you may have.

Thank you in advance.

Chaitanya
HR

Hi Chaitanya,

I am posting certain articles which I had downloaded from citehr earlier. Hope this helps you.

Regards,
Nirali Desai

Hi Chaitanya:

The good practices will start with the management and organization policies.

Any organization should have adequate support to HR from the management to implement any new practices which benefits the organization. If the management is supportive, try develop good policies and implement it across the organization for all levels in hierarcy.

Having an Employee Handbook in place is highly useful.

If you already have Handbook just check whether the following policies are captured in your handbook.

Index

Scope

Introduction

A. Core Values
B. Mission Statement

I. Section I – Employment Practices

A. Affirmative Action Policy Statement
B. Persons with Disabilities Policy
C. Attendance
D. Categories of Employees
E. Disciplinary Action
F. Policy on Grooming, Dress and Personal Appearance
G. Drug - Free Workplace
H. Employee Referral Program
I. Employee Service Awards
J. Employment Records
K. Exit Interview
L. Flexi time Policy
M. Hiring of Relatives
N. Lightning Award Policy
O. Minimum Age Requirements
P. Pay Policies
Q. Pregnancy
R. Problem Resolution Procedures
S. Promotions and Transfers
T. Salary Administration
U. Sexual Harassment
V. Termination of Employment
W. Performance Target Award Program
X. Tuition Reimbursement


II. Section II – Benefits and Eligibility

A. Group Insurance
1. Life Insurance
2. Mediclaim
3. Group Accident Policy
4. Annual Master Health Checkup

B. Holidays
C. Leave Policies
D. Gratuity
E. Superannuation
F. Provident Fund
G. Employees' Family Pension Scheme

III. Section III – General

A. General
1. Building Security
2. Charitable Contributions
3. Electronic Mail (E- Mail) Policy
4. Environmental/Recycling Programs
5. Evacuation Procedures
6. Financial Interest Policy
7. Gambling
8. Gift Policy

B. General Policies
1. Inspections by Government Agencies
2. Internet Policy
3. Parking
4. Safety
5. Secondary & Freelance Employment
6. Smoking Policy
7. Solicitations
8. Travel and Travel Reimbursement Policy
9. Whistleblower Policy
11. Code of Ethics

Hi Chaitanya,

May I know which industry you are working in, so as to suggest the policies to suit your requirements?

Suresh

Hi Chaitanya,

You may have the following policies, procedures, and processes in place as helping tools in developing your organization to the next stage:

- Design and improve your development strategies
- Review your MBO policy
- Recruitment Process
- Develop a comprehensive retention strategy
- Define KRA, KPI for every department
- Career planning, Succession planning

I would also recommend having an HR manual and an employee handbook. As one of our friends mentioned earlier, the list covers most of the areas of any HR manual.

Hope this serves the purpose.

Can anyone share some of your good HR practices from the perspective of employee relations, initiatives/programs, creative ideas, etc. that you are currently carrying out in your company?

SK

Hi,

You can also include the Rescission of Resignation policy and the Bullying and Harassment policy.

Thank you,
Bame

Hi Nirali,

Thank you for the useful input. I am working in a BPO. Though turnover is good, we are facing a problem with attrition. Can you help me by giving any ideas to work on attrition, particularly for a Medical Transcription company? It is a very big task to compete with the market and retain our employees without increasing salaries, but I want to try and see the results.

Thank you in advance,
Sowmya, AM - HR

Hi all friends & HR Fellows,

Can anybody mention here about the BEST INNOVATION in HR that has been implemented and appreciated by management in your organization?

Hi Chitanya,

I am also from the manufacturing industry. To be very precise, let's take an example: this is the right time to launch an educational assistance fund for your employees' children. Whether it's Rs. 1000 per child, this initiative will create a strong bond with the organization. I have implemented this and am experiencing good results; you should give it a try.

Rameshan

Hi,

When it comes to best HR practices, focusing more on welfare activities, individual development, quality of life, and employee relations in a very professional manner automatically establishes effective HR practices, leading to the recognition of a top-tier HR system. These aspects go beyond salary considerations.

Regards,
Arun

Hello, Chaitanya. I have gone through various postings on your query. 3400 people multi-location Pharma... you definitely must have some good practices yourself. The organization would not have survived without strengths. The first assignment you must look at is what strengths the organization has. Then build on strengths. In the name of benchmarking best practices, some organizations have overlooked their best practices! Look at your strengths, then look at others and build.

Siva

Hi Sowmya,

According to me, in order to curb attrition, you should first find the causes for such attrition. This can be done through exit interviews. In the current context, you can carry out an employee opinion/satisfaction survey, which will help you find out the reasons for people leaving and their expectations and aspirations.

I am attaching some information on attrition as well as exit interviews. For the employee satisfaction survey, there is a lot on CiteHR that you can access if you search.

Hope this helps you.

Regards,
Nirali Desai
🌟

For bringing the positive change, Managers may have to :

Depend less on your position in the hierarchy and more on your expertise, leadership and personality

Pay more attention to that a wider range of other in the organization think and say

• Adapt easily to new information and situations

• Attend more to your own and other people's intuition.

• Place more value on the creative, experimenting style of making things happen

• Rely less on rules, systems, procedures and control and hence live with a greater degree of risk and uncertainty

• Recognise the needs of followers to satisfy their higher needs of personal development, autonomy and self realization.

To get the things done requires a manager to be more than responsive to people and situations. It demands pragmatic common sense combined with a good knowledge of the organisations' principal aims. In practical terms it means that you as a manager may have to :

• Formulate your own goals
• Evaluate your own successes and failures with ruthless and sometimes painful honesty
• Seek constantly to clarify and simplify aims so that the tasks to make them happen are clearly identified and allocated.
• Go beyond your own job boundaries and take an interest in events throughout the whole organization
• Test constantly whether proposed actions are really achievable and desirable
• Keep an eye on the bottom line which may be profitability, quality of service, morale and so on.

The leadership of change requires managers to avoid becoming trapped in side issues, details, paper work or irrelevancies. In practical terms it means that you as a manager may have to :

• Develop political and networking skills in which you learn to read the political and economic climate
• Look outward beyond your own work area and the organization itself.
• Acquire public relations skills, in particular learning how to handle the media
• Organize how you spend your time and limited energy
• Maximize delegation
• Build yourself good channels of communication and systems for monitoring what is happening.

In organizations which are construct ed of separate sub systems with links of varying strengths, managers must be extremely clear about goals and responsibilities, and be able to think through what they are trying to achieve. Intuition, right brain activity and the concept of thinking laterally, all form part of the culture of change. There is less emphasis on managers mastering their environment and more on being able to ask ‘ what if' questions.

Hi Chaitanya,

I am working as an HR in a software company. Can you please suggest to me how to conduct a reference check of a candidate before he/she joins our company? Also, tell me when to take the reference check, i.e., before or after giving the appointment letter.

Regards,
Kala

Hi Roopa,

I'm Roopa, new to this forum, and this is my first time posting in a forum. I would like to have some insights about key HR priorities (Key Focus Areas, Measures to achieve them).

Thanks,
Roopa

Dear Chaitanya,

Herewith attached is the file. It may be useful to you for the introduction of HRD welfare schemes.

Regards,
Mahesh Patel

Hi Chaitanya,

I feel in the process of collecting information, a post by T. Sivasankaran is neglected somewhere. He has a very valid point. Please make a note of that also.

In case you have made a note of that, then please neglect my message.

Dear Chaitanya,

I am working as an HR executive in an organization with 3,400 employees spread across five manufacturing units and the head office. Despite our extensive operations, we lack robust HR practices beyond basic payroll, recruitment, leave management, and certain statutory functions that are insufficient for a successful organization.

With my management now expressing interest in implementing new HR practices, I seek your suggestions for improvement to help our organization become the best employer. We are also in the process of creating an Induction manual and Training program. I would appreciate your feedback, suggestions, and any sample formats you may have.

Thank you in advance.
Chaitanya
HR

Dear Chaitanya,

You may want to conduct a Google search for the HR software product 'EmpXtrack,' which consists of 18 modules based on the best HR practices across various industries. One of the most effective HR practices is transforming your organization into a learning organization, with technology playing a key role in enhancing your HR processes.

I hope you find the EmpXtrack website informative and beneficial.

Regards,
B K Bhatia

Hi,

Reference checks are to be done once the employee joins the organization, either through a consultant who would charge for verification based on:

1. Number of inputs and/or nature of inputs you require
(or)
2. In-house HR coordinator can contact the HR department

Broadly, inputs include:

1. ID proof
2. Address verification
3. Education verification (certificate validity)
4. Criminal record check
5. Previous employment check
6. Reference check
7. Passport validation
8. Driving license verification
9. IT returns validation

Chaitanya
HR

Can anybody put here your valuable suggestions while practicing very good innovation (implementation) through HR - in the sense of:

1. "Human Touch" amongst the employees.
2. "Employee Satisfaction" - with minimum welfare facilities.
3. "Motivated HR Assets of the organization."
4. Best - "Cost Innovation."

The only references which I can think of are:

1. If possible, try inculcating the Balanced Scorecard method.
2. MBO if possible.
3. Make the management's heart beat for its employees, and everything will fall into its place.
4. Role modeling/benchmarking companies from the same sector can also be a good step, but again, what is good for one may not be good for another.
5. Have a proper survey held to understand what your employees actually need and what is an achievable goal.

The whole process takes some time.

All the best,
Regards,
Prabhakar