human resources problem and solution

7 common HR problems in companies (and how to solve them)

If you've ever worked in HR, you know it requires you to juggle many tasks and responsibilities. This can sometimes overwhelm smaller teams or companies with limited resources and manpower.

The good news is that many of companies' most prevalent HR problems are common across industries and companies. As such, there's a wealth of information about how to solve them.

This article will focus on 7 of the most common HR problems in companies and provide a solution for each one.

But first, let's back up to look at what an HR department, or HR Management, actually does.

What does HR Management involve?

HR managers may be responsible for a wide range of activities related to hiring and managing employees at a company.

Responsibilities found under the HR umbrella might include:

• Job design ( job descriptions , recruitment ads , strategic prioritization)
• Workforce planning
• Training and development of existing employees
• Performance management
• Compensation and benefits management
• Navigating legal requirements
• Health and safety

In the largest organizations, these responsibilities are usually split across an HR organization. Smaller companies, however, often don't have that luxury, and one or two people may have to juggle these priorities.

This lack of resources or manpower is at the core of many HR problems companies face. There are many jobs to be done - all of which are important - but it may not be possible to do all of them with the limited resources available.

The rest of this article will focus on these challenges and offer possible solutions.

Common HR problems in companies and their solutions

HR problems in companies come in many shapes and forms. They also vary in seriousness and complexity, depending on the challenge and where the company is located and operates.

Consider the solutions to these problems to be guidelines. It might be necessary to seek outside help, depending on the resources available to you at your company.

1. Compliance with laws and regulations

The first common HR problem in companies is a big one: ensuring you adhere to all relevant laws in your operation area. This can be a huge challenge for small HR organizations, especially if no one on the team has experience dealing with local labor laws and regulations.

Key challenges that arise include:

• The tediousness of keeping track of all employment laws in all areas in which the company operates
• Ensuring that all operations, recruiting, and employment processes adhere to local laws
• A lack of time and expertise to understand the issues and nuances of the laws

Failure to fully comply with laws and regulations can lead to serious consequences for a small company, including audits, lawsuits, and even bankruptcy.

Potential solutions to this challenge include:

• Ensuring that at least one person on your management team is in charge of understanding local employment laws and regulations
• Giving that person the time and resources needed to study and understand those laws and regulations
• Consulting a legal expert with questions about the laws and regulations
• Auditing your existing processes to ensure that everything is above board

While these solutions will require more time and money, getting them right is critical to ensure your company's health and future success.

2. Health and safety

Like with laws and regulations, HR organizations often ensure all health and safety requirements are being met at the company.

• Creating and enforcing health and safety processes at the company
• Providing employee training and documentation of course completion to prove compliance with health and safety measures
• Monitoring and adapting to local health and safety laws
• Tracking instances of workplace injuries or safety violations to protect against potential workplace compensation lawsuits

Like with employment laws and regulations, failure to execute a thorough health and safety program can expose the company to costly lawsuits and injury claims.

• Designating a health and safety person or committee at your organization
• Giving them the tools and training needed to study and understand local health and safety laws
• Empowering them with absolute control over health and safety at the organization, including the power to make changes, upgrades, or even shut down operations temporarily if needed

Health and safety should be a top priority for any company. As such, this challenge should be on your shortlist to tackle as soon as possible.

3. Change management

Managing change can be a big headache for HR departments and their employees. This is especially true for fast-growing organizations experiencing rapid evolution in their processes or onboarding new employees at a high clip. Unfortunately, HR often bears the brunt of this frustration.

• Adapting HR processes and policies to match the company's growth and ambitions
• Balancing the needs and wants of legacy employees with those of new employees and management
• Ensuring open communication before, during, and after changes are made
• Dealing with negative feedback or frustrations from employees

When done poorly, change management can have an adverse effect on performance, staff engagement , and morale. It often falls on the HR department to find ways to ensure people-centric change doesn't affect productivity and output.

• Clearly communicating the benefits of change to all employees
• Implementing a change management process that outlines how, when, and where employees are informed of process changes
• Encouraging open and honest feedback from employees when a change is made
• Making it crystal clear why you are making a change and what the benefits are to the company and employees

It's not possible to please everyone all the time. But a few simple change management best practices can make your life much easier when scaling or altering your processes.

4. Compensation management

Compensation and benefits are one issue that no HR organization can get around. This is the core concern for all employees and has an immense impact on everything from performance to engagement to productivity.

• Knowing how to structure compensation packages to stay competitive in your industry
• Monitoring the recruitment landscape to see what others are offering
• Matching compensation demand in the market, especially if you're trying to compete against larger competitors
• Providing competitive perks, employee benefits , and bonuses that align with what your ideal candidates want

It takes a lot of time and money to ensure that your total compensation packages are appealing and competitive. In reality, small companies will struggle to compete against large corporations and their limitless budgets.

• Looking for free tools like Payscale and Glassdoor to create benchmark salaries that are based on aggregated real data
• Shortlisting competitors to watch and analyze what they promote on their careers sites in terms of perks, benefits, and compensation
• Focusing on employer branding and culture messaging to create intangible benefits for candidates
• Being creative with compensation to make up for less-than-competitive salaries

The bottom line is that larger companies can and likely will outspend smaller ones to land the best talent. To combat that reality, smaller companies should look to pitch what's unique and appealing about their company.

5. Landing top talent

Like with compensation, smaller HR organizations often get muscled out in the fight for top talent. This is another major HR problem in companies that don't have the resources to aggressively go after the best candidates.

• Being overtaken by a large amount of competition for top talent in skilled roles
• Having to spend lots of time, money, and effort to find top talent, all of which are in short supply
• Devoting the time that's needed to hire top talent while also juggling all of the other requirements of an HR manager
• Spending lots of resources to court a top candidate, only to have them leave early in their term with you or get scooped up by a competitor during the hiring process

Competition for top talent is fierce. Large organizations use every resource at their disposal to find and hire the best in the industry. Unfortunately, that means smaller organizations are often financially disadvantaged when hiring.

• Getting creative with how and who you hire
• Beefing up your employer brand to stand out from other companies
• Recruiting directly from colleges and universities to give new and hungry employees a chance to shine
• Leveraging networks and social channels to directly pitch candidates at no cost
• Hiring the best recruiter possible and letting them do their jobs

Smaller organizations will need to pick and choose their battles when competing for top talent. If budget and resources are limited, then it might make sense to only go after the best candidates for strategically critical roles or ones that will drive long-term success.

6. Retention

Landing top talent is one thing, but retaining them long term comes with a new set of HR challenges for companies.

• Focussing the bulk of your time and energy on employee retention
• Balancing the cost of hiring top talent, with the risk of them leaving prematurely
• Accounting for the variety of factors that might cause retention issues, including:
• External poaching
• Lack of engagement
• Lack of career development
• Lack of growth opportunities
• Non-competitive salaries or benefits
• Monitoring and adapting to issues that are leading to increased employee departures
• Maintaining productivity levels while balancing all of the above
• Finding a fine balance between culture, compensation, and incentives that boosts loyalty and retention: this will require some experimentation and lots of honest feedback
• Continuously monitoring employee sentiment via pulse surveys, 1:1 meetings, anonymous surveys , town halls, etc.
• Keeping an eye on the market to ensure that your compensation packages are competitive
• Monitoring employee churn rates and retention rates and adapting to what the data is telling you
• Addressing red flags before they become major issues

If you break down a month-to-month workload for most HR managers, employee retention is likely one of, if not their most important, priority.

Keeping employees happy and performing at a high level is incredibly important for a company's success and comes with many challenges for HR professionals.

7. Monitoring productivity and performance

Productivity and performance is a shared responsibilities between managers and the HR department. Managers are ultimately responsible for their team's performance, but it will fall on the HR department to make tough decisions if certain departments or teams aren't performing at the level they need to be.

• Monitoring performance and productivity levels to ensure that the business is operating efficiently and hitting output goals
• Identifying problems areas and taking necessary actions to turn things around
• Working cross-functionally to find root causes for low performance and identifying potential solutions
• Reporting human resource issues back to the executive team, who will then make strategic decisions

Keeping an eye on productivity and performance involves monitoring key indicators, engaging in candid conversations with managers and employees, and generally acting like a detective to find problems. While part of the job, it's a time-consuming responsibility and a common HR problem in companies.

• Using HR platforms that integrate performance management, goal management, and engagement tracking
• Looking for teams who are hitting their goals, studying what they do right, and presenting those processes as potential changes to the executive team
• Keeping clear lines of communication open with all managers to ensure that issues are addressed before they snowball

The HR department is often one of the busiest in most companies. That becomes even more apparent in smaller companies with fewer employees dedicated to these mission-critical tasks. This is a very multifaceted role that brings with it many unique problems and challenges.

Like with most business challenges, focusing on strong communication, technology, processes, and goal tracking can help you overcome these common HR problems in companies.

Brendan is an established writer, content marketer and SEO manager with extensive experience writing about HR tech, information visualization, mind mapping, and all things B2B and SaaS. As a former journalist, he's always looking for new topics and industries to write about and explore.

Get the MidWeekRead

Get the exclusive tips, resources and updates to help you hire better!

Hire better, faster, together!

Bring your hiring teams together, boost your sourcing, automate your hiring, and evaluate candidates effectively.

7 Most Common HR Issues & Their Solutions

An organization’s HR department faces multiple HR tasks daily, like recruiting new employees, retaining and engaging existing ones, and providing up-to-date training and benefits—all while maintaining compliance. All this is easier said than done and HR problems commonly arise. Luckily, HR professionals have access to tools and techniques that can help solve a variety of human resources issues.

Compliance: Navigate Laws and Regulations

The Issue: The list of compliance laws and regulations is a mile long. The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) sets standards for worker treatment under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) . Employers must pay workers at least the minimum wage for all hours worked, as well as time and a half for overtime, while keeping detailed records. Aside from the FLSA, government contractors must comply with standards set by the Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) including developing an Affirmative Action Plan (AAP) and keeping detailed records for all applicants and hires. The challenge lies in the fact that your HR team not only has to make sure they are following the rules, they have to track and updates and ensure all job postings include the required wording. If done manually, compliance can take a huge amount of time and lead to costly errors.

The Solution : The right applicant tracking software (ATS) will automate many of the hiring compliance procedures HR professionals need to follow. It should include a voluntary self-identification questionnaire for AAP reporting, track good faith recruiting efforts, store all candidate information and update all required forms like W-9s. HR software should also automatically include any EEO taglines in job postings, ensuring they’re never accidentally forgotten. Once hired, a time tracking solution will ensure your employees are always paid every dollar they’ve earned, including overtime.

Recruiting the Best Talent

The Issue: Recruiting candidates requires a lot of work including evaluating what skills and qualifications are necessary for the position, developing an accurate job description, advertising to the right candidates and sorting through applicant resumes. All this occurs before the interview stage even begins. And if you didn’t get a good pool of qualified applicants, you must start the entire process all over again.

The Solution: An ATS enables you to not only organize your recruiting tactics across multiple channels, but also helps reduce risks and stay compliant. Automating these manual processes allows recruiting and hiring managers to spend more time with top candidates and less time with paperwork. An ATS that can track and group applicants based on skills and qualifications can streamline and significantly expedite the hiring process. Adding interview questions like, “How would you handle a situation when…” or “What would you do if…” helps search out candidates with the core competencies you’re hiring for.

Employee Retention

The Issue: Losing an employee, whether by termination or resignation, can cost employers about $4,000 to hire a new employee . The costs are associated with recruiting, hiring and training a new employee plus any overtime paid to workers covering their workload. There are other hidden costs to turnover as well. Overall team morale, as well as your company culture, can suffer as well. When employees start walking out the door, or are terminated, the ones that remain can get disengaged and start looking for work elsewhere.

The Solution: Start employees off with a strong onboarding process. Only 12% of employees strongly agree their organization does a good job of onboarding . An effective onboarding process is your best tool to get employees on the job quickly and efficiently, encouraging engagement right from the start. A good onboarding process ensures employees know exactly what to expect working for your organization. It should outline job requirements, goals and company policies and procedures. A good working environment can be reinforced through additional tactics such as:

• Offering competitive pay. Research what the competition is paying so the relationship can start strong. Compensation management software automates the process by giving employees raises and bonuses based on your structure. Compensation can include pay raises, one-time cash bonuses and profit sharing.
• Scheduling social time for employees. Institute practices that allow employees to have fun at work to build camaraderie, increase productivity and inspire loyalty. Even if you’re meeting virtually, build-in time to play games or share funny stories.
• Allowing employees time to volunteer. Employees find value in employers who give back to the community and those employees are 13 times more likely to look forward to coming to work . Give employees time off to volunteer during the day.
• Holding regular performance reviews. Performance reviews that are held quarterly, semi-annually and annually give managers the ability to help employees be better at their jobs. Measuring performance lets the employee set goals, understand what’s expected of them and even offer rewards for meeting their goals. A performance management system helps simplify the process by offering DIY evaluation forms, 360-degree feedback and easy goal monitoring.

Workplace Diversity

The Issue: Your workplace lacks diversity. It only hires the same type of people with the same ideas. The problem is it could be illegal, especially if you don’t have valid reasons for rejecting candidates who are women or people of color. Racism can continue to exist as a subtle undercurrent in our society—even when the most well-meaning among us aren’t aware of it. Therefore, we can’t just coast along and assume that if we don’t do anything bad, then the problem will just go away. A lack of diversity can also stifle your company’s ability to be creative and innovative.

The Solution: Start looking in new places to find a more diverse pool of candidates. Reach out to job boards that target minorities, ask your minority employees for referrals and make prominent mention of your company’s attitude toward inclusion in your job postings. A good ATS can help widen your search by having access to a wide range of job boards. An employee referral program that is well-communicated to employees, easy to access, simple to participate in, and clear about expectations and outcomes, will help to encourage more diverse referrals. Improving workplace diversity also requires creating a company culture that more inclusive.

• Train managers and employees on diversity and inclusivity. Create an ongoing diversity group and allow anyone to join. Train the group on language or behavior that should be called out as racist or intolerant . Your managers and staff should be able to identify and address these acts on the spot.
• Include inclusion in your company initiatives . Leadership needs to push inclusiveness and equality in the workplace. As inclusion can only be measured by feeling, leadership needs to set the tone for a working environment where each individual feels safe, valued, accepted, respected and supported. Announce a zero-tolerance policy for works or actions that harass or bully others or dismiss minority points of view.

Overcoming Software Issues

The Issue: Your HR software is slow and clumsy. It doesn’t update like it should or automate the processes that slow down your HR department. HR software that is time consuming and lacks mobile capabilities will likely cause many candidates to drop off the application process without finishing. According to CareerBuilder , candidates want to finish the process in 10 minutes or less. And current employees won’t use HR software if they can’t access it on their phones or if it requires them to jump through hurdles to accomplish tasks like clocking in and out or accessing benefits. Another HR software issue to contend with is being stuck with a system that your company has quickly outgrown.

The Solution: A good applicant tracking system automates recruitment processes so you have time to plan, keep up on trends, initiate new HR programs and enhance your company’s culture. A recruiting AI assistant can even handle screening candidates and setting up interviews so you only have to deal with quality candidates. Other modular HR solutions, including onboarding, performance management and compensation management, can complete the picture by giving your employees a simplified experience that puts them in control of their personal information. Not only will employees be able to input their own data, eliminating errors, but it will save your HR department time as well.

If you don’t currently have HR software, now is the time to upgrade. Manual processes that still use paper are not only slower than digital but they’re a security and compliance risk. Your employees’ data is full of sensitive information that with a manual, unsecured process could easily get lost into the wrong hands. Plus, there are compliance issues to consider like the Affordable Care Act and government contractors that need to adhere to EEO and OFCCP guidelines . A modular system like Arcoro’s has the ability to scale with your company so you’re only appealing to your CEO and CFO once for the investment.

Training & Compliance

The Issue: Employees aren’t excited to sit through mandatory training sessions, like sexual harassment prevention training. The content isn’t engaging, so no one participates and you can’t validate that everyone has taken the training or signed off on it.

The Solution: A learning management system allows your employees to complete training whenever and wherever is convenient for them. A mobile solution gives employees the ability to complete required training, like sexual harassment prevention, and update certifications from their mobile devices or computers 24/7. Arcoro’s LMS allows companies to upload custom content so you can deliver training programs that appeal to everyone. Compliance is ensured by mandating your employees have signed off on completed sessions. Plus, maintaining OSHA compliance is second nature with approved courses and automatic updates.

Compensation & Benefits

The Issue: You’re losing employees to the competition at an alarming rate. Your HR department is too swamped with open enrollment and making updates to employees’ personal circumstances to track when an employee has met a milestone. Your benefits process is also riddled with errors due to manually inputting employee data, putting you at risk to meet deadlines and maintain compliance.

The Solution: Automate both compensation and benefits management processes with modular solutions. Arcoro’s Compensation Management module works in conjunction with Arcoro Core HR or Performance Management to manage and automate merit increases and bonuses used to reward and retain high-performing employees. When employees meet configurable benchmarks within the Performance Management module, income or bonus increases are automatically calculated and reflected in the employee’s compensation.

The Core HR module connects Compensation Management to outside payroll systems for a seamless overall compensation process. Arcoro’s Benefits Management module gives employees access to their personal information, allowing them to update and view benefits at any time. It also gives administrators, managers and employees access to crucial documents during open enrollment. Built-in compliance features not only make ACA compliance automatic but establishes rules-based eligibility, so employees only see the benefits they’re eligible for.

Human resource management is a tough job. Arcoro’s HR solutions can make it easier.

Take a free HR assessment to determine how your processes currently stack up and how Arcoro can improve them.

Related Posts

Three Questions With … Arcoro’s Adam Huffman

3 Reasons Why You Need to Buy Construction Software

Celebrate Father’s Day by Providing a Dad-Positive Culture

Transforming hr for construction.

Strengthen and streamline your HR processes with a modular solution that grows with you.

More results...

Before You Go…

Get your free HR assessment—our HR experts will review your current business and HR processes. We'll help you build a plan to become more productive and stay compliant.

Fill out this form for your FREE HR assessment!

• Hiring Resources

10 Biggest HR Challenges in The Workplace And Their Solutions

• October 19, 2023
• | 10min Read
• | Mayank Pratap

Table of content

In the ever-evolving landscape of the modern workplace, Human Resources (HR) professionals play a pivotal role in shaping an organization’s success. Their responsibilities extend far beyond recruitment and payroll management; they are the custodians of an organization’s most valuable asset—its people. As businesses navigate through a rapidly changing world, HR professionals face a multitude of HR challenges. From attracting and retaining top talent to adapting to a diverse workforce, and from ensuring compliance with evolving regulations to harnessing the power of technology, the role of HR has never been more demanding.

In this comprehensive blog, we will delve into the Biggest HR Challenges in The Workplace and Their Solutions. Each challenge represents a critical puzzle piece in the intricate HR landscape, and the solutions provided here aim to empower HR professionals and organizations to overcome these hurdles effectively. By the end of this blog, you’ll have a deeper understanding of the challenges that HR faces today and the strategies to conquer them, ensuring a thriving and prosperous workforce.

Human Resources departments play a pivotal role in shaping an organization’s success. They are responsible for recruiting, retaining, and managing the workforce, among other critical functions. However, HR professionals often encounter various challenges in today’s dynamic work environment. Now let’s explore the ten biggest HR challenges and provide solutions to address them effectively.

Recruitment and Retention

Challenge: .

Attracting top talent and retaining employees is an ongoing challenge for HR teams. With the competitive job market and changing expectations of the workforce, finding and keeping skilled employees can be a daunting task.

• Employer Branding: Create and maintain a strong employer brand to attract candidates who align with your organization’s values and culture.
• Competitive Compensation: Offer competitive salaries and benefits packages to retain employees.
• Employee Development: Invest in training and development programs to help employees grow within the company.

Diversity and Inclusion

Building a diverse and inclusive workforce is essential for innovation and success, but HR often faces obstacles in achieving this goal.

• Diversity Initiatives: Implement diversity programs and set diversity targets.
• Inclusive Culture: Foster an inclusive workplace culture where every employee feels valued and heard.
• Bias Training: Provide training to reduce unconscious bias among employees and management.

Workforce Adaptation

Adapting to the changing workforce, which includes remote and contract workers, is a significant HR challenge.

• Flexible Work Policies: Create flexible work policies that accommodate remote work and other adaptations.
• Freelance and Contract Management: Implement efficient contract management systems for non-traditional workers.
• Digital HR Tools: Use HR software for managing remote employees and tracking their performance.

Employee Engagement

Disengaged employees can negatively impact productivity and retention rates.

• Regular Feedback: Provide regular feedback to employees.
• Recognition Programs: Implement employee recognition programs to motivate and engage the workforce.
• Employee Surveys: Conduct regular surveys to understand employee concerns and needs.

Compliance and Regulations

Keeping up with ever-changing labor laws and regulations can be a complex task.

• Regular Training: Conduct regular compliance training for HR and employees.
• Legal Counsel: Consult with legal experts to ensure your HR policies align with current laws.
• HR Software: Use HR software that can automate compliance tracking and reporting.

Performance Management

Traditional performance management systems may not effectively assess employee performance.

• Continuous Feedback: Implement continuous feedback systems, rather than annual reviews.
• Goal Setting: Help employees set clear, achievable goals to improve their performance.
• Training and Development: Invest in training and development to help employees meet their objectives.

Employee Well-being

Employee well-being has become a top concern, especially in the post-pandemic world.

• Mental Health Support: Provide mental health resources, such as counseling and stress management programs.
• Work-Life Balance: Encourage a healthy work-life balance and flexible scheduling.
• Health Benefits: Offer comprehensive health and wellness benefits.

Succession Planning

Identifying and developing potential leaders within the organization can be challenging.

• Leadership Development Programs: Establish leadership development programs to groom internal talent.
• Mentorship Programs: Implement mentorship programs to facilitate knowledge transfer.
• Talent Pipelines: Create talent pipelines for key positions to ensure a smooth transition.

Technology Integration

Keeping up with the rapid advancements in HR technology and ensuring its seamless integration can be daunting.

• HR Software Selection: Choose HR software that aligns with your organization’s needs and goals.
• Training: Provide training to HR staff on how to use and maximize the benefits of HR technology.
• Regular Updates: Stay current with software updates and new technological developments.

Data Management

HR departments generate vast amounts of data, and managing and using it effectively can be a significant challenge.

• Data Analytics: Utilize data analytics to make informed decisions about HR strategies.
• Data Security: Invest in robust data security measures to protect sensitive employee information.
• Cloud-Based Solutions: Consider using cloud-based HR management systems for secure data storage.

In conclusion, the field of HR is ever-evolving, and HR professionals must adapt to the changing landscape of the workplace. By addressing these ten biggest HR challenges with the provided solutions, organizations can create a more productive, diverse, and inclusive work environment that attracts and retains top talent.

Remember, success in HR is not only about identifying these challenges but also about implementing proactive and practical solutions. Embracing change and staying up-to-date with industry trends is key to overcoming these challenges and ensuring a thriving workforce.

Why is it Important to Address These HR Challenges?

In the dynamic world of business, HR challenges are not mere obstacles to overcome; they are critical factors that can determine an organization’s success or failure. Understanding why it is essential to address these HR challenges is fundamental to not only improving workplace dynamics but also achieving long-term organizational goals.

Talent is Your Competitive Advantage

In today’s highly competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent is the holy grail of success. Organizations with the best people often have the upper hand, as talent is a primary driver of innovation, productivity, and growth. Addressing HR challenges like recruitment and retention ensures that your organization continually has access to the right skills and expertise. A failure in this regard could result in losing your competitive edge to competitors who manage their HR challenges more effectively.

A Diverse Workforce Fuels Innovation

Innovation stems from diversity. A diverse workforce brings together individuals with unique perspectives, experiences, and skills, fostering creativity and problem-solving. Addressing diversity and inclusion challenges is not just about following a trend; it’s about embracing the power of different voices to propel your organization forward.

Compliance Safeguards Reputation

Laws and regulations that govern the workplace are continually evolving. If you fail to comply with such regulations, you may have to face legal issues and financial losses. Addressing compliance and regulation challenges ensures that your organization is on the right side of the law, safeguarding its reputation and bottom line.

Employee Engagement Drives Productivity

Engaged employees are more productive, more loyal, and more likely to stay with your organization. In contrast, disengaged employees can be a drag on productivity and may seek opportunities elsewhere. Addressing employee engagement challenges not only improves the workplace environment but also contributes to the bottom line by boosting efficiency and reducing turnover.

Succession Planning Ensures Continuity

Succession planning challenges are not just about preparing for the future; they are about securing the future of your organization. Without a robust plan for developing and promoting internal talent, your organization may face leadership voids and disruptions in case of unexpected departures. Addressing succession planning ensures that the organization can continue to operate smoothly, even in the face of unforeseen circumstances.

Technology Enhances Efficiency

Technology is a double-edged sword for HR. On one hand, it introduces complexities, while on the other, it offers unprecedented efficiency and insights. Addressing technology integration challenges is essential for optimizing HR processes, from recruitment to data management. Embracing the right HR technology can lead to time and cost savings, improved data-driven decision-making, and better employee experiences.

Data Management Informs Decision-Making

In today’s data-driven world, information is power. HR departments generate vast amounts of data, from employee performance metrics to turnover rates. Addressing data management challenges ensures that your organization can use this data effectively. With the right analytics and insights, HR can make informed decisions about hiring, employee development, and strategic planning, ultimately benefiting the entire organization.

Wrapping Up!

Hire trusted, pre-vetted developers that fit your needs

Author spotlight.

Mayank Pratap

Related blogs.

How to Hire a CTO for Your Startup in Just 7 Days

Top 7 Toptal Alternatives for Your Remote Hiring Needs

Top 7 Skills to Consider While Hiring a VueJs Developer

Questions To Ask While Hiring Freelance Developers Remotely

Subscribe to Supersourcing Blog

Never Miss a Thing From Supersourcing!

© 2023 Supersourcing Technologies Private Limited. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

How HR Leaders Can Adapt to Uncertain Times

• Sue Bingham

You’ll need a “complexity mindset” to address today’s unprecedented challenges.

Many HR leaders are addressing today’s greatest issues through a familiar process: defining the problem, addressing the variables that make it complicated, and agreeing on the best way forward.   But when we consider that the challenges we face in light of the pandemic are ones that many leaders have never faced before, it becomes clear that they are not just complicated (predictable) but complex (unknown). Traditional problem-solving, which is aimed at addressing the complicated as opposed to the complex, will not establish the most effective solutions. To be truly effective in this “new normal,” HR leaders need to adjust and develop a new core capability: a complexity mindset. In this framework, it’s crucial to tap into their organization’s collective intelligence, prioritize company values, and allow solutions to emerge.

In these difficult times, we’ve made a number of our coronavirus articles free for all readers. To get all of HBR’s content delivered to your inbox, sign up for the Daily Alert newsletter.

Human Resource departments had a difficult job prior to the pandemic. In 2019,  more than 50%  of HR leaders struggled to ensure that employees had the skills necessary to navigate an increasingly digitized workplace. But, admittedly, this “future of work” had always seemed a safe distance ahead — far enough, at least, to thoughtfully prepare for.

• Sue Bingham , founder and principal of HPWP Group , has been at the forefront of the positive business movement for 35 years. She’s driven to create high-performing workplaces by partnering with courageous leaders who value the contributions of team members. Bingham also wrote a bestselling Amazon book , Creating the High Performance Work Place: It’s Not Complicated to Develop a Culture of Commitment , and contributed to From Hierarchy to High Performance , an international bestseller .

Partner Center

5 Common HR Problems and How to Solve Them

What Is HR?

Top priorities and responsibilities of hr teams, recruiting and talent acquisition.

• Compliance - Understanding HR Problems

Retention of Employees

Compensation and benefits, manager coaching, peoplespheres as a solution for all hr functions.

Human resource management is a vast scope of work. Professionals in the space have to be well-versed in a variety of topics, from benefits to compensation management, and everything in between. There are a wide variety of specialties you can focus on as a human resource leader, such as HR generalist, employee relations coordinator, engagement and people analytics, and compliance specialty. In a large field, it can be easy to get lost and make mistakes. To avoid that, we list 5 common HR problems that you might face at your workplace and tell you what you should do that solve them.

Related articles:

How HR is Solving the Disparate Data Challenge Once and for All

Top 5 HR Challenges International Companies Face

The role of a human resource manager is to own recruiting, retention, hiring, employee success, and company separation. HR professionals oversee relations within the organization, alongside basic compliance problems such as payroll, benefits, and other legalities. The human resources team at an organization is responsible for employee happiness and overall success. It is their job to understand the inner workings of a business while playing to the strengths and advantages of each and every employee. Human resources teams are typically made up of a few different focus groups. For example, you will have your standard employee relations teams, payroll administrators, Talent management (recruitment, staffing, performance management, etc.), and Learning and Development team. Each of these functions has a specific goal in mind. Typically, employee success teams are responsible for reducing turnover and ensuring that each and every employee is meeting their KPIs. The talent team is responsible for recruiting, weeding, and hiring new talent to grow organizations. The HR team is responsible for core competencies such as payroll, benefits, and other tax necessities.

First and foremost, the top priority of each and every human resource team at an organization is to ensure the health of the workforce. This means making sure that employees are fairly treated, while also making sure that the company is supporting its employees well within its means. HR teams need to ensure that the organization is compliant with state and federal laws, to ensure that the company is ready for an audit at any time. The top priorities of a human resource team include making sure. The salaries of employees are within the company budget, all laws are invited too, and the company is in good standing with the public eye.

Of course, HR is a human-focused profession. Therefore, there will be many twists and turns along the way. Human resources specialists must ensure that they are ready to tackle people facing challenges that come their way. This can be anything from a disgruntled employee, to an employee with benefits questions, employment law, and more. Let’s take a peek at the five most common HR problems and how we recommend that you solve them within your organization.

Recruiting and talent acquisition are the main focus of every HR Team. Without the proper people to do the job, a Workforce cannot operate as intended. It is up to the talent acquisition team within the human resources function to find employees that will be a good fit for the organization as a whole. It is important to find qualified candidates to apply for the roles, while also making sure that these positions are filled with the most diverse yet qualified individuals.

The recruiting and talent acquisition team must work closely with hiring managers and existing exemplary employees, in order to grow teams sustainably. They must interview and train all of the hiring managers to make sure that they will recruit candidates that will be a good fit for the position. This can be a very time-consuming job, resulting in frustrated hiring managers. This is why an HR professional must be extremely agile and people-focused, in order to build a relationship with their hiring managers. Oftentimes, the best candidates are passive. This means that they will have to actively recruit and try to poach qualifying candidates who already have existing roles at competitor companies. This in itself takes incredible focus, alongside some basic sales skills.

The recruiting and talent acquisition team will also be responsible for communicating with the finance department and HR department, to ensure that all offers being sent out to candidates are compliant. Being out of compliance can cause a lot of  HR problems  for an organization. There are many factors that must be taken into consideration, such as salary offered, negotiation room, stock options,  reporting structures,  and other benefits that the company may provide.

It’s important to make sure that your talent acquisition team collaborates well with the core HR team. Any changes that come up  within the organization,  such as open enrollment, benefits offerings, perks, or organizational changes, must be communicated to potential candidates. It is important for the talent acquisition team to have updated information regarding the inner workings of a company so that they are able to sell and advertise the company as accurately as possible.

Compliance – Understanding HR Problems

Compliance is a major factor that contributes to the success of an overall organization, specifically impacting the human resource team. In order to be compliant, an organization must abide by state and federal employment laws. These laws can range from anything relating to compensation, benefits, paternity /maternity leave, equal treatment, and other core competencies that an organization must abide by. It is the responsibility of the core human resource team to ensure that the organization is up to code in case of a surprise audit. Employment regulation specialists have the authority to audit and analyze an organization at any time. So, it is important for the human resource team to always have proper documentation for all employees, and ensure current practices are up to code.

Typically, the core HR team will have an employee with significant legal experience and a background in business law or labor relations. This is to ensure that the company is constantly up-to-date on improving laws or changing procedures within the regions in which they do business.

Employee retention is a clear sign of the overall health of an organization. Oftentimes, potential employees or customers will ask for the attrition rate of a company before signing their offer letter or contract. The attrition rate shows on average, how many employees an organization has seen come and go over a period of time. Having a high attrition rate is one of the main  HR problems  professionals face. The turnover rate of an organization is a clear indicator of the success, happiness, and growth opportunities that each team experiences while working at the company. Management also has a big role to play in this attrition number. So, it is the responsibility of the training and development specialist on a human resource team to focus on properly training managers and providing them with the resources needed as a strategy for retaining new hires, long-term employees, and their supervisors. A low turnover rate is a signal that employees are happy working at the organization, and do not wish to seek employment elsewhere.

One of the biggest benefits that employees look for when joining an organization is the promise of a competitive compensation and benefits package. However, knowing what classifies as competitive is another story! It is the responsibility of the human resource team to ensure. Employees are properly leveled and paid within their skill set and experience. when making a new hire, the human resource team will assign a level to each individual. This level will indicate whether they are a beginner in their field, intermediate, or Advanced. Their experience also has something to do with their compensation overall, as those with more experience can typically expect a higher pay rate than someone fresh out of college.

Aside from salary, benefits are another key factor that plays into employee happiness, as well as the overall marketing of the company. When employees are looking for new jobs, they will often ask organizations for a one-pager on their current benefit offerings. These benefits can include perks such as unlimited PTO, provided technology, health Insurance, dental Insurance, mental health benefits, and more. Poor coverage and benefits can lead to  HR problems  within the organization. Ensuring that your organization is able to offer a competitive package to existing and potential employees is crucial to keeping them happy and working at the company.

As we mentioned previously, manager coaching is an essential factor that plays into the success of employees, as well as the overall prosperity of a company. In order to help employees achieve their full potential, it is important for them to have the proper coaches and mentors in place. Poorly trained managers will result in  HR problems  and unhappy employees. When hiring managers, it is important to have a learning and development program set up for them during onboarding. This will help them get a better grasp on how the organization likes to operate, and what managers can do to ensure the success of their employees. These success factors can include things such as weekly one-on-ones, proper feedback guides, recommendations on appropriate ways to praise oh, and much more. Growth opportunities are one of the number one reasons why candidates choose to sign job offers with specific companies! Managers can help make this goal come to fruition.

The more your company grows, the more HR management requires multiple HR functions to work together and work as a  strategic HR department . In some cases, some areas of HRM are done by outsourcing them to third parties such as a staffing agency or a third-party recruiter who does interviews on your behalf. That is why it is important that your human resources functions are consolidated in a way where you can have your people, data, and processes in one place.

PeopleSpheres connects all your HR software to a centralized platform where all your HR data can be used to create a unified experience for employees, create workflows across all information systems, and make strategic human resource management decisions based on data analysis.

We hope that this article helped you better understand some of the most common  HR problems,  and how to solve them within your organization. For more helpful content on excelling in the HR space, check out the rest of  our blog!

Next to read

A CHRO’s Guide to Formulating a Powerful HR Strategy

What A Strategic HR Agenda Should Look Like In 2024

Global HR Management: 6 Strategies for Success Abroad

Identify 10 Human Resource Problems And Solutions With 1 Software

There were days when many business organizations were reluctant to give room to the HR management requirements of the organizations. But slowly they have understood that without proper human resource management they need to deal with a huge mess. Improper or no hr management system most of the time leads to serious human resource problems and organizations get puzzled in search of effective solutions. Today, we are going to discuss modern human resource problems and solutions that nearly all growing organizations face in 2021. 

The scenario has improved a bit as many companies are now running with an individual HR management department. But that’s not enough if you want to grow constantly. Once all your human resource practices are perfect, you are all set to grow faster in comparison with all your competitors. 

It’s 2021 and your human resource management practices should be modern enough. If you are still running with an old-school pen and paper-based hr management system, we must say you are doing something very backdated. With old weapons, you cannot fight with new rivals. It is a good thing to hear that many companies have already understood this fact and are equipping their hr teams with advanced hr management software solutions. 

Today’s smart and cloud-based hr management software solutions like HRMWARE help in identifying serious hr problems and solutions easily. When you have a robust solution activated, you do not need to worry about identifying your human resource challenges and solutions. 

Serious human resource problems and solutions you can identify with an HRMS

• Attracting and retaining talented candidates- It is not that only your marketing teams face market competition. Your HR department also faces the same when it comes to attracting new talent and retaining good employees for a longer span of time. If you are running a startup or a small or medium company, you will face this pressure more than any big organization or your domain. 

We have seen that recruiting new and talented candidates is not that much tough but retaining them seems like a true hr challenge. In order to boost the employee retention rate of your organization, you should offer them a proper set of benefits, exposure, opportunities, and a supportive environment. 

How can you do all these things alone? The answer is simple- you have to enable a perfect HR management software solution. From candidate attraction plans to offer the right set of benefits to the right employees- everything will be easily possible with an HRMS. you will be able to track the performance of each employee to decide how to boost their productivity and retain them for a longer span of time.

• Transparent recruitment & culture fitment- You will agree that recruitment is the first as well as the most important step of your hr management process that can break or make your organization. The recruitment procedure should be transparent enough otherwise you will end up recruiting inaccurate candidates and eliminate the quality candidates from the list. 

We can understand that handling the entire recruiting task is challenging. Shortlisting hundreds of applications manually not only takes a lot of time but also is too prone to error. 

From job advertisement preparation to shortlisting candidates according to your requirements- everything can be easily performed with the help of an advanced cloud-based software solution with various metrics and analytics . A huge number of tasks will be done automatically and you will save a lot of time. The saved time can be used in other important areas to ensure the fast growth of the organization. 

• Compensation and benefits- When giant players of the industry offer amazing compensation and benefits, it becomes truly harder for small and medium-sized companies to attract quality talents from the market. 

The increased expense of benefits, training, taxes, and other human capital costs impose a threat to the organizations’ progress and growth. On the other hand, compensation, and benefits management are also crucial. Here, you need to make informed decisions. In order to offer the best set of compensation and other benefits, you need to track everything related to the performance of each of your employees. And that you can make easily possible with an HRMS. 

Setting the right compensation and benefits was a challenge to many organizations. But with advanced HRMS solutions with tracking facilities, identifying human resource problems and solutions has become easier than anything. 

• Management changes- With time, generally a business grows. But we have seen that in all companies, some employees find it hard to adjust to the changes. Strategies, structure, internal processes, and so many other things change when a company starts to grow at a super pace. Employees who find it hard to adjust with, their productivity and morale get affected. 

If you too are facing a similar kind of situation, it’s the best time to boost all communication processes of your organization. Each employee should get the opportunity to convey their problems directly to the higher authority without letting many middlemen interrupt the communication. Employees should get facilities to check the progress of their applications. In this way, you will be able to keep the entire communication process transparent and interruption-free. 

• Leadership development- According to expert human resource managers, leadership development is the most critical job that they need to handle with efficiency. According to a recent study , we can say that there are only a few companies that are doing great when it comes to implementing leadership development programs. You should enable a good leadership development program with the help of an HRMS solution. 

Which type of leadership program is going to actually help you is that you can decide only when you will track every little detail regarding employee performance. In order to track everything, get data-driven reports, and access secure data storage, you should enable an HRMS as soon as possible. It is the best way to identify lots of human resource problems and solutions. 

In this way, you will be able to understand who is actually contributing to the growth of your organization and who is capable to lead the growth drivers in the near future. 

• Training plannings- A single training program is not going to help all your employees. Generally, organizations hire employees with various experience levels and backgrounds. And a one-size-fits-all type solution may not be effective for all. 

From past recruitment data, training planings, success rate, HR reports, and so on, you will be able to understand how you should design your upcoming training plans in order to boost the productivity level of all your employees. From storing recruitment, training, and onboarding data to offering data-driven reports with graphical views- advanced HRMS solutions like HRMWARE offer everything to simply update the training plans and procedure of a business organization. 

• Innovation adoption- Many leading business organizations across the world have been enabling various types of technological tools or software solutions in order to power their business organization to the next level. We have seen that many businesses are yet running without any advanced technological support. Here, identifying human resource problems and solutions becomes tougher as everything gets managed manually. 

In order to automate all the human resource tasks, enabling a cloud-based software solution is the best choice. From attendance to payroll management-everything will be truly easy and automatic with the help of a robust hr management software solution. When it comes to identifying human resource management problems and solutions, we find this problem as a common problem that many organizations are suffering from. 

• Compliance with laws and regulations- streamlining the entire business procedure with the recent compliance laws and regulations is challenging. And it becomes more challenging when these laws and regulations keep changing frequently. Many businesses also try to skip these laws and end up having various legal problems that seriously affect the growth and reputation of the company. 

No matter how small or big your business organization is, you need to ensure that you are running that in compliance with the local, state, and federal labor laws. From hiring candidates to maintaining workplace safety- you should obey laws and regulations properly. In order to stay updated about changes in laws and to implement that into the entire process of your organization. 

You can understand that manually processing such a big task frequently is not possible. You can automate the entire task and complete it within a few minutes with the help of an advanced cloud-based software solution like HRMWARE. 

• Diversity management- When an organization gets the chance to work with people from various locations of this world, that organization becomes popular within a short span of time. But managing diversity inside the workplace is also a complicated task. When people come from various backgrounds, communication seems a problem. Or often they cannot properly engage with the organization. 

From communication gap to engagement gap- everything can be easily eliminated if there is a central system that connects each employee with the top management of the organization. Many tasks like employee self-service tasks will be done on the software solution and there is no requirement of added guidance from the HR department. In this way, each employee will be self-sufficient. Both HRs and employees will get additional time to engage with the entire workforce and become more comfortable working together. 

• Data security- being an employer you know that you get some confidential data sets that you need to store with great care and security. It also deals with common human resource problems and solutions. In 2021, when cyber attacks have become everyday incidents, securing organizational data has become a true need. No more you should rely on paper files or spreadsheets. You should ensure a cloud-based data storage system such as a SaaS hr management tool. Here, you will be able to store as much data as you want and access it remotely. Only allowed persons with the right user ids and passwords will be able to access data remotely. 

In order to maintain such a style, you do not even need to install any additional software or hardware. Just a browser is enough. The entire process will be more secure and easy. You will be able to upload important data on a regular basis and save everything from any kind of theft and misuse. 

These are common human resource challenges and solutions that every business organization out there is dealing with. Identifying human resource problems and solutions at the right time is important otherwise later the organization may need to pay a lot in the recovery of damages. 

But the relief is that in order to identify these human resource problems and solutions, now we do not need to pour any additional effort. Just an advanced human resource management software solution is enough to combat every situation. If you equip your organization with the right software solution from the very beginning, you do not have to get puzzled over recognizing your human resource management problems and solutions. From the very beginning, you will be able to manage everything in an error-free manner. 

What’s the best HRMS option for recognizing human resource problems and solutions? 

The market is filled with a lot of options and choosing the best one is really tough for you, we can understand. We will suggest starting your HRMS solution search journey after properly analyzing your requirements. When you will be 100% sure about your requirements, you will be able to choose the best human resource management solution. 

A next-gen cloud-based software solution such as HRMWARE comes with all the best features that let you easily recognize the underlying human resource problems and solutions. Or we can say that you can create a better safeguard for your organization and no interruption can take place in the path of growth. With such a great software solution, you not only eliminate the existing problems but also remove the chances of any kind of human resource management-related issues that can take place in the near future.  

So, if you are yet to enable a cloud-based hr management software solution, do it today & keep your process free from any kind of issues and interruptions! 

Privacy Overview

After Project Shutdowns, Apple Layoffs Decision to Affect 700 Employees

The Apple job cuts affect over 700 employees who should have received the WARN notices by now, which gives them 60 days to find a new role as things begin to wind down wi...

McKinsey’s 9 Months Pay Leave Offer Extends Support for Finding a New Job

Subway Franchisees Fined $218K for Illegally Pocketing Employees' Tips

Expedia Layoffs To Affect 9% Of Workforce In a Bid To Refocus Resources

Pain-Free Is Key: Tips for Managing Underperforming Employees

There are many ways to support underperforming employees, for example, by conducting performance reviews, assigning mentors, conducting training, and communicating regula...

Common Behavioral Interview Questions For You to Master Today

How to Ask for a Promotion under Different Circumstances at Work

From Boss to Coach: How Managers Can Foster a Culture of Learning‍

• Recruitment
• Training & Development

Keeping It Classy: 10 Things You Should Never Say at Work

To master professionalism, you need to learn what to avoid saying at work and develop safer alternatives to those phrases to ensure you can still get your point across in...

Redefining the Code: Creating an Experimental Workplace Culture

Benefits for One, Benefits for All: Understanding Lifestyle Spending Accounts

Corporate Etiquette 101: How to Write a Professional Email

• Compensation
• Employee Benefits
• Outsourcing
• Workplace Culture

Hesitating to Ask for a Job Referral? Here’s How You Get It Done

Seeking job referrals feels uncomfortable for many but what’s the point of building a network if you never reach out to them? Look into employee referral programs and c...

Regulate It Right: Conducting Employee Background Checks

Learning the Ropes: How to Prevent Data Theft by Employees

How to Send a Thanks Message to Your Boss In Appreciation of All They Do

• Tools & Technology
• Q & A with Jane
• HR Tools & Technology

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox on Gender, Generations, and the Workplace of Tomorrow

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, a trailblazer in the realm of gender balance and inclusive leadership, shares profound insights in an exclusive interview with The HR Digest. ...

Dr. Tasha Eurich on Unleashing Potential through Self-Awareness

Beyond Boundaries: An Interview on Leadership and Innovation with Lisa Chang

Shaping Tomorrow's Leadership Landscape: An Insightful Interview with Norm Smallwood

• Subscribe Now
• Current Issue
• Past Issues
• Advertise With Us

January 2024

October 2023

• Great Workplaces
• DEI Leaders
• HR Thought Leaders

HR Challenges and How to Face Them

• Diana Coker
• February 03, 2022
• Jobs (Talent Corner)

How do you plan to stay ahead of the curve when it comes to HR issues? What are some of the biggest challenges facing HR professionals today?

As the workforce continues to change, human resources departments face new challenges daily. From managing the changing demographics of the workforce to dealing with the rise of artificial intelligence, HR professionals are constantly faced with new challenges. This article will focus on the current issues in human resource management as well as critical HR challenges and solutions in 2022. 

HR Challenges 2022

Here are human resource problems and solutions with ways professionals can adapt to meet these challenges. 

Embracing diversity

Diversity is one of the emerging challenges of HRM. With more than 40 percent of millennials in a job and Generation Z entering the workforce, companies must prepare their workplaces to be inclusive and welcoming to all employees. The first step is ensuring everyone has access to the same information –a problem that often arises when hiring managers have only worked with candidates from their own cultures or experiences.

Understanding how technology affects employment trends

According to a Bureau of Labor Statistics report, there will be 758,000 unfilled jobs across all industries by 2021. With so many positions available, there’s no doubt HR professionals can expect to see growing competition between potential hires. They need to make certain they’re keeping up with the latest tech trends that might improve efficiency within the workplace.

Handling performances in the workplace remains one of the current issues in human resource management.

Providing career support

More than 65% of people leave a company after two years, according to Forbes contributor Dan Schawbel. That means HR professionals should ensure they help employees grow professionally through education, training, and advancement opportunities. Companies also need to establish clear work-life balance policies , allowing employees to spend time with family without taking time away from work.

Adapting to a changing legal landscape

When it comes to dealing with race and gender discrimination issues, the law is slowly evolving. In addition, different states have varying interpretations of what constitutes sexual harassment . For example, does “sexual connotations” include non-consensual touching and kissing? How much leeway do companies have to create a safe environment? These questions are difficult to answer because laws and regulations aren’t yet consistent. However, HR professionals can use data as evidence to show employers their efforts are not discriminatory. They also need to communicate clearly on any policies regarding employee rights.

Managing performance review expectations

Handling performances in the workplace remains one of the current issues in human resource management. To effectively manage performance reviews, HR professionals should know their company’s performance management processes and guidelines. Doing so lets them better understand why their organization uses specific methods and how those goals align with corporate values. This knowledge makes it easier to provide feedback and recommendations during meetings.

The goal is simple: HR professionals need to adopt innovative approaches to meet new demands. The future of HR lies in adapting to the ever-changing workforce and being aware of the most pressing needs that arise in various industries.

Remote work is here to stay

The rise of remote work presents a unique set of HR challenges for businesses. While traditionalists might argue, people still crave face-to-face contact. Recent studies show virtual collaboration helps workers develop stronger relationships and perform better at their jobs. Additionally, it creates a higher level of trust among coworkers. So, the best way for HR professionals to meet these challenges is to adapt existing practices and become comfortable helping employees collaborate virtually. It also helps if you learn how to embrace and promote innovation instead of stifling it. After all, if your company doesn’t innovate, how will you attract top talent?

Corporate culture in the workplace

One of the HR problems in companies is corporate culture management. Today’s working world requires more than just hard skills to succeed. As such, some organizations embrace a broader view of who succeeds —including personality traits like conscientiousness and emotional intelligence.

These characteristics don’t always come naturally, but they’re key to managing people effectively while promoting work-life balance. If you want to build strong teams, encourage good leadership qualities and boost productivity, HR pros must recognize the traits and skills each member brings to the table.

Employee self-care is critical to success

While we’ve heard plenty about the importance of physical health, less attention has been paid to mental wellness. Self-care isn’t solely limited to spa treatments, meditation classes, or spending extra money on hobbies. It starts by taking care of yourself as an individual first and foremost. This means you’ll be more open to hearing constructive criticism and other important information from others.

It also means establishing boundaries between work and home time, so you feel refreshed when you return to the office. Finally, make sure your professional development takes priority over social media. You can find countless articles on LinkedIn and Twitter touting the latest trends in human resources, but reading through them won’t help you improve your job. Instead, take advantage of conferences and workshops tailored specifically toward your industry. It shows your dedication to learning new techniques and increases your likelihood of getting promoted.

Reskilling and upskilling

The need for continuous training never stops, which makes reskilling an essential part of human resource management today. However, many companies choose this route using outdated methods. We’d recommend modernizing your approach by finding ways to increase flexibility, transparency, and communication with staff members.

Human resource managers play a crucial role in keeping business operations running smoothly. With the right tools and strategies, they have a tremendous influence on employee performance. By focusing on the HR challenges and solutions above , these pros can help leaders create great workplaces and drive organizational growth.

Stay tuned!

We don’t want you to miss anything. Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated on the latest HR news and trends.

First name Last name Email

Similar Articles

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

CURRENT ISSUE

FEATURED POSTS

• New Employee Welcome Message Examples : Welcome To The Team

You Can Retract A Resignation, Here’s How

• How To Write An Appraisal and Raise Request Email

• 10 Fresh Ways to Write ‘Please Find Attached’

6 Different Types of Compensation Plans & Benefits

• 73 Creative Job Titles in Corporate America
• How to Write a Sick Day Email (with Examples)
• How to write a Positive Employee Reference (with examples)
• How to Write Vacation Request Email (Samples)
• 10 Creative Ways to Write ‘Sorry for the Late Reply’ Email
• Out of Office Email Message Examples – ‘On Vacation’
• Warning Letter to Employee | Sample Warning Letters
• 30 Alternatives to Warm Wishes for Every Situation
• 20 alternatives to end an email when “Warm Regards” is too boring
• Disciplinary Action Letter for Misconduct to Employees (Sample Letters)
• How To Answer ‘Tell Me About Yourself’ In A Job Interview
• Incorporating 160 Effective Performance Phrases in Your Performance Appraisal Review Templates
• Office Christmas Party Invitation Email Templates
• Advertise With US

© 2024 The HR Digest. All Rights Reserved. powered by idmerit

8 Common Staffing Problems (And How to Solve Them)

Staffing problems can impact everyone at an organization, from front-line workers to the C-suite. Find out how to solve some of the most common issues.

Staffing problems. You don’t even need to be a business owner or manager to experience their wrath. Staffing issues can impact everyone who works at a given organization, including front-line workers, mid-level employees, and occupants of the C-suite. Those same issues can negatively influence the relationships you have with the members of your target audience, your brand image, and your company’s reputation among prospective job candidates.

Combat staffing problems with team-building activities!

The root cause of many common staffing problems is employee turnover. Stay ahead of this potential issue by regularly scheduling team-building events with Let’s Roam ! Our guides are experts, and each team-building exercise can be customized to suit your staff. Contact us for more information.

The Broad Reach of Staffing Issues

Problems with staffing aren’t limited to specific industries, although some verticals grapple with certain issues more consistently than others. For example, the supply chain and distribution industry has been wrestling with years-long labor shortages which began long before the pandemic made the Great Resignation a thing.

Similarly, staffing challenges aren’t the exclusive domain of large enterprises or mid-size companies. They impact small and family-owned and operated businesses too.

With the number of open positions in the United States currently outnumbering the pool of prospective candidates by nearly two-to-one, organizations across industries can reasonably expect to deal with continued challenges in the years ahead. While staffing issues are pervasive and, in some cases persistent, they’re not impossible to overcome. The solutions to those issues do require patience, fleet-footedness, adaptability, and some creative thinking, however.

Reactive Hiring

Making hiring decisions with a reactive mindset is rarely a good idea, but many business owners and managers engage in reactive hiring. When you attempt to fill a recently vacated position quickly, you end up rushing the hiring process.

By putting time pressure on yourself, you may not examine a person’s credentials closely enough or you may break protocol and not take the time to run an essential background check. You may also overlook glaring clues that signal a given candidate isn’t a fit for your company culture.

Reactive hiring increases the chances that you’ll wind up hiring someone who won’t succeed in the position you’re attempting to fill. That means you’re also more likely to waste valuable resources on talent who were doomed to fail from the start.

The remedy for reactive hiring is proactive hiring. With this approach to hiring, your search for job seekers will begin before a position becomes vacant. Proactive hiring is an ongoing process where you’re constantly searching for new employees among both active job seekers and passive prospects. Hiring proactively ensures you’ll have a steady pool of candidates when there’s an opening on your payroll.

Inconsistent Hiring Process

If your hiring practices aren’t consistent across the board, you may end up making poor hiring decisions. An inconsistent hiring process might cause you to discount the experience a qualified candidate has and overrate the training an ill-suited prospect brings to the table. As a result, you may bypass an applicant who’s perfect for a position in favor of someone who lacks the requisite skills and experience to succeed.

To ensure you make the appropriate hiring decisions, you should standardize your hiring practices. Whatever practices you adopt, you should build redundancies into the overall process so that unqualified candidates who make it through the first round of interviews are weeded out of the mix further down the line.

An effective way to limit ill-advised and costly hiring decisions is to recruit front-line workers. As those front-line workers gain experience and earn some victories, you can promote them from within. Yes, you may still make a hiring mistake from time to time, but you won’t have wasted all the resources necessary to recruit and train someone for a higher position if you focus your hiring efforts on entry-level workers.

Employee Turnover

Turnover is a big problem for many organizations, especially since millions of workers have voluntarily left their positions every month since the start of the Great Resignation. With the rate of voluntary quits showing no signs of slowing down any time soon, organizations of all sizes and across industries will likely continue to wrestle with high turnover rates for the foreseeable future at least.

Workers leave their jobs for all sorts of reasons. Some of them are fired, furloughed, or laid off, for example. While those departures are forced by an employer, workers voluntarily leave their jobs and re-enter the job market for a host of reasons that include the desire for a better work-life balance, feelings of burnout, a lack of engagement, and a divisive company culture, to name just a few.

Employee turnover is a one of the common staffing problems that can wreak havoc with your company’s profitability and stability. It costs money to replace an employee, for example, and a vacancy can add to the workload of your current employees, which can increase their stress and the likelihood that they’ll voluntarily quit.

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, the average cost to replace an employee is six to nine months of the departing person’s salary. Gallup reports that replacing an employee can cost even more, conservatively estimating it might take two times the annual salary the former worker earned to hire and train new talent.

Alarmingly, the 2021 Bureau of Labor Statistics report showed that the annual total separation rate or turnover rate in the United States was a whopping 57.3 percent in 2020. Whether you work in human resources or finance, that figure should send chills down your spine. That separation rate may translate into tons of extra work for human resources and missed fiscal targets for the bean counters.

To put things in perspective, let’s say your company has 10 employees and each worker has an annual salary of $100,000. That would mean your annual payroll is $1 million. If your employee turnover rate is 57.3 percent, you may need to spend as much as $1,146,000 just to replace your departed staff members if Gallup’s projection is accurate.

With more work falling on the shoulders of the employees who remain, your overall production will decrease and the quality of the goods or services you sell may suffer. If those things happen, your sales and net revenue will drop, making it even harder to earn the money necessary to cover your astronomical hiring costs.

How can businesses combat high turnover rates and their costly consequences? Instead of throwing figurative noodles against the wall and hoping something sticks, you may want to poll your team members and solicit feedback about how you can improve your shared work environment and increase the likelihood they’ll stick around.

Employees cite a lack of recognition as one of the leading reasons they part ways with an employer. With that in mind, you may want to start an employee recognition program to demonstrate your appreciation for your team’s hard work and instill a sense of loyalty.

Younger workers, particularly Millennials and the members of Generation Z, say that a company’s level of diversity impacts their employment decisions. To retain workers and attract quality employees, you may want to launch some diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging initiatives at your place of business.

Indeed.com suggests doing the following to lower your turnover rate:

• Hire the appropriate employees at the start and manage their expectations
• Offer competitive salaries, benefits, and perks
• Maintain an open line of communication
• Create career paths and lay them out for your staff
• Provide incentives and allow employees to work on special or extra challenging projects
• Adjust or add to the benefits your company provides

Since the start of the pandemic, many workers have moved away from urban centers to less densely populated areas. Some remote workers have even become a digital nomad and work while traveling across the globe . To keep those people on your payroll, you may want to offer flexible work schedules and maintain a remote or hybrid workplace.

While there are a lot of things employers can do to reduce turnover and improve employee retention, the key is to identify the specific options that will resonate with your current employees and future new hires. To determine the steps you should take, you should create a survey your team can fill out anonymously. By making your survey anonymous, it’s more likely you’ll get honest responses to your questions, and no one will have to worry about retribution.

Understaffing

Companies with staffing shortages are known for being understaffed. Understaffing occurs when an organization doesn’t have enough employees to perform all its required or fundamental tasks. This condition causes existing employees to take on more work, which can lead to burnout, poor morale, and decreased job satisfaction and loyalty. Understaffing may also force you to pay exorbitant amounts of overtime.

How can you avoid the many headaches that often accompany understaffing? You can hire quality employees who’ve remained with previous employers for a year or more. If you’re struggling to recruit workers who have demonstrated staying power, you may want to tap a few staffing agencies that have the connections to fill your payroll.

Although it’s never fun to deal with labor shortages, things can get even hairier during busy seasons when your existing employees are overwhelmed by doing the work of two or more people. Staffing agencies can help out by providing temporary workers to get you through those busy seasons and perhaps beyond.

Did those temporary workers do a good job? You may be able to hire them as permanent, full-time employees but it’s likely you’ll have to pay a fee to the agency that sent them your way.

Overstaffing

If you don’t outsource hiring and decide to go it alone, you may find that you’re overstaffed at the end of your busy seasons. When you work with a temp agency, the temporary workers you’ve employed simply leave at the end of their contract. If you hire them directly as full-time employees to get you through a busy time, you may have to contend with layoffs when things slow down.

As an alternative to layoffs, you can reduce your workers’ hours so that the seasonal help you hired works part-time. With most companies requiring new hires to be on the payroll for at least 90 days before they’re eligible for benefits like healthcare, it’s unlikely switching seasonal help to part-time employees will impact anyone’s benefits since seasonal ebbs and flows are normally shorter than three months. If you’re unsure about your staff’s eligibility for benefits, contact human resources.

Are your seasonal helpers resistant to being reduced to part-time employees until things pick up again? In this case, you may have no choice but to lay them off. If this proves to be the last resort, make sure you let the workers go in a way that’s transparent and doesn’t cause your permanent workers to question their job security.

Unconscious Bias

The federal government has laws in place that prevent employers from considering certain factors as they relate to employees and prospective candidates when they’re making employment decisions. Those factors include gender, religion, ethnicity, gender identity, race, age, marital status, sexual orientation, and disabilities.

Clearly, those laws aim to prevent employers from discriminating against groups of “protected” workers. The problem is that the laws are powerless to stop unconscious bias from creeping into a workplace and creating some common staffing problems.

Research shows that hiring managers tend to prefer candidates who remind them of themselves. Without realizing they’re doing it, hiring managers may make employment decisions based on their unconscious biases. A homogenous workforce that’s not reflective of your company’s values or the connected business environment that spans the entire globe these days may be the result.

There are any number of unconscious biases that may cause your staff to lack diversity. If a manager has beauty bias, the person may bypass a highly qualified female candidate who happens to be good-looking in favor of a less qualified male. Managers who suffer from affinity bias may unconsciously and inaccurately deem prospects as a bad fit because the candidates have viewpoints that differ from their own.

Implicit bias can be difficult to eradicate from hiring decisions, but it’s not impossible. For starters, you can provide training to your entire staff so your teammates are educated about their biases and know how to prevent them from influencing their hiring decisions. This type of training should be ongoing and mandatory for the representatives of any organization that wants to create and maintain a truly diverse workforce.

You can further reduce the impact of unconscious bias by giving the people who are in charge of hiring “blind” resumes to review. Blind resumes are CVs that include no indication of who the related candidates are beyond their work experience, meaning the CVs include no names, physical or email addresses, educational details, or any other revealing information.

Creating a standard script for interviews is also a good idea. When a manager has a pre-set script to follow, it decreases the likelihood that the person will ask an interviewee an inappropriate question that may awaken the manager’s unconscious bias. Of course, a script will only be effective at limiting the effects of unconscious bias if people stick to it, so you’ll need to provide training for managers to drive home the importance of adhering to the script.

Conducting initial interviews over the phone can also help remove bias from the interview process. Since the interviewer won’t be able to see the candidate, the person conducting the interview won’t be able to unconsciously “judge” the applicant based on physical characteristics.

Having prospects go through multiple interviews with different managers is a good idea, too. Having several interviews will prevent one person’s implicit bias from eliminating a qualified candidate from contention for an open position.

The managers who conduct the interviews don’t need to be from the same department. They simply have to know the job requirements and have an open mind. In fact, having interviewers from different departments may help beef up your staffing levels and increase your workforce’s diversity because one manager may see something promising about various candidates that the other missed or perceived as a negative.

Job Descriptions

Like unconscious bias can negatively influence your interview process, it can also affect your job descriptions. If that happens, your job listings may deter otherwise qualified candidates from applying for your open positions.

The language and images you use in your job postings will express your unconscious bias, assuming it exists. For example, if you encourage “recent graduates” to apply for a job and include a picture of 20-somethings high-fiving each other for a job well-done, your listing may inadvertently discourage older prospects from applying for the position you’re advertising.

In many cases, your job listings are the first contact your business will have with available talent. That means your job postings are akin to calling cards that give prospects their first impression of your organization. Review your listings to make sure they encourage people of all ages and backgrounds to apply for your open positions, including the members of marginalized groups.

Remember, diversity is an important factor many job candidates consider when they’re choosing between job offers, and it’s particularly so for younger workers. Your job listings need to reflect the diversity of your workforce so they attract interest from a diverse pool of candidates who are navigating today’s tumultuous job market.

Onboarding Process

Onboarding is crucial to the success of new hires in both the short and long term. How you welcome and train new employees sets the tone for their entire experience with your organization. If you don’t provide adequate training or take the time to help new staff members settle into their respective roles, they may never develop the confidence or skills to thrive in their positions. Even worse, they may start looking for a new position before their first day on the job comes to an end.

Your onboarding process should be geared to make new workers feel comfortable, valued, and welcome right from the start. New employees should never have to question whether they’re part of the team. Instead, they should know they’re valued team members on day one.

Giving a new employee a gift that includes some company swag and critical office supplies on the person’s first day can help the individual settle in. At a minimum, your gift will prevent the employee from wandering around aimlessly looking for post-its.

New employees need training even more than swag to feel like they fit in and can contribute to the team. In addition to having a formal training program that teaches new workers how to go about their daily tasks, you should have a mentoring program in place. You should assign a mentor to all your new employees to help them acclimate to your work environment.

Adjusting to a new place of business involves so much more than learning about your daily responsibilities. It also requires new employees to get a feel for their employer’s established culture, pecking order, and office politics. These social aspects of the workplace can be difficult for new workers to pick up on, and they can be even more challenging to navigate alone.

Having a seasoned mentor by their side can help new employees recognize and adapt to the trickier aspects that are present in every business. Mentors can also help new workers become familiar with your team’s daily routine, teach them new skills, and explain key intricacies like how everyone takes their coffee so they know what to order when it’s their turn to make a Starbucks run.

Frequently Asked Questions

To address problems with being short-staffed , start by taking on extra responsibilities and ask coworkers to do the same. For a long-term solution, consider partnering with a staffing agency.

A lot of things can cause staffing problems , such as a poorly orchestrated onboarding process, natural ebbs and flows in the demand for your products or services, and an unstable labor pool.

To prevent becoming understaffed and other staffing problems , plan team-building events to encourage communication and boost morale. This tends to decrease employee turnover.

Need help planning a team-building event?

Schedule a quick, complimentary 15 minute chat with an event planner to book your next team building event with breeze., featured products & activities.

City of Haysville solves problems with the Citizen Problem Reporter solution

ArcGIS Solutions helps you make the most of your GIS by providing purpose-driven, industry-specific configurations of ArcGIS.

Car blocking your mailbox? Trash bins overflowing in a nearby park? Neighbor’s rooster keeping you up at night? Problems like these may not be urgent, but they are important to those they affect. And they occur in every community, from small rural towns to large urban centers.

The issue is not that problems like these exist but how local governments work with their communities to resolve them. Sure, citizens want their requests addressed (and promptly), but they also want to be heard and maybe even be a part of the resolution. Above all, a citizen’s overall experience can affect how they view their city. Therefore, a smart local government encourages its citizens to report issues and makes it easier for them to track the city’s response. But how? Most cities already have their hands full and don’t have time to figure out how to improve their current approach.

Fortunately, they don’t have to. Our Citizen Problem Reporter solution includes a series of preconfigured apps that help local governments streamline how nonemergency requests are submitted and managed. Cities that deploy Citizen Problem Reporter to their ArcGIS organization soon discover that the solution is more than just a helpful tool. It’s a partner.

The problem with problems

The City of Haysville, Kansas, is a terrific example of how one local government has used Citizen Problem Reporter to transform the way it engages with its community.

A small suburb south of Wichita, the City of Haysville has grown in recent years and, naturally, the volume of citizen-reported issues has increased as well. At first, however, the method for reporting issues remained unchanged: Citizens would report issues by calling, sending an email, or visiting city offices in person. City staff would manually record each concern and attempt to forward it to the appropriate department for resolution. The process was slow, decentralized, and prone to delays and miscommunication. These inefficiencies strained city resources, and worse, citizens weren’t seeing prompt resolution for their concerns.

Problem solvers

It was time for the City of Haysville to modernize its approach. GIS administrator Cody M. Erwin and his team extensively researched options, looking for a platform that was user-friendly and customizable and would work with the city’s existing systems. The team found the Citizen Problem Reporter solution and, upon further review, were sold by its intuitive interface and impressive functionality.

Implementing Esri’s Citizen Problem Reporter has not only improved our efficiency but also enhanced transparency and accountability in addressing citizen concerns. Cody M. Erwin GIS Administrator, City of Haysville

The city deployed Citizen Problem Reporter and met with remarkable results. Now, citizens can report nonemergency issues at any time, day or night, by submitting a form via the city’s Citizen Problem Center ArcGIS Hub site.

The form allows a citizen to choose a problem category and type, describe the problem, and provide the location by typing an address or simply clicking a map. There’s even an option to attach any photos that help illustrate the problem.

After the citizen submits the issue, the report is automatically logged into the city’s system, where it is then directed to the appropriate department for resolution. City staff in these departments manage issues from an internal app that centralizes operations. “Tasks that once required manual coordination and tracking can now be managed seamlessly through the platform, saving time and resources for our organization,” says Erwin. “The ability to monitor the status of reported issues in real-time has empowered us to prioritize tasks more effectively, ensuring that urgent matters are addressed promptly while also maintaining visibility into long-term projects.”

And let’s not forget about the community. While much of the management happens behind the scenes, status is public facing. Citizens can return to the Citizen Problem Center Hub site at any time to track the status of the problems they or any other citizen has reported.

Esri's Citizen Problem Reporter solution has transformed the way we engage with our community, fostering greater trust and collaboration in resolving concerns. Cody M. Erwin GIS Administrator, City of Haysville

The city has resolved nearly 300 requests since it adopted the solution, and Erwin says that he cannot overstate the impact that Citizen Problem Reporter has had on the city’s operations. “It has redefined how we prioritize and resolve citizen-reported issues, resulting in a more proactive and efficient approach.”

Problem solved.

For more information about the Citizen Problem Reporter solution, check out the following resources:

• Learn how to deploy, configure, and use the solution.
• View a demo video .
• Learn more about  ArcGIS Solutions .

About the authors

Mindy Longoni

Mindy happily works as a senior product engineering writer on the ArcGIS Solutions team. When she isn't playing with maps, language, or language related to maps, she enjoys spending time with her family or pondering the meaning of life with her desert tortoise Kevin.

Chelsea Nivison

Chelsea is the Product Marketing Manager for ArcGIS Solutions.

Commenting is not enabled for this article.

Related content:.

• local government
• arcgis solutions
• architecture, engineering, and construction
• state and provincial government
• infrastructure
• public works

Next Article

Identify the best location for an urgent care center in Maverick County using suitability analysis

Read this article

• International edition
• Australia edition
• Europe edition

Get your goat: Italian island overrun by the animals offers to give them away

Mayor makes offer after number of goats on Alicudi reaches six times human population

The mayor of a remote Italian island overrun by wild goats has offered to give the animals away to anyone willing to take one in.

Riccardo Gullo came up with the novel idea after a recent census estimated the number of goats on the five-square kilometre Alicudi, the smallest of Sicily’s Aeolian archipelago, was six times the island’s year-round population of 100.

The animals, adept at navigating Alicudi’s steep cliffs, once lived harmoniously alongside the human inhabitants and became as much of a tourist attraction as its dormant volcano.

But their number has grown so rapidly in recent years that they started to gravitate from their usual abode at the top of the island towards the inhabited area, damaging lush green vegetation, causing havoc in gardens and allotments, knocking away portions of stone walls and even wandering into people’s homes, prompting demands for a solution.

Alicudi, which is a two to three-hour boat ride from mainland Sicily, falls under the administration of the larger island of Lipari.

The “adopt a goat” initiative was deemed to be the best way of managing the issue in the most compassionate way.

“We absolutely do not want to even consider culling the animals, so we are encouraging the idea of giving them away,” said Gullo. “Anyone can make a request for a goat, it doesn’t have to be a farmer, and there are no restrictions on numbers.”

People have until 10 April to make their request. “We have already had several phone calls, including from a farmer on Vulcano island who would like to take several goats as, among other things, he produces a ricotta cheese which is much appreciated,” added Gullo. “If someone has the capacity to domesticate a goat, it could be a beautiful and more humane way to control the issue.”

Goats were first brought to Alicudi 20 years ago by, it is believed, someone who intended to breed the animals. But the plan fell by the wayside and the goats were left to their own devices. The problems caused by their growing population were first highlighted by Paolo Lo Cascio, a former councillor, in 2008.

“There needs to be a solution as the threat to the island’s vegetation is serious,” said Lo Cascio, who estimates the goat population at 800 rather than 600. “But Alicudi is a very complicated island, first you have to access it and then try to capture all the goats. There should have been an intervention 10 years ago.”

Gloria, who owns Golden Cafe Noir at Alicudi’s port, said the animals had become “unmanageable”. “They move around in packs and cause damage, there are just too many of them.” One used to come and sit under the table in her bar. “It was a bit of an attraction, but then you worried whether it might bite someone.” While she welcomed the initiative, she questioned its feasibility. Reaching the top of Alicudi, where the village is, involves a steep climb. “How will they bring the goats back down? Perhaps they would need a helicopter to transfer two or three at a time. It’s a nice proposal, but there is no logistical solution yet.”

Most viewed