People operations goes above and beyond the common and ordinary functions of human resources in an attempt to truly put employees first. People ops has a broad scope, and can be contextually adapted to the particularities of each business. In general, however, its main purpose is focused on developing policies and actions that help employees improve their productivity levels at work.
Most companies that have at least ten or more employees probably have some sort of human resource department that is responsible for managing the employee life cycle. After recruiting and hiring, HR workers will most likely be involved in onboarding, training, and administering employee benefits while the person is still with the company. Beyond those roles and responsibilities, however, most businesses require little else from their HR department.
In this short article, we will explain the importance of people ops for companies of all different sizes, and then recommend a few strategies for implementing a successful people operations programs to help boost the productivity levels of your workforce. Finally, we will recommend a few of the best tools and software to help companies with their people ops goals.
The Importance of People Ops
No matter what industry you are in, your company should definitely make it a priority to develop strategies that measure the engagement and productivity levels of your workforce. One recent Gallup poll found that businesses with the highest levels of employee engagement showed 21 percent higher levels of profitability than companies in the lowest quartile. Similarly, workplaces that showed a highly engaged workforce scored at least 17 percent higher on productivity.
Employee engagement is not just about keeping your workers happy, but also about impacting the success of your business and improving productivity levels of the company as whole. Before you can implement policies and protocols aimed at improving employee engagement levels, however, you need to find ways to correctly measure the output of your employees.
Unfortunately, only around 15 percent of businesses and organizations believe that their existing human resource departments have strong credibility in talent metrics and analytics. A 2016 Bersin by Deloitte study titled, “Enabling business results with HR “Measures that matter” also finds that organizations with high-impact human resource departments that focus on people operations are twice as likely to improve recruiting efforts and improve leadership pipelines within their workforce. The study also finds that high impact HR teams with people ops policies are three times more likely to realize cost reductions and 2.5 times more likely to improve talent within their workforce team.
Furthermore, a Deloitte survey of millennial workers finds that “71 percent of Millennials likely to leave their companies in the next two years are unhappy with how their leadership skills are being developed.” That is 17 percentage points higher than among those intending to stay beyond 2020. Implementing an impactful people operations program can help improve employee experience through streamlining outdated and sometimes bureaucratic HR policies and implementing the latest digital tools. A good people ops program can also help businesses accurately gather and analyze metrics related to employee performance in order to develop data-driven policies to improve engagement and productivity levels.
How to Implement a People Operations Program for Your Business
As we mentioned in the introduction, a successful people ops program will necessarily be adaptable to the specific context of the individual business. However, most good people operations will focus on four main areas:
- Digitalization of the workplace: Specifically, a good people ops program will seek to find ways to modernize and streamline bureaucratic HR systems such as payroll, employee time and attendance, and applicant tracking programs. In many cases, a people ops program will focus on using an inclusive and synchronized software integration platform.
- Improve employee experience: To improve engagement levels, a people ops program should develop policies aimed at treating employees as internal customers. As employees increase their satisfaction levels, productivity levels tend to improve.
- Real time analysis of important HR metrics: Instead of simply filing away old HR reports, people ops programs aim to collect, utilize, and analyze important human resource metrics in real time fashion. This will give important decision makers within managerial roles throughout the company up-to-date information on turnover rates, time to hire, productivity output, and other important pieces of data.
- Provide employees with access to all necessary resources and information: Lastly, a good people ops program will also ensure that every employee can easily and quickly access (often via digital platforms) any questions they may have about their benefits, company policies, work tasks and roles, and any other necessary resources and tech they need to get engage with their job.
The Best Tools and Software for People Ops on the Market Today
The heart and soul of a successful people ops program rests on having the necessary tools and software needed for digitalizing the workplace, improving employee experience, analyzing in real time important HR metrics, and providing employees with what they need to engage with their jobs. There are literally hundreds of different people operations software programs available to businesses around the country. Finding the right program for your business is a key step in boosting productivity levels and meeting your company´s growth targets. Some of the best people ops tools and software to choose from include:
- Mitrefinch Time and Attendance Software: The Mitrefinch TMS Software Platform delivers an integrated employee time and attendance tracking system that includes features such as absence management, employee scheduling, biometric time clocks, mobile workforce management, employee self-service portals and HR solutions, and advanced real-time report systems that provide the most effective view of your employees to help maximize workforce productivity. The customized software options with a focus on employee time and attendance can help companies of all sizes control labor costs, accurately manage and pay employees, and secure your corporation.
- Textio: This is a great tool to help write engaging job descriptions, recruiting emails, and other strategies to recruit the top employee talent.
- Workable: This software can help companies with flexible tools for remote interviewing, collaborating and more.
- MCore: Measuring motivation levels is not always easy, but MCore is a unique assessment tool that identifies motivation factors to help boost employee productivity.
- Mettl: This online software can help people ops programs with employee assessment that measures skill, personality and ability in order to find the best employee to fit with your company culture.
- Lighthouse: Lastly, Lighthouse is another unique people ops software that allows managers to develop one-on-one meetings, goal setting and reviews with targeted employees.
