With the year coming to an end, and a new one coming up, now is the right time to start anew and set fresh goals. We all know how important it is to set personal goals to help stay motivated, but what is equally as important is to set goals in your workplace that help increase performance and efficiency. If you work in HR and haven’t set goals yet, don’t worry — here are a few suggestions to help you, your employees, and your company succeed in 2019:
Hire diverse candidates with the right culture fit
With diversity comes innovation, and with innovation comes success. Diversity is not limited to visible physical aspects, but also background experience, knowledge, and personality types. This mix of experiences and perspectives will help generate new ideas, solve problems, and increase performance. However, it is also important to make sure the diversity is in line and fits with the company culture in order to have better collaboration and workflow. If you feel like your workplace currently lacks this kind of diversity, consider setting this as your goal for 2019 and hire a more diverse workforce.
Coach and develop your employees
Do you take the time to meet one-on-one with your employees? Do you see potential in others to develop for increased performance? These are very important elements HR needs to take care of in order to retain and grow talent. In 2019, focus on continued improvement and start having more regular conversations with your employees with regards to their goals, how they are doing and feeling, and what they feel they need in order improve and succeed. With this information, you may then start providing coaching sessions and develop any necessary trainings.
Learn to spot and reduce work stress
Reducing stress at work is easier said than done, but it is important to shed light on this silent killer and to stop denying its existence. At some point or another, everyone will feel some amount of stress and this is normal. What is not normal is when there is an excess of stress and it starts causing real physical symptoms in the individual. So how can you spot stress? First, take the time to talk and listen to your employees, and second, observe any changes in behaviour: depressed mood, loss of interest, fatigue, difficulty concentrating, headaches, and substance abuse. If you suspect an employee might be going through a stressful period, try to spot the source of the problem and see how you can reduce it. Is it something happening in their personal life? Are they maybe doing too many tasks and feel overworked? Are they just not the right fit for the job? Make it a goal of yours in 2019 to pay attention to your employees and to focus on reducing work stress for a happier and more productive workplace.