As an HR leader, it’s natural to feel proud when everything is running smoothly in your organization. Your compensation planning went well, your employees seem happy with their pay, and no one has angrily knocked on your door in several weeks.
However, what do you do when the train begins to derail? Whether you’re dealing with a major, glaring problem in your organization or you simply want to make things run more efficiently—or anything in between—you might want to think about looking for help from an experienced consultant.
Below are a few ideas for different types of HR consulting services that can make your job as an HR leader much easier.
10 Ways An HR Consultant Can Streamline Your HR Operations
1. Adding compensation experts to your staff
Compensation planning and implementation can be incredibly complex. To assist overwhelmed HR professionals in finding the help they need, MorganHR is currently working toward the official launch of our new service, HireComp. We believe it will be a game-changer for companies looking for qualified help quickly. Our plan is to make available the experts you need to build and deploy successful compensation structures, whether you want a part-time consultant or a dedicated, in-house staff member.
2. Training your managers to have more effective conversations around compensation
Managers are expected to field compensation questions and concerns, but few are trained to have these conversations effectively. If the managers in your organization could use some help navigating difficult questions and explaining why certain people earn what they do, a training program like CompAware could be just the ticket.
Manager training programs like CompAware are geared toward improving transparency and engagement within your organization while keeping things positive and productive—even when the conversation threatens to turn sour.
3. Changing compensation strategies
Perhaps your company just made multiple new hires or your executive team has decided to pivot toward a whole new set of goals for the future. Regardless of what led to the sweeping changes in your workforce or company strategy, a restructure of your compensation strategies may be in order.
Dramatically altering a comp strategy (or inventing a new one) is a complex proposition, so it’s a good idea to bring in an expert if you’re not sure of the path forward. A consultant can help you interview executives and stakeholders to determine the plan, audit a number of operations involved in structuring compensation, and come up with suggestions based on your company’s budget and resources.
4. Realigning your organization’s job titles, job duties, and compensation packages
Sometimes job titles, job descriptions, and salaries fall out of sync. Even if you put them together with the best of intentions and a considerable amount of research and elbow grease, conditions will always change over time.
Rather than playing catch-up and trying to fix misalignments one by one as they arise, you could have a consultant evaluate all the positions in your organization and make sure salaries and job duties appropriately match their assigned job titles.
5. Restructuring your organization’s pay grade levels
Similarly, people within your organization will change pay grades frequently, and their corresponding job titles may or may not line up. If you’re starting to feel like your company’s pay rates are not matching up with the wider labor market for some (or many) positions, you can have a consultant assist you as you reevaluate the situation.
6. Auditing your HR department to help bring you back into compliance with applicable laws and regulations
HR professionals are responsible for maintaining organizational compliance with numerous local, state, federal, and other jurisdictional laws. These laws are often complex, and they can change without much notice.
If you’re struggling to stick to certain standards or you aren’t sure if some facet of your operations is strictly going by the book, it’s time to audit your HR processes.
The benefit of asking a consultant for help is that you’ll be bringing someone onto your team who has the legal knowledge to make sure you’re compliant; you’ll also get an objective opinion on the most efficient way to get there.
7. Auditing your organization’s salaries, hourly pay, and bonuses to ensure compliance with pay regulations in your area
It’s always better to prevent a lawsuit than to deal with one after it arises!
With that in mind, it’s a good idea to periodically look over your company’s pay rates and make sure you’re complying with regulations, engaging in fair pay practices, and generally doing everything possible to avoid a lawsuit.
A consultant can help you do a deep dive into each employee’s pay and highlight areas that may be at risk for legal trouble in the future.
8. Providing performance evaluations
If you’re not doing routine performance evaluations on your employees, how will you know whether each person in your company is providing a valuable service and being paid appropriately for it? Not only will regular evaluations ensure that your compensation is appropriate for the employee’s effort and skill level, it also gives you a foundation upon which you can build better customer service and more streamlined work processes.
Consultants have access to several standardized ways of conducting evaluations fairly and efficiently. If you don’t already have a plan in place for evaluating workers, following a consultant’s pre-set structure of best practices can be a huge relief.
9. Deciding when and how to further train specific employees
As your company goals change, your employees may need to brush up on certain skills or dive into whole new territory with their daily job functions. You might know which employees need training, but it’s often a lot harder to plan out how much training is needed and what form it should take.
A consultant who partners with continuing education programs on a regular basis will have insights on how best to go about training your staff with your particular goals in mind.
10. Brainstorming and creating plans for major HR-related projects
It takes a lot of planning, skills, and knowledge to pull off a successful HR project, whether it’s redoing your whole compensation structure or adjusting pay on a company-wide basis. If you’re about to take on an unfamiliar HR challenge, you can make sure you have your bases covered with a consultant who excels in project management. He or she can help you brainstorm, interview stakeholders, determine the scope and constraints of the project, and determine a strong plan for success.
Do you have to choose an option from the “menu?”
Many consultants have a general expectation that you know what you want when you’re entering into the process. But at MorganHR, we realize that this won’t always be the case.
For example, when we receive a call from a potential client asking for help, there’s usually a lot of information to unpack during that first conversation. We find that customers tend to fall on a spectrum between two extremes:
- The first type knows exactly what they want, they just don’t have the resources or bandwidth to pull it off without outside help.
- The second type understands that something isn’t working in their business, but they’re not sure what’s going wrong or how to fix it
These two extremes require a very different approach, and customers who fall in the middle often need their own blend of specialized help.
So, while you don’t have to know exactly what you want from a consultant, it’s a good idea to use the following list to brainstorm a few services that you think would be helpful for your situation. Coming into the initial conversation with this knowledge can help you and your consultant start implementing solutions much more quickly. |
Expert consulting services are already at your fingertips. Just reach out to MorganHR.
MorganHR offers many of the above consulting services, with a vast network of partners standing by to fill any specialized needs you may have. We’re happy to help you improve your HR operations, boost communication and engagement with productive conversations, and manage complex projects.
Contact us here to get started!
