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A representative from human resources needs to be on any performance improvement team that is worth the name, according to business analyst Brad Power.

In addition to people who know how things work, and people who know how to make them work better, Power says that there also should be on the team people who know how to get workers to accept and work with the new policies and procedures. These are people who know about how incentives work, how best to incorporate training programs, who know how best to communicate, and who know how to work within the corporate culture. These are all the people skills in which human resource workers specialize.

Studies have shown that efforts to make change happen in companies fail almost three-fourths of the time. The reason, Power says, is not because the new procedures were bad, but because the workers didn’t want to change the way they worked.

While Power says it is crucial to have human resources on any performance improvement team, few companies do. Part of the problem is with human resources itself. If it is to get involved in process improvement, human resources needs to change the way it operates.

It must change its standard defense for keeping things the way they are. This is a natural reaction for human resources – the department’s job is to maintain the policies and procedures of the company by making sure it complies with all the laws and regulations. But this is a role where human resources works against change, where it has to watch out for risks and threats. So if the company makes major changes in its operations and processes, a whole new set of risks and threats arises to which human resources needs to attend. It involves changes in job descriptions, terminations, training and development, etc.

But any performance improvement team needs members who are human resource professionals, who know about the behavior of employees both individually and as an organization. They know what is important to employees. They can be of immense help to the team in assisting them to fit the needs and interests of employees into the needs of a new system that is more effective and efficient.

Let Winston Resources “be of immense help” to your New York City firm when it comes to sourcing, vetting and placing qualified and reliable workers for your company. We look forward to hearing from you!


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