Great companies are built on great staff management. Here’s why.
Your biggest business assets walk out the door every evening – in the form of your staff. It follows, therefore, that you want to invest in hiring the best, investing in them to retain them, and making sure that you benefit from the right team dynamics. 
Almost every company out there pays lip service to the importance of its staff, but it’s another thing completely to actively pursue a culture of attracting and retaining the very best talent on the market.
Let’s look at recruitment first of all. The fact of the matter is that, with our economy fast approaching peak employment, your ideal candidate is likely to already have a job. If he or she is the sort of dynamic goal-getter that you’re looking for, the chances of them being ‘between jobs’ are almost negligible. And in many cases, they will not be actively looking for a new opportunity, so you have to work even harder to get their attention.
And if you assume for a moment that they’re potentially in play, you have to ask yourself what would attract someone who’s already reasonably satisfied to up sticks and make the move to your company.
Don’t be fooled for one minute into thinking that the answer to this question is ‘more money’. This has much less of an impact than you might think. Time and time again, psychologists tell us that employees are turned on by three big ideas – mastery, purpose and autonomy.
This is a rather fancy way of saying that people want stimulating work that challenges them every day. They also want to know that there’s a clear career path open to them, and that their efforts will be rewarded by the prospect of advancement. And on top of this, they want to know that what they are doing each day is making a difference in some way – not just to your company, but to the society and the community within which they operate.
Traditionally, recruitment of new talent was the function of the HR Department, but this line is becoming more and more blurred. This is because a company’s marketing department is just as much a contributor to recruitment. Think of how companies like Facebook and Google compete with each other for talent by hyping their fancy new offices or their all-day feeding policies.
So while your marketing may ostensibly be aimed at customers, much of it spills over into the world of recruitment. In today’s world, marketing your company to prospective employees can be achieved in a number of ways:
- Social media is a wonderful way to show off your culture, your facilities, your perks etc. Sites like LinkedIn and Facebook are obvious starting points in this regard, but don’t be confined to just these.
- Another great way to recruit is via your current employees. Great people tend to know great people, so consider rewarding staff for introducing a new hire to your company.
- Remember that all potential new employees are going to check you out online before applying for a post. So is your website up to the mark? Is it responsive to various mobile devices, and does it show off your company at its very best?
- You should also consider having a dedicated hiring page, where prospects can download info on new positions, upload their CV’s, or just ask to be informed of future openings. This is also a great place to showcase your workspace, place testimonials from current staff etc.
But what if you’ve already got great staff in place? How to you make sure that they’re not wowed by other companies in the same line of business? Remember that they will still be influenced by those three properties of mastery, purpose and autonomy. So treat them as though they’re new employees, constantly communicating the opportunities open to them, the importance of their work, and their ability to choose work that stimulates them.
On top of this, more and more companies are now conducing ‘stay interviews’. These are like the much-used exit interview, but are carried out with a sample of current staff to find out what’s important to them, if they can suggest any improvements in staff relations, or what could you do to make them happier in their job.
Also remember the importance of promoting from within, as it sends out a very powerful message to your staff that their time will come.
Handling all those happy employees on your payroll
One of the challenges that comes from having staff is the fact that you’ll now have a payroll function to take care of. For generations, the Irish PAYE system has been pretty much untouched, but back in his October 2016 Budget Statement, the then Minister, Michael Noonan, announced a fairly major shakeup, which we refer to today as PAYE Modernisation.
It will be the biggest reform of PAYE since 1960, and will mean that employers must calculate and report their employees’ pay and deductions as they are being paid. The thinking is that this will make it easier to make sure that the right amounts of Income Tax, PRSI, USC and LPT are deducted and paid at the right time.
This exciting new real time reporting regime will come into effect on January 1st, 2019 and require employers, agents and payroll providers to review their current business processes and practices so that they meet the new requirements.
It is hoped that PAYE Modernisation will improve the streamlining of current business processes, and also reduce the administrative burden currently experienced by employers to meet their PAYE reporting obligations.
Getting ready for PAYE Modernisation
There are a number of things that you can do right now in preparation for PAYE Modernisation. You should make sure that the correct PAYE processes and procedures are in place, paying special attention to registering all your employees and getting a tax deduction card (P2C) for each of them. You should also make sure that you have the correct PPS number for your employees.
We don’t wish to suggest that PAYE Modernisation will throw huge amounts of work onto your shoulders. A little time and effort right now will pay huge dividends in the future in simplifying your Payroll function.
And remember that Accounting and Payroll software – such as Sage Payroll, will automate much of this work for you on an ongoing basis.
Other Benefits of Sage Payroll:
The speed of Sage Payroll
Use of our Accounting and Payroll Software means that you can work out recurring calculations infinitely quicker than doing it manually.
The accuracy of Sage Payroll
You can relax in the knowledge that all your calculations have been carried out accurately – every time. So there’s no having to double check or treble check your computations thanks to our Payroll Software.
The convenience of Sage Payroll
You needn’t worry about tasks such as year-end reporting. Sage Payroll Software takes care of it for you automatically.
The functionality of Sage Payroll
Sage Payroll Software stores data such as payslips in a secure, easily accessible system
The comprehensiveness of Sage Payroll
Sage Payroll Software also produce payslips, send returns to Revenue and prints out employees forms such as P45 or P60.
The simplification properties of Sage Payroll
Sage Payroll Software can also reduce the burden of understanding complex payroll legislation and payroll systems operation. This has the effect of reducing your admin costs.
Your biggest business assets walk out the door every evening – in the form of your staff. It follows, therefore, that you want to invest in hiring the best, investing in them to retain them, and making sure that you benefit from the right team dynamics.
Call us now on 051 395 900 for details on handling your staff payroll.
