October 7, 2021

5 Practices in People Operations and Why Your Business Needs It

The term People Operations, or People Ops, encompasses all elements of your business that encourage your employees to be more successful and productive at work. This starts from onboarding until they leave the company. Since employees are the foundation of every business, it is essential to focus on this.

Here are five helpful tips on how to use your resources and capital to power your best weapon: your people.

Creating an ideal job description

The purpose of a job description is to identify specific skills or abilities that are required for a job, to assure that the position meets the needs of the organization and to recruit the appropriate talent for the position. It not only tells applicants what the position may involve or require, but also what may excite them to join the team or company. Job duties should reflect the tasks you expect your employees to perform. A good ideal job should not be an extensive list, but it should disclose the expected salary range and full benefits an employee may get. Ensure that it attracts the best talent – people whose talents are for the work and who are capable of doing the work. Danny Speros: “It’s really important to make sure that we’re writing these job postings so that we’re actually attracting the best talent and not just people that are most alike. Personality-wise sports teams, wise locations wise as the rest of our teams on staff.”

Developing a training process

With the on-set of the COVID-19 pandemic, organizations are realigning their onboarding and training approach to adopt the right technologies and practices. Businesses are now turning to a number of new tools to ensure that training is accurate, timely, and effective. One tip is to record training sessions through online digital platforms like Zoom, or upload documents in Google Docs or Google Drive so these can be a guide for future employees that will join the company. In fact, many of these tools implemented out of necessity have benefits that will last even after operations return to normal.

Micha Berkuz: “It’s a lot easier actually to hire and train new people in the company than it was before, because before it required one-on-one time and in-person time. Now you can jump on a zoom call, then go and send people to do a few tasks and then they can learn something. So in a way, it made our hiring process a lot more efficient.”

Working with a recruiter

Recruiters can be hired by companies looking for people to fill their vacancies. They don’t find work for people, they find people for jobs. They devote a lot of time to make sure these positions are filled and strive to offer only the best candidates. Great recruiters know clients, which means they can see what type of candidate best suits the client’s needs.

Charbel Atala: “These people dedicate their full-time just to find talent. That’s basically one of the main reasons you would resort to a recruiting firm or a search firm if you need to hire. Firms like ours comes in finding the people that you cannot find on your own.”

Establishing interview scoreboards and strategies

Creating an interview scorecard helps the hiring team or recruiters to sit down and identify the skills and attributes necessary to be successful in a specific role. It gives hiring managers a clear, aggregated view of interviewer feedback – it’s easy to see what traits a candidate does or doesn’t have, or what has yet to be determined. After defining the scorecards, outline your interview plan, create the interview questions, and then brainstorm the types of answers you are looking for according to your strategy. Danny Speros: “Each person in the interview process on the panel should play a different role and to make sure that that way you get more of a 360 degree view of the person coming in and the candidate gets more of a 360 degree view of what the company looks like by being able to have different conversations with different people in different roles in the company. And to the extent that you can tailor the scorecards to that and sticking with what does it really take to do the job? And what kinds of things are you looking for this person to bring to the table and bring to the team that will enhance your ability to serve your customers?”

Incorporating your core values

Core values are often the most important guiding principles for the organization, but also carry over to the individual employee. Consider showcasing your values to attract talent and the right people when marketing open positions. Having a solid foundation of your values is critical to creating the right culture and the right team. Anchoring your hiring process to your values will bring in the kinds of people who will not only complement your company’s vision, but also help you achieve it.

Charbel Atala: “You need to tell your stories, you need to get the story right to your candidates.”

Regardless of the size of your business, you can benefit from people operations. Not only does it bring your company together, but it also helps keep an eye on the job prospect of your employees. Invest in people and people operations, and you can create a more consistent culture, keep valuable employees satisfied, and strategically achieve business goals.

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