A good employee handbook needs to be customized to meet your specific business needs, but there are common elements that all employee handbooks should include, including legal disclosures, operating instructions, dress code, benefits information, and much more.
When creating an employee handbook, you need to cover all aspects of employee policies and procedures, including those that protect your operation, and that you reflect the values of your organization.
Effective procedure training is largely a matter of explain, refine and repeat – develop the step-by-step process, document it, test it, and refine it.
In developing the procedures that make policies a reality, remember that procedures, like systems, need to be well-documented in order to be transferrable, and adaptable.
A well-defined set of policies and procedures provide the roadmap your employees need to be independent and effective, so they understand their role in the organization and senior management doesn’t have to closely watch every process.
Performance reviews can be invaluable for setting criteria for advancement, aiding in salary reviews, assessing capabilities for promotion or transfer, identifying gaps in training or a job description, and identifying where additional resources might be needed.
Meeting specific objectives should be required for any position, and fulfilling job requirements is a prerequisite for a salary increase, but any change in salary is also dictated by a number of factors that are unrelated to performance.
When it comes time to do that annual or quarterly performance review, you need to apply a set of achievable metrics that truly gauge employee performance.
To use even more advanced accounting KPIs, assess relationship numbers or those variables that are interdependent on other operations within the organization. Relationship numbers include number of sales in the pipeline, billable efficiency, gross margin, and net margin.
As part of his Marin Business Forum presentation, Pete Daffern, CEO of Clairmail, shared the lessons he has learned over the years about how to grow a company.
To track KPIs, most companies use a Balanced Scorecard. This is a tool that has long been used in strategic business management and is designed to provide a framework to manage resources to achieve strategic objectives
To maintain rapid growth over the long term, start with the lower rungs on the ladder and assess risks and opportunities, then expand the level of risk as you grow.